Ok, I’ll bite – what am I too old to do anymore? People! Not that people are “wrong” or I am a misanthropist. I like people. But only in small amounts.

I find an “encounter” with a person very draining. That is a real interaction which is not transactional. To put it another way, to see a person as an end in themselves and not a means to an end for me. Not what I can get out of the interaction but what I can give to the other person as a person and not an object. Yes, I can transact business with people – I can go to the shops or get a coffee and not freak out. But I do not want to transact with people, I want to encounter people. And that means I can only take so much!

That sounds like a backhanded compliment to myself!? It has taken me a long time to work all of that out. Aloness, for me, is not about the evil of people but rather about being ready for the goodness of people.

Sorry if that makes no sense.