It rest6s upon society to accept you, not you to bend. Photo / iStock
Each week Megan Nicol Reed talks through what’s on all of our minds.
She signs off "Home Alone".
And begins: "Dear Megan, why do people assume you are lonely just because you live alone (and yes, with the prerequisite three cats)? Why do they feel the need to set you up, organise your daily schedule, entertain you or introduce you to men who
seem more interested in the sudden revival of turntables and vinyl, and artisan beer than in you?"
Dear Home Alone, before I dig deep in the trenches of my psyche for any light I might shed, may I preface my reply thus: as a happily married mother of two, I neither assume you are lonely nor pity you. Standing behind an elderly woman- at the Whitcoulls' counter last week, I tapped my foot and grew irritated as she wittered on about this and that. Just as I feared I might pop with the force of my impatience, she tottered off. "Sorry about that," said the shop assistant when I thrust down my purchase, "I don't like to rush her. She lives by herself, you see, and no one visits." And I did see. And I was ashamed, for the world is full of lonely people. But while loneliness is not confined to those who live alone, a loveless relationship can be the loneliest place in the world - nor is living alone necessarily lonely. I have lived alone twice in my life and I count both among my happiest of times. I loved that I could arrange my fruit bowl just so, and that's how it would stay until I selected the ripest peach. I loved that when I desired company I could seek it out, but it was not a constant background thrum. And so, Home Alone, I actually envy you a little.
You write that when friends introduce you, they highlight your single-woman-with-cats status and neglect to mention that you "draw, paint, garden, are involved with local community happenings, can quote Leonard Cohen lyrics and play the guitar". I can understand how this must irk, but I do not think this dismissiveness of all the parts of your sum is either particular to you or intentional. When I am introduced it is usually as the wife of my husband, the mother of my children, or the daughter of my parents. And I do the same to others. It is ancient and instinctive, a way of placing a person, giving them roots.
