Louise O’Neill: Being on my own allows me to remove my mask

All the Lonely People: I felt lonely when I decided I would conform to what society seemed to want for me

‘I felt lonely when I first moved to Dublin. I had placed so much hope in this.’ Above, Grafton Street. Photograph: David Sleator

Louise O'Neill

Mon Sept 07 2015 - 01:00

This week in Life & Style we will be exploring loneliness from every angle in our new series, All the Lonely People. We want to hear from readers about their experiences of loneliness. Are you lonely? Have you ever experienced feelings of isolation? What has helped you overcome those feelings? Email us at lonelypeople@irishtimes.com
If you have been affected by these issues, Alone helps older people who are homeless, socially isolated, living in deprivation or in crisis, 01-6791032, alone.ie. Jigsaw works with young people aged 12-25, jigsaw.ie. The Samaritans are available 24-7 on freephone 116123

I am single. I know, I can’t quite believe it either. You would assume that all the men would be lining up to date a radical feminist who writes novels about the male entitlement to the female body, but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case. (Watches as every man within a two mile radius backs away slowly.)

It’s cool, though. Don’t feel sorry for me. I like being single. I’m inherently quite selfish, you see, so I think being alone suits me. I like having big chunks of time in my day where I can be completely silent, where I can lose myself in my thoughts, let my imagination run wild. I read, I write, I go for walks on the beach. I think, and I think, and I think. Being alone means I can do whatever it is I like. I make up my own schedule, I don’t have to take anyone else’s needs into consideration when making decisions, and I don’t ever have to – God forbid – compromise.

When I explain this to friends, they nod, and agree that sounds wonderful. “But,” they say, concern written all over their faces, “don’t you ever get lonely?”

They say “lonely”, but of course what they mean is, “Are you afraid that you’re going to die alone and your pet will have eaten off most of your face before anyone finds you?” And the answer is: of course not. (My dog is a miniature Yorkshire terrier and a terribly fussy eater. He would just sit down beside me and die of starvation before trying to eat me.)

It always amuses me that people seem to believe that loneliness is the same thing as being alone. Living in Dublin, and then in New York, I was never alone. I was used to being surrounded by people, in work, on the subway, millions of people weaving in and around each other, complete strangers whom I would never know anything about mere inches away from me, their sweaty limbs brushing against mine.

When I moved back to Clonakilty in 2011, the silence was the biggest challenge – huge, vast holes of silence, with nothing but my thoughts with which to fill them. And yet, for the first time in years, I did not feel lonely. I felt content, I felt at ease. I felt as if I had finally found myself, and that was enough.

The times that I have felt the loneliest have not been times when I have been alone:

I felt lonely when I was at school. All of those girls in their matching uniforms, walking forward, an indistinguishable mass of bottle-green polyester. Let’s all talk the same and act the same and think the same and have the same ambitions: university and a nice husband and a good job and a couple of children.

I smiled and I nodded, wearing my mask that I carved from my own flesh, placing it over my true face, hoping that no one could tell the difference. It felt safer that way. At least if someone rejected me, they would have rejected the false me, the me that I had made from collected parts, like Frankenstein’s monster. Sometimes as a teenager the loneliness would feel as if it might break my ribs apart, and I would wonder if the real me would ever be seen, if she could ever be clean enough to be allowed into the open air, to feel the sunshine on her skin.

I felt lonely when I first moved to Dublin. I had placed so much hope in this. I knew things would be different when I left my home town, that I would somehow be different. I packed up my dreams of finally being healthy and happy (and skinny. I wanted to be so skinny I would be translucent) with my duvet and pillows and frying pan, and watched as I fell apart within weeks.

Without my parents there to keep an eye on me, to make sure that I ate three meals a day and attended a therapist weekly, I fell into a routine of bingeing and purging daily. I barely went to any lectures, too daunted by the English sons and daughters of landed gentry, their clothes the epitome of shabby chic, discussing our coursework with a vocabulary I felt unable to emulate.

I felt lonely when I decided that I would conform to what society seemed to want for me. I found the perfect man and he was the perfect boyfriend and we had a seemingly perfect life in front of us. And I would wonder why, at weddings, when people said “that’ll be you some day”, I would want to cry out with the aching hopelessness that I felt. I would lie awake at night, repeating over and over to myself. Is this it? Is this it? Is this it?

The times when I have felt most lonely have been when I have been pretending to be something that I am not, when I am trying to break every bone in my body so I can fit in the mould that someone else has created for me. I have felt lonely when I am in a crowd of people but I know that I have not been seen.

I have felt lonely when I have been hiding my true self because I have been afraid that it wasn’t good enough for public consumption. Like Eleanor Rigby, wearing that face that I kept in a jar . . . Who is it for?