Company’s all right with me every once in a while

I’ve never really had a best friend. Which sounds sad, I guess, if you consider the prospect of a 24-year-old who’s never received a friendship bracelet sad. I don’t. I’ve never really understood the concept of having a best friend, especially as adults. Do people actually still do that? Rank their friends? With what criteria? Using what rules? And more importantly: has anyone in the recent history of friendship ever given a friendship bracelet?

Which is not to say I’ve never been asked out to the rodeo. I’ve had a few brushes with the “best friend” zone. I remember one, in the seventh grade. He was my seatmate, a jolly kid with an easy smile and a predilection for Potato Corner fries. He was the new kid at school and it seemed like he was looking for friends.

Talking was easy with him. We would talk about the bands we liked (Linkin Park, Creed, and all that good stuff at the time) and how our hypothetical band would sound like (like a cross between early Led Zeppelin and “In Utero”-era Nirvana). And so he decided to pop the question: “We’re like best friends,” he said, in between fits of laughter one day. “Right? I’m your best friend?”

I laughed. And I stood up. Faster than a kid who’d just pooped his pants in math class.

I’ve always valued my time alone. My whole life has been about trying to negotiate a balance between being part of something — a team, a group of friends, a work place, a family — and a cavernous need to be alone.

There are private rituals I’ve taught myself: if the classroom or the office feels claustrophobic, take a five-minute walk. If the day is too packed with people and activity, grab a meal alone. If there’s too much noise, watch a movie alone. Read alone.

Walking. It’s a pretty mundane routine but routine enough — and cathartic enough, depending on how heavy your walk is — to maintain a sense of self in a city that’s only getting smaller and more crowded.

Eating alone. It’s one of life’s great pleasures, really. I’ve always thought of it as a palate cleanser, allowing your body to simply process food and an opportunity to clear your mind. My best ideas, I’ve had while enjoying a lunch for one.

Movies. As Pedro Almodovar once said, the strength of cinema is in hiding reality, while being entertaining. “Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life...”

I’m 24 on the verge of 25 and I’ve stayed more or less within concentric social circles my whole life. I’ve never really been cool but I don’t think I’ve ever really been a social pariah, either. (If I’m wrong, someone correct me.) I’ve always found comfort in isolation and unease in being defined in terms of something larger or someone else. I’ve always tried to expose myself to different cliques and different types of people. I’ve always been wary of being identified with just one group.

Of course, it’s inevitable. And in the desire to push away from one thing, you end up pushing up against something else. I fought this when I was younger but I guess age makes you softer.

I guess I’m just not as misanthropic these days. Especially since I’m in a job that compels me to be as extroverted as possible, scoping out stories and meeting new people on a daily basis, I’ve subscribed to that old adage. “No man is an island,” they always say and now I guess I agree.

But while I recognize the need for company, the need for solitary time, the need to maintain a sense of self is never stronger. There is no shame in eating alone, in watching movies alone, in spending time by yourself, in spending a Saturday night alone — as long as you know the role you play in the lives of people around you.

People always talk about what you’re “missing out on” when you’re not attached to people. I’m attached enough to people, I think, enough to know I’m part of an archipelago. If we’re talking about missing, we’re talking about a lack. And I’ve never really felt a lack, not with my people, not with my archipelago.