“Don’t go away. I don’t want to be alone. I can’t stand being alone.” -Arnold Rothstein, American Businessman/Racketeer/Gambler
Loneliness is a weird thing. Sometimes it is one of the worst feelings in the world. There are a couple different kinds, physical, mental and emotional. The loss of connection to other people is horrible. Feeling like you have no one around like you have no one to talk to or feeling like you have no one that understands you will often lead you to feel lonely if you allow these feelings to go on unchecked.
The worst one for me personally is when I am mentally alone. When I have no one to talk to, no one to share with so that I can escape feeling suck in my own head.
Being alone while adventuring in a new city is fun to do alone sometimes. Mainly for me because I am a person who enjoys choosing something to do early in the morning then just see what catches my eye and let the plans for my time in a new place evolve naturally. I find that many people prefer to make plans, either elaborate and scheduled or at least a baseline plan for a set of things that need to get done. Being alone provides me many options without the stress of needing to do something and live up to the expectations that someone else set. Unfortunately, there are times when I am alone in a new place, on a trip or adventure where the feeling of loneliness sets in. It happened about 2 weeks ago in Berlin. I got there in the early afternoon, had an absolutely fantastic time at an FC Union Berlin match against SpVgg Greuther Furth then spend the evening with a few new people I met, including someone who I later learned was born in the same city back in the USthat I was. Unfortunately, the next day, I had plans to do something early in the morning, but I got a late start because I slept through my alarm and missed my original plan.
I left my AirBnB, walked down the road, turned on some music and just got lost. I had plans for the late afternoon and evening before I left Berlin nothing really became of my plans except for the tickets to an Eis Hockey match which I already purchased. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t have anyone to share the experience with and on top of that, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. Friends were busy with other things or hours behind in the US and so I was kind of disconnected. I did some things that reminded me of events in the past or of people I had not been with in a while and it all came crashing down really. I found myself wishing to be able to find someone I knew but sadly the closest person I knew was in Leipzig and I didn’t want to bother her.
I went and walked through Berlin. The weather was great and everything was odd and interesting. I found myself walking through some old parks, areas that seemed kind of abandoned, I found some parts of the Berlin wall throughout the city, experienced some cool art, and had a nice day but the whole time I just kind of wished I spent it with someone. I never saw so many things that I should have seen and so I will be returning in early December but I am hoping to make a more specific plan to hit the places and visit the things I wish I had seen the first time.
I sit here writing this right now, kind of feeling alone. I am at a friends apartment but it doesn’t feel like a shared experience. Something is missing and I feel as if I am not experiencing something and I can’t tell what is missing but there is something. Tomorrow I will hope to wake up early, go to the gym, go on a bike ride, find a new place to eat and find a nice place in a park to read a book. I will be in Munich for a little bit longer than the next week and I plan to find more about this city as this is my second visit, but tomorrow I will probably try to manufacture some loneliness for myself as maybe I will be able to figure out what I need.