Loneliness and being alone are two completely separate entities. Loneliness does not imply that you are alone. You may have your loved ones waiting for you to come home eat dinner, and you just temporarily feel loneliness on the train ride home. If were you were indeed alone, you would have no one waiting for you to eat dinner, nobody concerned about your whereabouts, and no one in your personal life. I would much rather be lonely than to be alone.
My biggest fear is being alone. Yes, I’m also afraid of ghosts, the psychotic people in movies who kill for no real reason, being abducted by aliens, and snakes. There are countless things I am afraid of, but really when I think about it, the things I mentioned before aren’t true fears because I will probably never see or touch them in real life. But the thought of being alone and being involved in situations with those things just additionally increases my original fear of those things. For example: if I were trapped in a room with a rattlesnake, my level of fear would be beyond my brain’s capacity to calm myself down; however, if someone else was in the room with me, I would feel like there is a bit of hope, that the situation can be helped. If I came into encounter with any of those things alone, I would be deathly terrified for my life; however, if my best friend, or anyone else for that matter, were with me, I would have at least some capability to stop myself from freaking out so much and calm down a little, no matter how hectic the situation appears to be. This is not to say that those original fears would be completely eradicated, but that they would definitely be alleviated to some lesser degree.
Terrifying things become less terrifying and life in general seems more pleasant when you’re not going through it alone. I’m not the type of person who always has to be with someone, in fact I do enjoy moments when I am alone (sometimes I stay up a little bit longer instead of sleeping for some alone time with myself), and we often do experience many things alone, but I feel safer and more cushioned when I know that not every moment is a solo, that there is someone out there who can relate to me, who can accompany me.
This is a picture of Columbus Park, a park in Chinatown. It doesn’t look nearly as clean or good in this photo as it does in real life–actually it doesn’t look any noticeably pretty in this photo at all. Ha! It’s actually a very dirty park and most people who go there on a daily basis would know to not stay there too late because rats come out at night. I don’t like this park that much, but this area is significant to me because it’s where for the first time I held hands with a boy in public. That boy is still my boyfriend now.
We knew for about a week that we liked each other, but weren’t sure if we were ready for a relationship, because we were going into college and bound to see each other less. Among the many topics and areas we had discussed while walking around, we were at the moment talking about PDA. I was talking about how I was repulsed at and could not understand why people made out in public; I didn’t want to seem unloving, expressing this and other negative views on PDA, so added that I thought holding hands was cute. When I said that, he held my hand and asked, “Like this?” We didn’t stop holding hands until it was time to go home. I was turning 18 and I had never walked around holding hands with a boy before.
It wasn’t immediate, but entering a real relationship for the first time affected my view on PDA. I hated some of what I would regard as the lighter forms of PDA, how some couples would stand around holding each other, or how others would walk around and kiss every five seconds–that doesn’t seem disgusting anymore. It seems sweet. I still think some forms of displaying affection are absolutely horrendous and should never be public, but I realize that I should not judge a person in a bad way just because they show that they like or love someone. I still don’t like the sight of a couple making out, but I do not anymore develop a prejudicial sense of intense dislike, or a lower level of respect towards them.
