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For as long as I can remember, I’ve enjoyed being alone. I like the sound of silence—the kind that feels cavernous, like empty space from all angles. I think best when nobody is around me, as if my thoughts might somehow get trapped in their movements. And when I’m deprived of alone time for multiple days at a stretch, I get weird and antsy and irritable. “I need to go for a walk!” I used to bark at my confused family at Christmas, before crunching my way around the frosted grass outside until I could breathe again.
For a while I thought something might have been overlooked. “Am I autistic?” I’ve googled more times than I can count, before filling out questionable online quizzes that tell me “probably not.” “How often should I be socializing?” I’ve asked friends, who’s answers range from “most nights” to “once a week.” The most logical conclusion is that I’m just introverted. I’m not the first person to make “likes being alone” into an entire personality type. But honestly, I think it’s more than that. I think it’s because I grew up with no siblings. No noise. Nobody sharing my room or grabbing at my things. So now, that’s how I’m built.
My “only child-ness” extends, I think, way beyond just enjoying being alone. There’s a preciousness to the way in which I treat my time and space that might even be construed as selfish sometimes. I’m protective of my belongings, for example, and find it hard to compromise in group settings (at Glastonbury, I’d rather go watch Lana Del Rey alone than traipse across the mud at 1am for a DJ duo I’ve never heard of). As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to be more mindful of this, but that doesn’t mean it comes naturally. I didn’t grow up in a household in which what was mine was also everyone else’s. What was mine was always mine, even if that wasn’t much.
Despite feeling like a quintessential only child, there’s actually very little recent evidence that only children—or “onlies,” as scientists call us—are inherently more selfish, although some studies have pointed to a few differences. One study—in which more than 400,000 teenagers were interviewed in 1960, and then again one, five, and 11 years after leaving school—found that onlies were more interested in solitude and less likely to join group activities. Meanwhile, in 2016, researchers in China took MRI brain scans and found that, compared to kids with siblings, onlies showed greater “flexibility”—a sign of creativity—but lower agreeableness (essentially: cooperativeness and friendliness). Whether this means anything truly substantial is up for debate; everyone on this earth is different, and some siblings will be closer than others. But still: I often feel different to those with siblings, even if the research is shaky.
When I did a shout-out online to see if other onlies believed their lack of siblings had contributed to their personality, my inbox filled up with answers that were alarmingly similar. They were precious about their alone time, they told me, and precious about their personal belongings and space. They found it difficult factoring others into the equation when making decisions, and tended to think of themselves first. One friend told me that her husband would get frustrated when she made plans without considering how they impacted him at all. “It took a couple of years to adjust to even thinking of running household or personal decisions by him,” she confided, adding: “I can still be what comes across as secretive or evasive, but it’s not meant to be deceptive—it’s just me doing my own thing.”
I can relate to this friend. I’ve been told more than once that I can be guarded or closed off, with others not always knowing what I’m thinking. When my fiancé first met me, I remember her saying something like, “I know nothing about your life.” It took me years to see us as a team, whereby my thoughts and feelings could be shared openly, our lives intertwined in more ways than just fleetingly shared physical space. I was so used to just thinking of myself.
I’m definitely not always a lone wolf. I love spending time with others—even though I’ve just spent most of this article claiming otherwise. On a recent trip to LA, the first week of which I spent alone, there were moments in which the city seemed so vast and desolate that I felt almost desperate to speak to another human being. “How long have you lived here?” I’d ask Uber drivers, who’d give me polite, one-word answers. “I’ve never seen peppers look so shiny!” I’d crow at random people in the grocery store who were just trying to buy their Halloween pumpkins. By the time I actually found myself with people, at a bar in Silver Lake, I drank in their company like glasses of cold water on a hot day. The questions fell out of my mouth, unprompted: How are you? What have you been up to? Do you come here often? What are you thinking about?!
But then, the urge to be around people faded just as quickly as it had come. “Shall we head soon?” I muttered to my partner, who is just as much of an introvert as I am. And then we were in the taxi home, the neon lights of the city winding around us, the chatter of the bar dimming into a distant hum. And, once again, I felt calm and peaceful, my body resorting to its natural state of internal quiet and retreat.
Do I believe that being an only child can make you more selfish? If “selfish” means prioritizing the self then yeah, probably. I’ve never had to share a bunk bed in the same room, never had to wait my turn for my portion of dinner, never screamed at a sister for stealing my favorite top. This hasn’t necessarily made me tight-fisted—I definitely won’t message you asking for £4 for our shared Lyft, and I live for buying my friends little treats. But when it comes to protecting my time and space? Then, I’m a scrooge.