The lone wolf, as a person, is usually described as someone who prefers to be alone - in work and life in general. It has been stated that the general perception of a loner is that there is something wrong with a person because they don’t generally move with the flow of society; that being alone is something to be pitied or can be fixed. Usually when a lone wolf crosses over into society an anxiety develops and he or she becomes somewhat inept, clumsy and chaotic.
Granted, the lone wolf does have friends or even a lover or spouse. But the fact remains that the loner is content with himself or herself and need no further involvement with the world that surrounds them.
In the summer of 2004, I traveled back to the D.C. area to visit my family. My brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews made conflicting suggestions in order to make my visit more fulfilling. My niece stopped the erratic debate and asked me what would I like to do.
“I’d like to take the Metro into D.C. and walk around downtown like I used to do when I was a kid,” I said.
And with that, I boarded the train and walked around the monuments and museums that were familiar to an awkward child growing up in the big city. An awkward kid who went to the movies alone and walked the streets alone; who played alone and found himself excited whenever he could find time to loose himself without the need to interact. When I got back to my sister’s house, my mother had mentioned that I had always went my own way. When we would go to the movies as a family, I usually went to see another show. When we went on family vacations, I would take off by myself while everyone visited with friends and family.
For a long time, I never thought much of being an introvert. I remember my life back in Los Angeles where I seemed to be happy with just myself. Even in work situations. When I worked at my very first law firm, I found that I created situations where I could work alone. I participated in many functions the firm would have, yet found that I did not exactly move along in the general direction of my professional peers. Most times, I’d find that there were plenty of interactions and assorted personal intrigues than what I saw on the surface. And I was glad that I had no part of it.
After my first visit to Seattle, I mentioned to a co-worker that I would like to live in Seattle. The co-worker turned his nose up at me and said: “Yeah, you’d fit in up there. You have that loner personality thing going on.”
I never thought of myself as a loner. I mean, actually, who would? I reflected back on my life to search for any proof of that. I came up with a particular time in my life where it just was not possible for me to be a loner: my years spent in the Air Force. I took out my journals from my Air Force years and read through them. And, sure enough, I came across an entry I wrote where one of my best friends at the time asked me why I seemed so reserved and separated myself from the other guys.
People often think of the loner has having been badly hurt sometime in their life which was probably a catalyst for their choice to be alone. That can be true for some. I think that for me, it wasn’t until I stepped out of my introversion where I experienced someone or a group of people that I have decided to give my trust to and ended up being smashed with a sledgehammer. Trust has always been an issue with me, and I’m glad that that issue has returned. It has took awhile, but I have learned my lesson.
I miss my life as a loner.
When I finally did move to Seattle, I decided to explore a more extroverted sense of myself - with much invitation. I met a lot of people, I made some very good friends, I interacted with so many groups and mingled with clubs and volunteer work and jobs that sometimes I could not walk somewhere in the Seattle and not run into someone that I knew either in the first degree or the third degree.
I think that maybe it got to be a bit too much. When I had made the decision to move back to California, a good friend sat me down and told me that I was probably a part of so many groups and cliques that I was becoming confused and exhausted. I had begun to hate Seattle, and I now guess that hate had stemmed from the fact that my extroverted experiment was not going as well as I thought it would; I was not like so many extroverts I had witnessed throughout my life. I think I got wrapped up in what I thought life would be like if I went with the flow.
In the Bay Area of California, I would often take the BART into San Francisco and walk around the various neighborhoods, stop in at bars in SOMA (as compared to the castro where i usually ended up meeting someone or a group), go to film festivals and street fairs alone. It was just me and my iPod. Sure, I met some people and developed new friendships. But my time sitting in a coffeehouse with my laptop or having lunch on Columbus or smoking pot at my new hangout(s) or walking around taking pictures and shooting video footage was - and is - priceless. Even at work, I was the center of no one’s attention. My job required that I work alone with minimum contact. Yes, I liked the people I worked with and they liked me. My roommate could not understand why I wanted to spend my birthday by myself or why I wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge alone. I was back to something familiar. And it felt so good.
But I missed Seattle. A lot. So much that it hurt sometimes.
If only I could have this back in Seattle, I said one Friday evening as I left work, jumped on BART and headed to SOMA.
My decision to move back to Seattle was made when I decided to move back to be more serious about writing, to expand the creative filmmaker in me, to go camping with my friends, to again become a hiker and to generally live my life under my own rules. And so I returned to Seattle. And I got caught up in a new version of my former life in the Pacific Northwest. My heart and trust went to the very same people that impressed me before. I love being back. I love being amongst a plethora of interesting people. I love the rain. I love my friends.
However, the extroverted introvert exists no longer. Stepping back into shoes that had become too small proved to be painful on so many levels.
A few years ago, I met someone who wanted to date me. I did not ever think I would find someone to fall in love with or someone to date (i.e. have fun with) because everyone seemed to be so focused on themselves that a thought or emotion outside of that box is not feasible; it is not something that can be controlled or engineered. To be honest, I still have feelings for this guy who is terrified of the world outside of his own perception. And though I know we will never be together, I find myself with a kindred spirit of some sorts. I think one our only differences is that I like to explore while he likes the familiar.
I think of him when I think of how people hurt each other so badly. I sometimes wish that I could take all of that hurt he has experienced, wrestle it into a bag and stomp on it until the death of his pain can be celebrated and I can hold him in my arms and try my fucking best to protect him. Ah, but such a perfect world cannot exist. The fact that I would never purposely hurt him does not matter because the stone has been set and he has to protect himself based on past experiences; and having control over his surroundings is basically a fort. I look at people like him and wonder if they are indeed loners or just lonely.
I now know the importance of family (and, man, do i love and feel lucky to have mine), I have always tried to be as best of a friend as I possibly can, I honor trust and honesty and I feel that in order to judge one only needs to look in the mirror first. I am growing older and there are things that an aging person must realize in order to live out the rest of his life in peace with his own decisions and goals. That first thing is acceptance for who you are, what you are and your place in the world that surrounds you. The second thing is knowledge that there are somethings beyond your control and that you can only fix what you can if it is broken or altered. The third thing is belief that you have lived your life as fully and with as few regrets as possible.
According to The Joy of Gay Sex (2003 edition): “The appellation wolf is a latecomer to the bear totemic system, meaning someone who is a loner, perhaps an independent-minded otter not as integrated into the gay scene as those in mainline bear culture.”
While I am not really in the bear culture, I have adopted the moniker of wolf as I find myself returning to who I actually am. And I am proud of it.
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