I find for the most part that I prefer to be by myself. I don't like to think of myself as anti-social. I love going to work. I love the people I work with. I love my wife and all her amazing family. I love my parents, and I talk to them daily. But the prospect of living with others and feeling obliged to spend time with people is very daunting. I am facing such a prospect right now and I almost want to run away to a monastary in the mountains for a few days. I'm sure there are drugs or treatments that would reduce my urge to run away and read books all alone. But I'm not into drugs or treatments, and I do desparately want to be that outgoing guy, well at least some of the time.

Making connections with others is such a tenuous thing. I fail at it most of the time, but the friends I make I tend to keep, whether it is mutual or more of my doing. I recently watched the teacher I replaced give a rousing lecture to my school, and I knew that it was the type of thing I could easily do, but I tend to keep to myself because I feel no urgent desire to give speeches of that sort. But perhaps those types of speeches are necessary. Perhaps they build connections. He is after all a very loved individual. But it's just not me, at least not the real me. I'm very good at speechifyin' when necessary and making connections when necessary. I'm just not good when I feel forced, and I tend to feel forced most of the time. Hence my amorous feelings towards solitude.