interiority: the subtle art of living alone

"heeeey….you…..suck….."

i am 25 years old and, except for a few months four years ago after my previous breakup, i’ve never actually lived alone. 

(seven months stuck in a college dorm room with three sweaty strangers doesn’t count.) 

ever since i was old enough to date and drink, i dated (and drank). i did it mostly to escape that nagging feeling of emptiness that showed up every time i’d spend more than half a day alone with my thoughts. 

it had a voice, too, that emptiness. 

it whispered: heeeey….you…..suck….. 

life….

…sucks…. 

…and everyone you know is going to die…. 

…and so will you….

….

…did i tell you that you suck….? 

it took me a while to realize that this wasn’t normal and was what some people call depression. i was prescribed antidepressants, i read about people going through similar stuff, and gradually it all became better. 

but i still kept avoiding being alone, just in case. 

i remember vividly those six months in moscow when i had just went through a big breakup and was living in airbnbs. god, i hated being alone. like an addict searching for a dose, i would wake up (usually, with a crashing hangover), and in-between work calls try to come up with something – or someone, ha! – to do that night, simply to avoid meeting those demons inside me. 

i’d have girlfriends move in with me simply so that i wouldn’t feel scared at night. (they thought i was in love with them. oh, well.) 

then i met my wife and i thought my problems were fixed for good. it was great feeling so secure, so blissfully happy, so “set” – probably, for life! 

until it wasn’t. 

a few weeks back, when my wife packed her bags and left, i was terrified what would happen to me. suddenly, i felt like those three years of marriage weren’t there and i was back to where i was pre-marriage: horny, alone, lonely, desperately hoping for connection, validation, justification of my existence. i was afraid i’d go back to same old habits and coping mechanism i had before…

…and i was shocked when none of that happened. 

i was absolutely, 100% sure that i’d be thrown back into a state of anxious depression and drunk oblivion, chasing women like labradors chase tennis balls across the park. 

but in fact, the opposite happened. 

for starters, i still can’t date other women. i simply can’t. (i’ve tried and when the time comes for a goodbye kiss or “your place or mine?” – i just tap them on the shoulder and say, this was great, bye-bye now!) 

i also can’t really drink. i’ve tapered off my anti-depressants (which is a whole story in itself, the withdrawal symptoms after taking 100mg zoloft for almost a year were absolutely awful) but that doesn’t help. drinking just stopped being fun. or necessary. which is, of course, a good sign. 

what’s happening instead is that i am – god, am i actually going to say this? here goes – ENJOYING myself, enjoying my solitude, warts, farts, walking naked and all. 

suddenly, i can watch whatever fucking sitcom i want. i can buy whatever glasses and plates and bowls i like and put posters on the walls with depressing movies which nobody really likes but i kind of enjoy. i can stay up as late as i want and – gasp! – there’s no need to text anybody not to worry or even anyone to care whether you show up at all. 

sure, on some days, it feels lonely and i’d like to have a partner to share the bed with, but most days, it’s much-much better than i imagined. 

all i want to say is that living alone is quite cool. you should try it. 

but more than just self-reliance and acting on your true tests and desires, living alone gives you something else. something ridiculously more important. 

a sense of self. 

this is how december looks like in london. +12C and yellow leaves. this is the kind of winter i could get used to.

we all read self-help books and watch youtube videos and listen to podcasts and do therapy to understand ourselves. oh, how we want to know who we are and what’s our purpose on this planet and yada-yada. but none of these things help if you keep listening to other people’s opinions and following their blueprints for life. 

the only thing that gives you a sense of self is solitude. because solitude, in turn, gives you something called “interiority” – which i am not sure is even a term but i’ll use it anyway. 

interiority is what you build when you stop shouting about your life from the rooftops. it’s when you delete instagram, uninstall twitter / x / whatever bullshit name some autistic billionaire will call it next. it’s when you have nobody to talk to. 

men are especially guilty of this, i think: needing a perpetual witness to their lives. i remember telling my wife and my girlfriends everything: every single thought, judgement, memory, idea that came up in my head. i filled their heads with myself and filled the room with myself and bathed in this egotistical narcissistic soup of me. 

in the movie aviator, hughes’ wife tells him: there’s too much of howard hughes in howard hughes. for my partners, i think, there was too much of serge, like, everywhere. 

so it’s a little weird when you suddenly feel like you have nobody to share stuff with (except this blog, of course, but you guys are special, awwww). 

and so you are alone and you brood and brood and the thoughts simmer and simmer and slowly, you find new ways to channel those thoughts, e.g. art. 

or maybe – and this is just a thought – you realize that your thoughts aren’t that interesting, really, and you’re just an arrogant asshole (ha!)

sooner or later, a new thing emerges from the soil and depths of your soul: character. suddenly, you feel the edges of yourself, and you get a sense of your likes and dislikes and thoughts and opinions. and because nobody can affect those, you’re able to grow them, like plants in a pot. 

but it takes time. 

it also only occurs when you have the discipline and the courage to sustain your inner life by keeping things to yourself, which you don’t get when you share everything with everyone, always. 

here’s to living on your own. 

– s

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p.s. kimberley, thanks for the kind words and for your support!