Freedom and Loneliness

Last night I talked to a friend who was envious of my freedom. She has a relationship with a guy and, in fact, they're very happy together. But, she said, "It's so much work trying to understand him all the time and wanting him to understand me, and having to do things together when I just want to be left alone!"

I started laughing as she said this - I mean really laughing, more than I've laughed in a long time, because I know those feelings. She said that I should appreciate my freedom, and appreciate how because I'm alone no one puts any expectations on me.

I agreed, "The freedom is a trade off for the loneliness, but for now I'd rather have the freedom and live with the loneliness." The freedom to not be expected to understand a partner's thoughts and feelings all the time! Yes! Give me that for just a little longer!

Some day, though, I'd like to experience the work again of trying to communicate in a romantic relationship. There's nothing quite like it.

Here's a quote on the topic from Emma Jung:

"It happens only too frequently that instead of understanding a situation - or another person - through feeling and acting accordingly, we think something about the situation or the person and offer an opinion in place of a human reaction. This may be quite correct, well-intentioned, and clever, but it has no effect, or the wrong effect, because it is right only in an objective, factual way. Subjectively, humanly speaking, it is wrong because in that moment the partner, or the relationship, is best served not by discernment or objectivity but in sympathetic feeling."

It strikes me that freedom and aloneness go well together, and unlimited freedom means infinite aloneness. Maybe I'm wrong about this. We humans certainly crave the loss of our aloneness.