Many people express surprise and befuddlement when the learn how much I do things alone "for fun." On Monday, when I was talking with Danny (the school director) about what I'd done over the weekend, I told how I'd gone into Insa-dong and explored, walking around and seeing the streets and neighborhoods and crowds everywhere.
"By yourself?" he asked. "Just looking around?"
I said yes, and his response was a shrug indicating discomfort with the idea, and he muttered "strange." This is not just a cultural-based response, as I have had similar reactions from North Americans, too, or any other group. I guess I am strange. But I genuinely like being alone – and most especially – perhaps paradoxically – I like it best when in a crowd: a mall, a busy street, in the subway or on a bus. I don't really know how to explain it.
Being really alone is certainly less pleasing to me – as when I was living on my uncle Arthur's land in Alaska for 4 months, or even sitting about my apartment here. Somehow, when not surrounded by others, being alone causes me to be too introspective, and I can go off on unproductive meditative tangents.
And it's not that I dislike being around people in a more social way – one of the reasons I seem to like teaching is that it does give me lots of structured opportunities interact with others. But what most people don't GET about me is that I really am a very shy person – I have gotten so very good at seeming extroverted and self-confident in social (especially work) environments that they find it implausible that I'm actually shy.
So my enjoyment of being alone in crowds is, I suppose, a compromise position – a way to be around people but without feeling called upon uncomfortably to interact with people I don't know well. And I'm such a consummate people observer – a sort of cultural explorer, I think I called it at some point – that sitting or walking among a crowd gives me plenty to think about.
Well, this is a sort of rambling, introspective entry. But I've been thinking about it, I guess.