This summer, I spent much of my time independently exploring Washington, D.C., a city that was unfamiliar and far from my hometown. As an extrovert, I’ve always flourished in lively social environments and initially equated my talkative persona and my fear of lacking a supportive social circle as the obvious reasons I preferred company over solitude. 

But spending this much time by myself challenged that notion, as most of my discomfort stemmed from how little I understood myself. 

This led me to wonder: Is our constant dismissal of solitude preventing us from understanding ourselves? 

There are substantial benefits sparked by solitude. Dr. Nicole Tetreault wrote in Psychology Today that solitude can help define our character and independence, as we “free ourselves from the demands of others and discover our natural and personal likes and dislikes.” 

Increased time alone exposes people to unfamiliar truths about their own preferences. You can realize you dislike thrifting or running, despite always enjoying going with your friends. These experiences were defined through the comfort of being with friends, not the admiration for the activity, and being alone can give you the knowledge necessary to distinguish that feeling. 

But the interchangeability of the meanings behind “lonely” and “alone” is preventing students from seeking such experiences. While being alone encourages self-reliance and restoration, feeling lonely signifies dissatisfaction with social connections. 

The ongoing loneliness epidemic, as declared by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in Spring 2023, has posed a significant public health risk to many adults. 

However, Murthy described loneliness as “a subjective distressing experience that results from perceived isolation or inadequate meaningful connections, where inadequate refers to the discrepancy or unmet need between an individual’s preferred and actual experience.” In other words, loneliness signifies a state of mind sparked by social isolation, which has now come to be associated with solitude. 

Our society revolves heavily around an emphasis on community as the primary way to feel content, and the national loneliness epidemic only perpetuates the stigma attached to being by yourself. Yet, loneliness is not the same as being alone. 

College culture encourages us to find a community of belonging and similarly discourages loneliness, but this is quickly being confounded with an avoidance of independent time altogether. According to the Harvard Graduate School of Education, nearly half of college students experience loneliness, which creates a stigma against any preference for solitude over seeking out a strong social ecosystem. 

As students, we’re advised to “say yes” to hangouts and continuously make plans, frequently out of fear of missing out. Rather than filling every minute with another person’s presence, we should normalize confronting the fear of simply being by ourselves.  

You can recall everything about others and still know nothing about yourself. As students, we’re enrolled in classes that prepare us for our careers and are constantly introduced to new people, but we’re rarely instructed to study ourselves.

But with that viewpoint, are we avoiding being alone because we are uncomfortable with what we might discover? Self-reflection requires time and isolation; thus, solitude reduces the barriers imposed when we’re around others, giving us time to have the difficult conversations and reflect. 

Dr. Thuy-vy Nguyen found in her research that having periods alone can heighten emotions and create a greater sense of calm, but can also bring difficult and ruminative thoughts to the surface. Being alone does not suddenly guarantee self-awareness, but it creates social distance, allowing us to comprehend already-existing facts without the constant demands of others competing for our attention. 

What we make of isolation depends on our willingness to sit with the conclusions. Maybe we realize that much of our personality isn’t actually us but rather who we are around certain people. 

So, who are you when no one is around? What prompts certain decisions? Are the main sources of your leisure activities that you truly enjoy? Answers to these questions can remain uncertain because we often avoid allocating time to figure them out. Yet, this reflection can spark awareness of our internal character and increased authenticity. 

This doesn’t indicate striving only for solitude; rather, take time to determine whether you enjoy high-social environments or are instead combating fears stemming from the societal epidemic of loneliness. I never thought someone as extroverted and social as I would prefer solitude frequently, but now that I’ve reached that realization, among many others, I only feel more secure in spending time with myself.  

The negative connotation behind solitude needs to be reexamined. The stigmatization of independently undergoing experiences instead perpetuates an increasing avoidance of understanding yourself.  

Feeling lonely is not the same as being alone, and solitude can actually foster necessary conversations. Find your people while also finding yourself.