I'm an introverted guy and I like to be alone. I do have friends, but I don't spend as much time with them as most people do. Sometimes when I'm bored, I go take long walks in the streets and parks of my town and I think about all sorts of things. I'm a dreamy and imaginative boy, and I never run out of stuff to think about. I don't like parties and I'm not very outgoing. In school, I work better alone than in a team. I think people who always feel the need to fill the silence with empty conversation are rather annoying. I'm a solitary guy.

But what bugs me is my parents telling me I need to go out more often, make more friends, meet more people. They're extroverted, and they don't seem to like the fact that I prefer to be alone with my thoughts rather than having an active social life, as if it being solitary were a failing. But is it?

I personally believe there's nothing wrong in being introverted. Solitary people have more time to think about nothing and everything than people who are always in the company of their friends and family. I'm almost certain most great philosophers, artists and writers in History preferred to be alone rather than having parties and meeting friends, and it's quite possible that without loners, mankind wouldn't have gotten very far. But often, extroverted people tend to believe that solitary people prefer loneliness because they're grouchy or something like that. They're often wrong. Many loners just like silence and loneliness so that they can think more clearly.


And what's your opinion about the matter? Is it wrong to be solitary?

There's nothing wrong with being introverted nor seeking time to yourself. I would be concerned by someone who has absolutely no friends however and spends all their time to themselves, but I feel there are no real true loners. Granted some people spend a great deal more time by themselves than others, but they also need that time alone to themselves to recharge at a certain point.

If someone completely shuns society others, then I do become concerned, by nature humans are meant to be social to an extent. It's how we've survived for so long, but there's nothing wrong with desiring to be alone with your thoughts.

Sounds like me when I was in High School. Although I was pretty popular at school (dammed if I know why).

My suggestion would be to hang out here more often!! *cough*
But in reality, the first paragraph that Boru said is about right. Theres nothing wrong with seeking time for youself, or even, in my opinion, being more solitary than social. You say you have friends, you probably see them at school, you're around them 6 hours a day (because its not like school is for learning) and then you go home. Ocassionally see them on the weekend, or after school, whatever.

If it works for you, do it.

I'd disagree with that. If all of soceity shunned soceity, then yes, we'd have a problem. But certain people have shunned soceity throughout history, for either short periods of time or longer ones, and I find them to be facsinating, sometimes great people. From Thoreau to the much more modern Christopher McCandless (who, err, died in the wilderness, besides the point) these are people who I feel are needed for the survival of society, not people to be "worried" about.

I'm thinking more along the lines of sociopaths who are hardwired to do that. What Thoreau did was take a retreat. He went out reflected and then came back and shared his reflections with society, he wrote Walden. At some point those who go off and do things that help "enlighten" society have to come back to share their revelations.

A retreat, being solitary for a while, I don't really see much of a difference. Its just what you do eventually with that.

My arguement is that if you don't come back to contribute to society it's not doing anything productive with that solitary time.

Exactly the same for me, mostly. It's not that I don't like being with my friends, but I do like my own copmany. It's sometimes better that way, and yes, I also am annoyed that some extroverts think introverts are "grouchy or something like that."

You don't have to do anything for society.

I agree with you Sakrotac.

It's Society that sometimes expects all individual persons to contribute. Which is a kind of Socialism. If it's a state mandate, then it's through a tolitarian-style state. In other words, let's tell everyone what job they are given.

Besides, being a non-contributer isn't so bad as being a criminal. Nor is it on par with those that over-consume or destroy, from an economic perspective.

I second Sakrotac, too. Nothing forces you to contribute to society. I'm a socialist, but I still think you have the right to stay away from society, as long as you don't expect society to do anything for you. Anything free, at any rate.

This is not USSR...