The lonely extrovert

On flying away to a foreign city and wondering if that was the right move

I don’t always feel lonely.

But I do right now.

And I have been described by someone recently as “the most extroverted person, like, ever.”

Like, cool.

It turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, that being extroverted is no fix for fixing loneliness. Loneliness that’s perhaps exacerbated by, or potentially created because of, an impromptu trip to Berlin. I had a few weeks off work randomly and didn’t want to just sit around at home.

So instead I’m just sitting around at an Airbnb in Berlin.

Huh.

To be fair, it’s 11pm on Sunday night as I write and Sundays in general are very quiet in Berlin. There are laws that prevent a lot of types of stores from being open on Sunday because God asked them to or something I think I was just skimming the headlines. But I did go out today. I got in a week ago tomorrow and if you scrolled through my camera roll it would tell of tales of food and sightseeing and graffiti. And you’d see a ton of people in those photos—many of which I met on various tours and spoke to at length.

Still, I’ve felt lonely all week.

The truth is, I’ve felt lonely for a while.

I turned 40 this past year and a lot of my thoughts have been revolving, predictably, around the “what does it all mean?” thing. And I don’t mean that in an “is there a God and did he actually ask Germany to treat itself like a Chick-fil-A on Sundays” kinda way. I mean it in a what am I doing with my life?

And it turns out that that’s a lot tougher of a question to answer than I thought it would be.

And the loneliness has started to make it a tiny bit clear as to why.

It relates a bit to the extroversion. A lot of my happiness is generated by being around other people. But not just being around them. Making them feel better than they did moments before I was there. I like making people smile, laugh, feel challenged. I like moving stuck energy. I have started to see the world as moments of people gathered around with various levels of stuckness. Every dinner table that I sit down at with friends, I’m immediately evaluating how much stuckness there is. Maybe it’s because someone heard bad news from their family. Or the had a shit day at work. Or their relationship isn’t as smooth as they’d like or they got a flat tire—the point isn’t what happened. The point is that I feel that stuckness in the same way other people say they can see people’s auras or hear color or whatever it is that Cynthia Erivo says she can do.

Sometimes I wish that I could turn it off and just sit in the awkward silence thinking “huh this is awkward” like I presume most people do. Instead, it feels like the conversation’s halt is my personal responsibility to bring back to life. And it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that I literally imagine myself bringing out defibrillator paddles in my mind as I run through a series of attempts to get the patient back.

• Crazy how they said it was going to be cold but it’s actually warm—CLEAR!

• I still haven’t watched Heated Rivalry—CLEAR!

• I was never really into the sourdough craze during quarantine. I mean I get it, you know, like, I get it… but I wasn’t really into it—CLEAR!

You might think I’m putting too much pressure on myself.

You’re right.

I am taking on too much in these moments. But I dunno. It’s also a challenge I enjoy taking on. When it works (none of the above examples are examples of it working, by the way) it works so well it feels like a magic power. Like I’m a witch casting a literal spell of words that conjure the exact right next topic. Sometimes a good conversation spell can last for 20 minutes or more. It really does feel magical. I know it because I’m always in awe when I’m in the presence of someone else who can do it. We all know someone like this, too. Someone who just has stories for days. Stories that you want to hear and live in because they aren’t black holes of despair but white rays of joy. The conversation keeps going. And it’s interesting. Someone recently told me that my absence this past week reminded them that I have this magic power to keep a conversation going and interesting. “I mean, I knew that you did this but I just didn’t realize just HOW much you did it.”

Honestly?

Nothing feels better than hearing something like that.

It’s so validating.

I feel my value when I’m helping others.

Value and validation share the same latin root, valere, which means to be strong. I don’t really know why I’m telling you that but I thought that they might so I Googled it and thought, wow, I’m pretty smart and felt the need to share.

I hope it helped. Please let me know in the comments below so I can feel valued.

Which brings us back to loneliness. One of the most unexpected parts of being an adult is being completely and utterly responsible for your own moment-to-moment happiness.

Wanna book a trip to Berlin? Do it. Just make sure you have enough things to do to fill your time while you’re there. And yes, you have to research all of that as well and cross-reference each thing with each other thing so you aren’t double booking and probably best to create a priority list of things that you’d like to do so you make sure you don’t accidentally book something lamer than the other thing. And remember, no one else is going to do this for you and the joy or misery you will feel in the end will be completely and utterly your fault good luck!

The crazy thing about being responsible for my own happiness is that I am faced with the fact that outside of making others happy, I don’t quite know how to generate my own happiness. Does that make sense? Like, I’m sitting in a room and writing. That makes me happy. But really only because someone else will read this and go “me too i relate!” and then they’ll tell me about it and how it helped them to not feel so alone. I dunno, maybe that’s enough and that’s okay but it does feel a bit weird. I was in a movie theater the other day watching The Drama and had the thought do I even like watching movies? I mean I do. I do. But the point is that I had the thought at all.

Candles make me happy. Random thought.

Note to self: write a list of all of the things that make you happy and refer back to it in times of loneliness SIRI SIRI SET A TIMER NO WAIT A REMINDER FUCK SIRI HELLO?

I also like playing piano. My first Airbnb choice had one but they weren’t able to book it for the dates I was going to be here. The message she sent me back was, “if you need those exact dates I won’t be able to budge in that case meow :)”

Meow? The fuck? I don’t know about you miss kitty but I feel like maybe it’s best that I wound up in my second choice.

For most of my adult life I’ve had a partner. One of the trickier aspects of my interpersonal dynamics that I’ve had to face is that I am drawn towards codependent dynamics. I love my partner so much that the boundaries get blurry and their happiness—much like the awkward stillness at the dinner table—feels like it rests entirely upon my shoulders.

I know—I’m putting too much pressure on myself.

But taking that pressure off is easier said than done. I can’t imagine how parents do this. Or maybe they don’t? In the beginning the survival of a child is entirely dependent on the parents. But at some point you have to throw that shitbag out of the house and say auf wiedersehen and yes I had to Google that spelling. Anyway, you say goodbye and that’s called boundaries and now your kids are off to college and finally you can go to Greece or wherever.

lol—I just realized I skipped the kids part and just went directly to “Greece.”

So here I am. Thousands of miles from my home. But one thing that has come to me that I don’t think I would have realized being at home—with my partner—is that this loneliness is an internal state of mind. It’s not because I’m away from my friends. It’s the very fact that I don’t know what makes me happy outside of seeking that external validation. Does that make sense? If so, tell me I’m a good writer in the comments below. Can I use that joke a second time? It feels right.

I had a $350 dinner the other night.

Do I even enjoy going to fancy dinners?

The thing that’s hitting me is that I think I’d feel exactly as lonely back home. But I don’t know if I’d know it. Everyone dulls their pain with something. Mine isn’t dulled by filling up a wine glass—it’s dulled by filling up a calendar. It’s hard to be here away from everyone. But it’s a retreat. A necessary one. An elimination diet, of sorts, to know what’s working and what’s not. Both internally and externally.

Feeling the loneliness is what I need to feel right now. Because it’s always there. Unfelt. Hiding. Waiting. Here I am. Unearthing it. Staring it directly in the face and saying hello I am here and I am valere and I will move through you with grace and humility and humor and I will live and laugh and love and whatever else Homegoods asks of me.

I have one more week in Berlin and no matter what happens, I know that the solution is to work on figuring out what makes me happy for me, not for others. When I’m alone. When I’m by myself with my own thoughts.

Because if I can do that, then I don’t think I’ll feel so lonely.