"I love being alone, but hate being left out."

I believe that being alone is a great feeling; we all enjoy time to ourselves because we can relax and unwind. Then again, the feeling of being with friends, mucking about and generally having a laugh, is an even better feeling. What we hate is the feeling when you're in a close group of friends and they all organise events or time together and miss you out. We hate it - it's our instinct to hate it. It leads us to wonder whether we are actually part of the group.

At school, primary and/or secondary, we meander into a group of people who can't necessarily relate to us; you are friends with them because you enjoy the company of each other and because you have some others to talk to. When you arrive at college and university, it's a totally different plate of food, excuse the expression. You find a certain group of people who for once, are fully interested in the same past times and activities as yourself. 

The fact is, I'm stuck at the moment in the limbo between social breakthrough and loneliness of the fourth degree. I feel that my group of friends, who relate to me in every way possible; we're all wacky, expressionistic and incredibly outgoing; don't really find me a part of their 'family' so-to-speak, because they're all on a 24/7 course and I'm completing 3 A-Levels. I don't see them every day and I feel that because of this, I'm drifting from their group, and I hate the fact I'm isolated from them.

I'm eighteen in two days, and several of my lovelies are turning eighteen either this week too, or over the next few weeks, and hopefully being able to participate in nights out and gatherings, travel too, will get my loneliness to piss off. But I suppose that being lonely at some point in our lives helps us realise what we've got, what we had and what we need. Knowing those things helps us to become, not a different person, but a better and more confident person.

"Writing is an antidote for loneliness." - Steven Berkoff