After what others would call a fun day out together, we feel as if we have been at the Red Cross, donating blood.

The whole world is a personality cult.

Socializing is as exhausting as giving blood. People assume we loners are misanthropes, just sitting thinking, ‘Oh, people are such a bunch of assholes,’ but it’s really not like that. We just have a smaller tolerance for what it takes to be with others. It means having to perform. I get so tired of communicating.

We do not require company. In varying degrees, it bores us, drains us, makes our eyes glaze over. Overcomes us like a steamroller. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't understand.

We care. We feel. We think. We do not always miss the absent one. We cannot always come when called. Being friends with a loner requires patience and the wisdom that distance does not mean dislike.

Not that I was incapable of friendship. 'Don't be shy', the teachers coaxed. I was not shy, only extremely choosy. And Denise shone like a diamond. If you had to ask me to define paradise, I would have said a desert island which Denise could visit, on a boat.

The loner who looks fabulous is one of the most vulnerable loners of all.