- those who accept their fate and seek not to change it;
- those who seek to change it and cast off the label forever;
- those who seek to change the situation, cast off the label, but thereafter engineer their return to loneliness.
Of the three groups, the last one is probably the most interesting and worthy of further investigation.
Such people have have shown themselves capable of being entertaining, sociable, and fun. The scales have fallen from their eyes (whether the scales were put there by a traumatic event, or existed from birth) and the novelty of conversations with strangers, a retinue of lovers, and a feeling of having [re]connected with the world sustains them for weeks.... months.... a whole year.
Sooner or later, though, and without warning, their eyes must surely heal up again. They realise that they attended some event in a crowd of 50000 people a fortnight ago, and the delayed shock arrives: I was the loneliest person there.
The person I got talking to on the train the other morning? I was just going through the motions. I no more cared to spend my time with you than I wanted a passing delivery van to puncture the side of the carriage.
With that recognition, the tumble from the firmament begins. Gravity takes its hold, and one falls inevitably back to the earth of one's solitude.
When the hardness of the self is struck again, a renewed determination not to step outside the ever-decreasing circle of one's own being occurs. A statement, followed by a promise: I departed, but now I make my return. I shall not relinquish you again for something extrinsic!
The third category indicates a person who becomes sick of the self and its inability to leak into other selves. Its negation is one who has leaked enough, and has nothing left for himself.
