We know them, we see them all the time. Sometimes we care about them, sometimes we pretend to. Most of the time, they’re just like fleeting ghosts in our everyday drill. Nobody really knows them but they don’t appear to care. We call them loners, oftentimes, replacing the middle N with an S. But who are they really? And why do they have some sort of a social allergy?
Here are some compiled profiles of these so-called loners.
1. The Extremely Shy One. There are certain loners who grew up in an environment where human interaction is not really encouraged. For example, when they were kids, they were told by their parents to lock themselves up in the bedroom when there are visitors. When they were left with a group of people, they were told to not talk to anyone. So then they cannot look at the eyes of the people they just met, they keep their hands to themselves and continue to dwell on corners.
2. The Intellectually Arrogant. They are the ones who have some noisy worlds in their head, telling them that they are far more intelligent and brilliant than everyone else. They opt to not talk to most people because they think that most people can’t say anything worthy of listening anyway. Although they speak with some selected people (the ones who they deem to be worthy of their time) they are usually hated by most people anyway. When they speak, they are usually condescending and when they don’t, they’re most probably curled up with a big book and a big name on it.
3. The One With the Bad Reputation. It’s simple really. They’re alone because no one likes to hang out with them for fear of affiliation. Perhaps they are the ones who have stolen the class money weeks ago, they’re the ones who screwed up your marketing team’s winner proposal or they’re the sellout writers who leaked your feature article ideas to the no-good magazine which was able to publish them first. Hmm. This is challenging. I don’t have any idea what they have in their minds, really. But I’m guessing it’s among regret, lack of apology or indifference.
4. The Weird One. People don’t talk to them because they’re not understood. The luckier ones are tagged as “artists” (fondly?) because they are into things which most people cannot appreciate instantly. For example, an obscure visual art, obsession for some weird-sounding music (along with equally weird-looking musicians) or a semi-humiliating sense of fashion.
5. The Techno-crazy. This might be the child of everything aforementioned, but these techno-crazy kids deserve a loner profile of their own anyway. They’re the ones who are always glued to their cell phones, their portable gaming gadgets, their application-filled ipod-touches or other what-have-yous. They isolate themselves from the world so the people around them also do not feel the incentive to pound through their barricades and try to get to know them. (Hmm, unless they’re really good looking, I guess.)
Are you one of them? Well you better not be. There is NO supplement for human interaction. Need some help overcoming your getting-to-know fears? In for some more loner kwento? You may email me at live_out_loud@ymail.com.
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