The radical art of being happily alone

Up until the age of 27, Francesca Specter was too afraid to even contemplate time alone. For most of her life, she had pursued meaningful human company above all else while alone time held next to no value to her.

“I hope to convince anyone reading that if I – someone who couldn’t spend so much as an hour alone – can learn to enjoy my own company, then you can too,” she writes in her book, Alonement: How to Be Alone and Absolutely Own It, which was published in 2021.

After a relationship break-up, Specter challenged herself with the New Year’s resolution: learn to be alone and enjoy it. It led her to explore the concept in depth, coining the term ‘alonement’ in 2019 to fill what she saw as a gap in the English language.

The way she defines alonment, a fusion of the words ‘alone’ and ‘contentment’ is: “Celebrating and valuing the time you spend alone as positive, joyful and/or regenerative.”

Switching the narrative

Without getting too heavy, Specter’s book goes a long way towards changing the narrative around solitude and debunking the idea that it’s somehow negative, selfish and less life-affirming than time with others. We’re often our own worst enemy in this respect thanks to our chattering inner critics. Specter refers to “only me-ism”, which is when you deny yourself comfort out of a belief that you’re less important because you’re by yourself. So you have a microwave meal-for-one instead of cooking something indulgent from scratch.

Fans of Sex and the City will likely recall the episode where Carrie Bradshaw overcame her fear of eating alone in a restaurant. A chapter in Alonement titled ‘Alone and Proud’ delves deeper into this, helping to unpack the fear of being alone in public.

Specter believes it’s a myth that you’ll be judged more harshly if you do things by yourself. “The idea that you won’t have fun alone can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly if you spend the whole time caving into your irrational self-consciousness,” she notes.

Breaking the norm

What’s great about Alonement is how accessible and relatable it is. For example, Specter talks about how she got sucked into the self-care movement, turning her bathroom into a crime scene after toppling over a glass of red wine. There are definite echoes of Bridget Jones in many of her personal stories, but she uses them well to get the more serious messages across. In the case of self-care, she advises that it’s about a lot more than pampering yourself with bubble baths and candles.

As well as sharing her own perspective, the book draws on insights from guests who have appeared on the Alonement podcast, including stand-up comedian John Robins, journalist Daisy Buchanan and BBC radio presenter Jo Good. There is also a generous peppering of relevant research to back up the points she makes. My personal favourite is an experiment where the majority of study participants chose to give themselves electric shocks rather than sit calmly in silence for 15 minutes.

At the back of the book, you’ll find a glossary of interesting terms. I particularly like ‘amatonormativity’, a notion which Specter believes needs to be challenged. Coined by professor of philosophy Elizabeth Brake in 2016, amatonormativity is “the assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative.”

While finding herself single prompted Specter to interrogate these concepts, she makes it clear that practising alonement is hugely beneficial for everyone, regardless of their relationship status, and that developing “solitude skills” is just as worthwhile as having good social skills.

“After two years of writing about being alone, I’ve never felt so socially connected – not just to my loved ones but also to the wider alonement community,” reflects Specter at the end of the book. “Once you value your own company your relationships become stronger, calmer, less weighed down with unrealistic expectations. You still rely on people but for the right reasons.”