Being a Successful Loner

Being a loner has gotten a very bad rap in society, mostly because people find it inherently hard to trust loners because they tend to act weird and occasionally perpetrate horrific acts of violence. Fortunately, being a loner type doesn't automatically consign you to a cabin in the hills full of weapons, or a house full of cats. It is possible to balance urges to be alone with integration in society and the rewards it brings.

There is a line between having a loner type personality and just being an outcast. Most loner types tend to feel that they are outcasts because society has made them that way, but I think that it is the other way around. Most loners reject society because they find it shallow, silly and uninteresting. They don't understand why people spend so much time discussing irrelevant mush when there are important issues in the world.

Just to enhance understanding here, people who are highly active in society also find it shallow, silly and uninteresting at times. The difference between highly gregarious people and loners is that gregarious people simply enjoy the energy and the warmth of being around people, even if it means mindlessly discussing sports, cars, shopping or shoes for hours on end.

Loners can mistake these subjects for being the point of the conversation, but in reality, these are the conduits through which people enjoy companionship. Very few of those giggling teenage girls actually care about what shade of pink lipstick Hannah is wearing, but discussing it in length and detail provides them with a feeling that they belong in the group.

So, even if you don't give a rat's about the subject of a conversation, if you want to feel included in a group, just join in with whatever inane yet appropriate comment comes to the top of your head. Don't take the process too seriously, just enjoy the rewards.

Of course, it is also quite okay not to want to partake of this type of social interaction. But be aware that when you withdraw from it, you are withdrawing many of the cues that help people feel comfortable around you. People who don't speak much can be viewed with suspicion because nobody really ever knows what they're thinking about and nobody really understands their motives.

Ironically, psychopaths use this tendency of humans to take others at face value by manipulating people's need for conversational cues and appearing very friendly and very integrated in their society. People are more suspicious of the weird guy or girl who doesn't say much than they are the wide mouthed psycho who makes them laugh. It's a flaw in our social design, but once you understand it, you can start to feel more comfortable about chatting away about things that don't matter, and then you'll find the rewards at the end of the rainbow of the inane – people start to talk about things that do matter.

If you're a lonely loner, as opposed to a loner who enjoys solitude but is also able to find companionship amongst other people, try taking up a sport, joining a club, getting a new social hobby and then blathering your way to success with the rest of humanity.