I used to be quite good at being alone. I almost preferred it—yearned for it, even. It bewilders me now, the ease with which I once sought solitude. During the world's most ungodly period of isolation (the pandemic), I managed, perversely, to intensify it. While the rest of my family huddled around the television for the nightly rotation of communal joy, I retreated upstairs to the tight, pink borders of my room. Although I did manage to sit through the entirety of The Godfather trilogy with them, I still preferred the reliability of my own company, the geometry of solitude. Oh boy, how that has changed! After my first true breakup, yes, I was emotionally taxed, but more viscerally, the cadence of my existence seemed to reject aloneness outright, as though my body itself had grown allergic to singlehood, conjuring a heat flash at the idea of seeing a movie alone.
“The double” is biological, something prior to will or preference. Nature itself seems unable to bear the thought of solitude. Geese migrate in pairs; whales breach together; even the smallest insects, those fragile citizens of the air, die within hours if they do not find a mate. The entire animal kingdom conspires toward symmetry, as if existence itself requires a mirrored form to confirm it is real. To be alone is not simply to be without another; it is to fall out of step with the choreography of species, to miss the beat of some cosmic metronome that keeps time for everyone else.
This rhythm was never all that apparent to me. I was like a cat or a storm or a mountain—self-contained, self-referential, sovereign. But after stepping out of this aforementioned pair, I began to feel the gravitational pull of the double everywhere. The world, it seems, was built for twos. Even atoms bond to achieve stability, and I, as it turns out, am no exception. Nevertheless, I returned and learned life as one.
Return to walking.
When I was in a pair, walking alone felt like an act of public humiliation. I imagined strangers seeing me and whispering, She’s missing something. Someone. How sad. She must be unlovable, boring, probably cold! I felt incomplete, half-visible, half-pitied. I even walked fast, like speed could disguise the vacancy beside me.
Now that I am indisputably not in a pair, I walk differently. No longer haunted by the shadow of a missing other, I inhabit my own outline; I don't feel the expectation of someone by my side, just the occasional want. Which, believe it or not, is far less taxing than the old humiliation ritual of being in transit without my other.
Return to Find My.
Ah, Find My Friends. Frankly, this app is a dream for me, an anxious romantic with a cartographer’s instinct. Little circling dots of people I love, orbiting across my screen in real time, making the absence of a partner feel almost manageable. Who to eat lunch with? Solved. Is anyone at the library? I know. The app turns physical space into a kind of living diorama of affection—everyone neatly locatable, luminous, within reach. Technology, in this way, has transformed solitude into a performance.
And yet, for reasons I can’t quite justify, I still have my old partner’s location. The blue dot remains—steady, uninvited, and seemingly impossible to delete. You may be wondering, Why do you still have your ex on Find My? I wonder too.
Regarding them, these days I use it to track the delicate geography of avoidance, always easily telling me where not to be. Sometimes I think it's also sentimental, a way of keeping their pulse faintly visible on the map of my day. There are days when I tell myself it’s about self-preservation, unready, unwilling. But there’s also the more difficult truth: that I don't quite know how to completely be without a pair.
Return to Reels.
I maintain that Instagram, at its core, is meaningless without someone to share it with. By my own estimation, I spend 65 percent less time on the app now that I’m single. Reels, for me, became not a mere form of entertainment but a medium of intimacy.
I can, of course, send a funny video to a friend or my brothers, sure, but that’s community, not communion. A reel achieves its highest form when exchanged in bed, under the soft hum of a radiator, between two people who have no need to speak. Romantic love, at its most absurdly modern, might just be the alchemy between a “hope core” clip and a “Wendy Williams Top 10 Moments” video.
Return to TV and movies.
Like most people, I love them! TV and movies. But alone, they feel suspiciously indulgent, procrastination disguised as leisure. Why should I rewatch Fantastic Mr. Fox, just because it’s October, or The Holiday, because it’s the holidays? There is homework to be done. There are dishes in the sink. There are people I’ve been meaning to call.
A pair sanctifies idleness, a mutually recognized right to recreation. Alone, I am an overworked horse who keeps circling the same small field, not because anyone is whipping her forward, but because she doesn’t know what else to do. Alas, perhaps I am learning the rhythms of stillness without waiting for someone else to match my pace.
Return to sleeping.
My bed is cleaner now, decidedly so. I tuck myself in, diagonal, luxuriating in all that space for about five minutes. Then I wish there were less of it.
Return to waking up.
This is the hardest part for me. I wake in a kind of existential panic most mornings, 20 minutes before my alarm, certain I’ve forgotten to set it. There’s no one to confirm the day’s beginning, no witness to my re-entry into consciousness. Just me, the light streaming in from my irresponsible blinds, and the terrible thought that I have to make meaning from scratch again.
And yet, while I may no longer know how to behave, or quite frankly, survive alone, I find myself learning, which is undoubtedly positive. My mom likes to remind me: “At the end of the day, you're all you've got.” This always sounded unbearably grim, but now feels almost merciful. To be alone is, after all, to be one's own proof of life. I suspect I will always be drawn to twoness, but there is something almost thrilling about discovering how I occupy a singular form. But morning still comes, and I get up anyway—at least half in love with the fact of it.
