Move Over Loneliness, Why Me-Time Can Be a Great Time

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Spending time alone gets a bad rap. It too often gets conflated with loneliness, which triggers fears of an epidemic of loneliness, especially among men. Loneliness is worth fretting about, but time spent alone can also be an enriching experience. We now know this with greater certitude than ever before. In recent years, studies of solitude have proliferated. In a new book, Carleton University professor of psychology Robert J. Coplan has surveyed the now vast expanse of research and thinking, and has explained what it all means. The Joy of Solitude: How to Reconnect with Yourself in an Overconnected World is a delightful read, with the author’s own relatable experiences woven through the pages of revelations.

I’m sharing five of my top takeaways from The Joy of Solitude as well as three of my favorite fun facts. There’s a lot more there. Read it, and you may come away with your own list.

1. The “why” of solitude is a big deal.

Whether the time you spend alone is a positive experience or a negative one depends fundamentally on why you are spending time alone. Are you alone because you want to be? Because you find the time you have to yourself to be enjoyable, interesting, and meaningful? Then you are especially likely to reap many of the potential benefits of solitude.

It is a different story if you are alone because you are avoiding other people or because they are avoiding you. Then you are more likely to feel sad or lonely and to ruminate obsessively about what’s going wrong in your life rather than letting your mind wander aimlessly and pleasantly.

2. Personality matters.

Solitude can be great in many ways. For example, it can be good for restoration and relaxation, for dealing with negative emotions, and for fostering productivity. What people appreciate most about the time they have to themselves depends on their personalities. Introverts value the opportunities solitude affords them to feel relaxed and recharged. People who are neurotic are often drawn to solitude as a space for processing bad feelings. Conscientious people get right to it when they have alone time; they like the opportunity to be productive.

3. Your solitary life is good for your social life.

People who are single at heart love the time they have to themselves. They cherish solitude rather than fearing it. When they shared their stories with me for my book, Single at Heart, they mentioned many benefits of alone time. An intriguing benefit is that they felt getting their desired dose of solitude made them happier when they were with others and more fun to be around. For me, one of the joys of The Joy of Solitude was discovering that they were right. Systematic research now shows that when people spend more time alone than they normally do, they enjoy their time with other people even more.

It gets even better. When people want some time alone for positive reasons, and they get it, they are in a better mood, and the people they are close to are too; they are less likely to experience negative feelings.

4. Solitude gifts you with two big kinds of freedom.

The “freedom to” is the freedom “to think your own thoughts, feel your own feelings, and be your true self (p. 81).” You get to be your own guide, and that “paves the pathway to growth, fulfillment, and flourishing (p. 80).”

The other freedom is “freedom from,” and that is the protective kind. “Time alone provides us with the freedom from the constraints and stresses of being around others and gives our nervous system a break from the barrage of input that almost always demands our attention (p. 82).”

5. Wanting time to yourself should be perfectly fine.

Coplan advocates for solitude-seeking with no need for apologies and no reason to be stigmatized: “It needs to be okay to say you want to stay in on a Friday night without having to make up excuses as to why. It needs to be okay to ask for some 'me time,' even when you are the parents of young children. It needs to be okay to say to someone you are close to, “I love you, I love spending time together with you, but right now I need a few hours to myself (p. 220).” (An aside about those of us who are happy single people: we rarely need to ask permission to spend time in solitude.)

A few of the many fun facts in The Joy of Solitude:

• The author unveiled his favorite definition of loneliness, and now it may be mine, too. It is from the historian David Vincent, who called loneliness “failed solitude.”
• When you don’t get the amount of alone time that you want (what Coplan calls “aloneliness”), you can feel stressed, sad, and even hostile or angry. That’s true for single and coupled people, but coupled people who do not get their desired amount of solitude are especially likely to feel angry and hostile.
• Coplan reminds us that the renowned British pediatrician Donald Winnicott “argued that the capacity for solitude is one of the most important developmental achievements in life.” Knowing how to be alone is not a failing; it is a triumph.