"Party of One: The Loner’s Manifesto" by Anneli Rufus gave me confidence and a sense of belonging that is hard for me to find. Is is a poetic tribute to the value of loners, the people who prefer daydreaming to club-hopping, and the various social misconceptions that make life for people like me rather trying. There are plenty of misconceptions about loners and introverts. Like it or not, unless they are also introverts, pretty much everyone you know is going to make you feel like there’s something wrong with you. Because our society is built around extroverts and caters to the social animal, people who are drained rather than energized by socializing get marginalized, snubbed, or face chronic exhaustion. And unless you can find other people like yourself, the loner can spend their life in a rather lonely state.

It’s sometimes hard for me to articulate how I see the world and how I feel living in it. Party of One articulates it for me. A loner surrounded by extroversion gets overwhelmed fast. I’ve learned to cope over the years, but I’m just a fake. I can get by with fake extroversion for a while, but I can’t sustain it. Knowing that there are other people out there who crave the same kind of solitude that I do, and reading a book written by one of them in such lovely prose, makes me feel less alone. Less like a freak. After all, the majority of creative types throughout history were loners to one degree or another. "Party of One" helped clarify and reinforce the idea that being a loner is a valid lifestyle, a valid life choice backed by my natural inclinations, and I don’t need to get farther away from my essential self by pretending to be something I’m not.