Aloneness is a Radical Act

But it doesn't have to be.

Yesterday, I went to an event at a sit-in protest against the felling of trees along a main boulevard in the city where I live.

There were about 20 people there, but nobody I knew personally.

I had decided to go and it hadn’t seemed imperative to “bring a friend”. Certainly, the virtual flyers I’d seen circulating about the protest hadn’t indicated the need for a +1 (why is that a thing at weddings?) - and one person was better than none, right?

So I went alone.

Arriving alone drew some curious looks, but the main speaker at the event held most of the attention. After the event was over, I didn’t particularly have anything else to get to, so I hung around on the fringes of different conversations as most of the attendees dispersed.

Eventually, small talk came to me and one of the first questions (that was eventually repeated by multiple different people) that was asked of me was -

“Who did you come with?”

“By myself.”

“You didn’t come with the group / those other people / anybody else?”

“No, …