Social, Asocial, Alone

I am not a social person. At least, not in the traditional sense. I suspect you don't care; and why should you?

I would rather be alone, sitting in my tall and fat man's chair, reading or watching a movie, or listening to music, than almost anything else. To this picture add dogs on my lap, and I am at my apex of social interest. I was not like this during the seventies; the question must be asked: what the hell happened?

Well, I've never been particularly social. As a child I would recoil from loud and boisterous people or groups, avoid more socially adroit people, preferring to spend my time looking at rocks, drawing the wings of a dragonfly, or peering at wee beasties in pond water through a microscope. I would hike around the woods, looking at the fauna and flora, hoping to never run into a human being. But I sure can pretend well.

When I am in a classroom, I light up. I channel the hidden part of me that yearns for social connection. I become the down home-but-erudite professor. I genuinely like interacting with students. I like helping them solve both academic and personal problems. I like even the camaraderie with other professors. But then I can't wait to be alone. I want to read the latest CNN story, ponder the cosmos, and wish I owned Necker Island. Is this pathological? I certainly hope not.

I think this has something to do with not just my inherent temperament, but how I was raised, and the various ways that others have ruined my trust of human beings. It's my fault that I allow those things to color and direct my world view and social connections. Somehow, it seems way easier to be disconnected.

Don't get me wrong. I love my wife, and I even sometimes enjoy being around my step-daughter, when she's not in one of her old testament moods. But at my core I am asocial.