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Here on PsychologyToday.com, I've written a number of pieces on reclusivity as a lifestyle choice, not a pathology, For example, there's The Recluse Option. Today, I offer an interview with Douglas Malone.
Doug Malone, 46, told me, “My dad was reclusive. I see his genes in me.” Doug’s environment didn’t help: “The athletes were the popular ones, even if they were dumb as bricks. I was introverted, bookish. I felt like a beta male, no, a delta. My acne didn’t help. I still don’t like seeing my acne scars in the mirror.
“When I went off to college at William and Mary, I decided to make a concerted effort to be social, mainly to meet girls. And I did. And it was heady but it required alcohol, too much alcohol. Even then, I needed mainly to be alone. People called me “Malone Alone.”
After college, I decided to commit what’s viewed as career suicide—pursue my passion and talent for art. So I went to art school in DC and then, continuing the cliché, moved to San Francisco to get a Master’s in Fine Art. My parents agreed to pay for it.
I’ve lucked out. I did have to move to Detroit but got a good job teaching at the College of Creative Studies. I’m okay with teaching because the setting is so structured but I have hard time dealing with classroom discipline. Kids would pull out their cell phone and after a while, I get upset. One time, I got really upset. One of the regular cell phone users came up to me and accused me of not liking him. I told him I don’t and that he should feel free to drop the class. Of course, he went to the administration and I was told to smooth it out. After all, he was a tuition-paying student.
And the older I get, the more comfortable I am being reclusive. I love escaping from the loud, stupid, ridiculous culture in which we live. I refer to my house as “Die Festung der Einsamkeit” (“The Fortress of Solitude”). It sounds so imposing in German.
I like my typical day. I get up at around 9:30, walk my dogs—they’re my best companions—make coffee, read the paper and, around noon, go to work. There I deal with administrivia, like the new OSHA regulations: “This vent isn’t positioned property. You have to be medically certified to use a respirator.” Crazy.
Then I teach my classes, which I like. I come home, put on music, which really has an emotional pull for me, maybe practice the guitar, read, write, maybe in my journal, maybe do a little art, and go to sleep.
I don’t want to be celibate and Match.com has been a good antidote to that.
I do go back to William and Mary reunions, where I play the old songs from the band I was in and I do like socializing with my old friends. But after just a little of that, I need to escape. Part of it is that it feels like I’m having to play an role, like an actor, and if I deviate, people will judge me, not like me. I know I’m overreacting. Unless someone is outrageous (and I’m not,) people are focusing mainly on themselves not me. But that’s the way I am.
That all said, I like my life. My fantasies are not about being more social nor making any radical change. I would like to sell more of my art and maybe even move back to San Francisco. That said, if someone came along asking me to join a national tour of a rock band, I’d drop everything.
Note: I'm planning to write a book on people who choose to spend most of their time alone. If you might like to be profiled in the book, email me at mnemko@comcast.net.
