I’ve never been a people person.

                  I say this, age 74, with considerable surprise. I like people, love some, enjoy doing things with them, but I enjoy solitude more. Alone is where I invent, which was ever my delight. Alone I relax, for I cannot err. Alone the large possibilities of being blossom. Alone I can be more than I am. No misanthrope or recluse, I crave close friends. But the work of making and keeping friends is arduous and hazardous. I can screw up – and have – more than once in my span. Alone I am safe – and cozy with the greatest makers, imagining fond applause.

                  I have never quite said this, even to myself. I didn’t dare to. I was bred for sociability. My mother disliked being a mother but loved her friends. My dad did his duty, which was to be present and pleasant in company. “Good at a party” was my boyhood’s summum bonum. I wanted to be good at a party, to please my parents. Socializing, though, was performance, not preference, a lot of effort for a scant reward. Making conversation was a chore. Alone, conversing is my ecstasy – what I am doing now. I am more intensely with you now than I would be face to face, though I’d like that too.

                  I suspect this is true of many makers. Isolation is our comfort zone, where we are least lonely. Was anybody more alone than Emily Dickinson, for example, or less lonely? Same for Thoreau. Maybe for all makers, come to think of it. Alone they are most together. Alone their love can flower uninterrupted, pure.

                  With dog-pal Henry, it’s the opposite. He lives to be together. Bored by himself – not surly, but dull – his zeal is to do almost anything with the folks he knows. His thoughts, I suspect, do not interest him much. He keeps no journal.

                  My preference for solitude is easily mistaken for antipathy. Our culture depicts partying as the acme of delight. Ads seldom depict loners. (The Marlboro Man was an exception, making love to his cigarette.) Alone, one’s less of a consumer, doing less patriotic spending. Alone, I could get by on a few dollars a day, without regret. Thoreau makes this point forcibly in his great book.

                  I’m uncomfortable in company until I’ve had a few drinks and then I become incautious, saying things I oughtn’t. It gives me hives recalling the mistakes I’ve made letting down my guard. Here – alone – with you – I’m relaxed as a washcloth. If I offend, I can delete, no worries, you will never know.

                  I doubt I’m unusual in this. Surely monks feel this way, praying in their cells, treating their brethren with delicate decorum. I fear lots of kids are irrecoverably alone with their computers. It is good to be alone but not too alone. I’m grateful to my parents for teaching me sociability, though it is not my bent.

                  Disclosing my nature is proving a delectable relief. For most of my days I was ashamed of my reclusive tendencies. I envied schoolmates who were naturally amiable. I yearned to be one of the guys. I never was or will be. I am natural only here, where I can manage my manner.

                  Among the unsung delights of old age is the chance to forgive oneself. These days I loll in self-forgiveness as in a warm bath. Living life to the full means making foolish mistakes. I’ve made many – doozies. In hindsight I can smile at my education. I ended up OK, all told.