I don’t have first-hand experience of marriage but I like to think it might be cups of tea brought to you in bed in the morning, flowers at lunch time, and help with the chores and cooking and cleaning at all other times … oh, and lots of great sex. (OK, go on … laugh at my delusions!) And – I have been guilty of that terrible emotion, envy. I’ve looked at married and partnered friends’ lives and envied their “we-ness” … “We are going to that new restaurant tonight” or “we are going to Paris in spring” or “we are buying a cottage by the sea”.

I hear the “we” and, depending on my outlook at the time, it can cut deep. Chunks of my adult life have been spent as an “I” … “I am walking the dog”, “I am spending Christmas with my mother”, “I am trying to find the money to renovate my kitchen”. I have longed for the good things I imagine a “we” entails, the companionship and fun and friendship. I have also hankered for the support in challenging times that, from the outside, a “we” seems to offer, the “we’re in this together” thing.

But, realistic me knows that the “we” train hardly ever stops at Cloud Nine, and, all too often, “we” doesn’t last and becomes a train wreck instead. Since my book about my own train wreck of a relationship was published in 2019, I have received thousands of messages from people telling me about their own collapsed relationships and their struggles to rebuild their lives as lone rangers.

Aside from occasional melancholic moments (and most of us have them, right?), I do have first-hand experience of living a good life as a lone ranger. In fact, I think it’s a life-skill we should all have because few of us will get out of here without having to spend time, often lots of it, on our own. If it’s not a relationship breakdown, it might be a partner’s sad decline into dementia or their death that will leave us alone.

The first thing to understand is that being alone does not equal being lonely. With the right tools, alone time can be blissful solitude rather than desolate loneliness. Some of the best wisdom I’ve seen on the subject comes from my friend, the writer Kerri Sackville, who during the pandemic discovered how ill-equipped she was to deal with alone time. So she wrote a book about it.

I particularly love Kerri’s suggestion that, if you find being alone challenging you should practise the skill, build up the time you spend alone, almost as though you’re building up a muscle. “The way to overcome the fear of being alone is to gradually desensitize yourself to the discomfort. … Schedule a period of alone time during your week, just as you would schedule in other appointments,” Kerri writes. “And then honor that commitment to yourself, just as you would honor your commitments to other people.”

Kerri also suggests reframing the concept of solitude. “You are not isolated: you are spending time in your own company. … You have your imagination, daydreams and ideas to draw on. You have a wealth of memories and your thoughts about the world. And you can chat with yourself, and ask and answer questions, just as you would chat with a friend,” she says.

My gold-plated tactic for dealing with being an “I” has always been to force myself out to do stuff on my own – no handbag required. I don’t want to spend my life waiting for someone else to live it with. I take classes in things I’m interested in, go to talks on fascinating subjects, and join group trips. I have, at different points in my life, explored silversmithing, screen-printing, life drawing, French, Italian, indigo dyeing, Iyengar yoga, basket weaving and ocean swimming. I have gone white-water rafting and kayaking with people I don’t know. And, through practice, I’ve learned to love solo trips to the movies, theater and concerts, and even meals on my own in restaurants where I can focus on flavors rather than conversation. And, a big thing – I got a dog who is highly social and active and who connected me to my neighborhood and community like I never would have imagined I could be. Through the dog park, I’ve made a bunch of new friends.

It’s all had an unexpected result: Often, given the choice of company or solitude, I’ll pick solitude!

Stephanie Wood is a Sydney writer and author. Find her on Instagram or subscribe to her weekly newsletter.

Photos: Shutterstock