I have a secret. I love to be alone.
For anyone who knows me in everyday life, this may come as a bit of a shock. After all, I’m friendly, chatty, outgoing, in many ways your basic socialite.
This doesn’t mean that social interactions don’t drain me, however. They do. I’m very sensitive to other people’s emotions, their nonverbal cues. I know how to entertain, how to charm, how to have a good time, but it takes a lot out of me.
When I’m alone, I’m free to be myself.
It’s difficult because I’ll get into these moods where I’m feeling like a hermit, where I want to spend whole weeks alone, and I’ll get invited somewhere by a friend and be filled with dread, even though I intellectually know I’ll have a good time if I go out.
It’s a bit odd, really.
Sometimes I feel like an introvert stuck in an extrovert’s life.