To Be Alone

To be alone in our overcrowded world expresses the wish of millions who spend each hour of their working lives surrounded by the dreadful din of an industrialised society. City living becomes such a penance that one often wonders if the seldom used advantages are worth the price one has to pay in terms of privacy and quiet. Those almost stolen hours when one can relax and accomplish some sublimated urge are perhaps the most precious of our lives. Who does not occasionally imagine himself alone on a deserted island living the existence of a savage, a modern Robinson Crusoe? And yet being really alone provides also the ultimate horror for mankind. Who truthfully wants to be the last man or woman on the planet?

As the cities grow larger and the demand for workers increases so, too, do the number of friendless persons arriving in them. What do these people do with their lives? How do they reconstruct a pattern of existence in accord with their previous experiences? The lonely young man or woman in any large town quickly becomes the target for racketeers and the con-men. Fear of being alone, rooted deep inside our minds, proves so great that it overcomes natural good sense, and leaves its victims unable to cope with scoundrels.

Undoubtedly this ever-present dread of solitude clouds the judgments and decisions of many individuals. It stays with us throughout our lives, colouring relations with our fellows. Just this terror, moreover, encourages vast numbers of unsuited persons to get married, in the hope that such an act will at least provide them with a companion. What they fail to recognise, of course, is that the same isolated condition may occur as easily within the bounds of a marriage as without them.

Democratic ideals elevate the individual to a sacrosanct position. He is placed outside the group and given to believe that his alone is the responsibility for his condition. Naturally, if one investigated this notion it would prove false. Society dictates our reactions to it and each other; we have no more freedom of choice in the matter than does the lemming as it runs inexplicably towards the cliff edge. Ask any lonely man or woman if they chose their condition; very few will return an affirmative answer. They are separated from their fellows by social demands rather than choice. All of us seek out little clans to live in, and those who are lucky enough to find them guard their position jealously against intrusion. Amazingly those who struggled hardest to gain a niche react most venomously towards newcomers. Dread of losing a sought-after social position creates pressures which rapidly transform men and women from gregarious animals to unapproachable tyrants of the cultural scene. Only too often, the gates of those who have made their way into a clique are fastened tight against those who stand outside. Man has an astonishing ability to forget what it is like to be wretched, when the victim is other than himself.

I imagine that practically everyone has known loneliness to a slight degree, especially if they dwell in a city such as London. Walking through the streets, the thought suddenly strikes you that no one knows or cares a fig for your existence; if you dropped dead on the footpath they wouldn't even know your name. Stories circulate of people who have collapsed in the Underground and lain where they were without assistance for anything up to an hour. The other passengers scurry by intent upon their own problems and, unwillingly, to step out of the comparative safety of their lonely aloofness. Imagine the terror of being old and thinking that life might end in a collapse on a cold, dirty pavement, with onlookers staring in morbid curiosity before hurrying on to the stability of their private worlds.

Few of us realise the sheer enormity of the crime that we inadvertently commit when being brusque with someone seeking friendship. This disease (and that what it is) effectively destroys the lives of thousands of human beings every year. The suicide rates creep higher and higher because some desperate individuals have no one to turn to for comfort and advice. Each death exists as another indictment of the times we dwell in and provides even more proof that man, to survive, needs the warmth of his fellows.

Unfortunately the desires are still as

strong for the lonely as they are for others. Many cases of rape and sexual assualt could have been avoided if a kind word had been uttered to a sick man. The deprived and solitary mind begins to reflect introspectively, and this leads to withdrawal and an even narrower life-style. To be friendless involves the implication that one is not worth knowing, and causes such self-doubt that the sufferer begins to consider himself as he thinks others do. The result involves the rotation of a ghastly vicious circle in which the victim becomes likeable simply because he imagines himself so.

The following example adequately stresses what happens to many of the friendless young people who sit night after night in their rooms wishing that someone would talk to them. The tragedy, of course, is that there may be 10 such cases in one building and they never get together. The lonely person adopts the protection of introversion and self-pity, not characteristics renowned for their attraction.

Jeremy came to London two years ago and says he has made no friends. He works as a trainee in a large firm of chartered accountants and professes to "quite enjoy" the work. His hair is fairly long and he could be described as good looking and trendy. Why then has he no one to call a friend?

"I came here from Bradford two years ago because I wanted to enter a large company and serve my articles. Of course, if I'd known then what I do now I'd never have put a foot outside of Yorkshire. At the time it seemed like a great opportunity to get away from home and the silly restrictions that my parents imposed on me. They did daft things like insisting that I came home before 12 o'clock and telling me how to spend my money.

Anyway, when I got here at first I soon learned just how far the money goes. When I budgeted out my allowance, I had just over £2 each week to spend on riotous living. I tried going out with the other guys from the office, but soon discovered that their bank

accounts provided for a more extravagant mode of living than I could afford. Gradually I started to stay in each night and at the beginning it wasn't too bad. I arrived back at my room about six p.m., cooked a meal, watched the T.V. and went to bed. However, this eventually became tedious and I began to wonder if I would ever meet any women. I couldn't afford to ask anyone out so I thought that going to dances might be the way to meet them.

I don't know if you've ever tried going to a dance by yourself, but I can tell you that it's a pretty depressing business. At home in Bradford I'd been used to going out with a crowd of friends and getting drunk. The difference between that and the life that I now lead is unbelievable. Picking up a girl stone cold sober I soon found to be beyond my capabilities, because I just couldn't think of anything to say to them. As the weeks wore on I became even more tongue-tied and finally stopped bothering to go — I'd never scored there anyway.

I began to discover that I could get away from the tedium of my circumstances by masturbating. I would lie with the door locked and fantasize about a girl that I'd seen during the day. This practice became more elaborate as time went on. After my evening meal, when the room had heated, I would pull back the bedclothes and undress very slowly, rubbing my hands over my body and thrusting them down inside my trousers to caress my penis. When I felt aroused, I would continue like this for hours, flesh of my own buttocks and thighs without touching my penis. Sometimes I would continue this four hours, until I could stand it no longer. Then I would spread my legs and imagine that I could feel the touch of a woman's long hair as it brushed softly against my stretched thighs. The girl was tall and beautiful, her hands were cool and soft as feathers and she would rub them over me. I didn't have to do a thing except lie there. Her mouth would lick up and over my testicles, gradually

travelling to the tip of my penis which she would take between her teeth and nibble. This incredible velvety warmth enveloped me as she plunged the shaft right into her mouth, as far as it would go. She really knew what she was doing, and before long I would be gasping on the brink of a climax. I always came in her mouth, and she sucked at me until I was completely dried up. After this, I would wake up and discover myself in that horrible room with cold semen trickling off my belly onto the sheets. The funny thing was that I never actually had to touch myself: I just came by the power of imagination. When I'd done it I usually felt dirty, but it didn't stop me the next night."

A simple case? Well the boy involved ended up going to prostitutes and eventually attacked one of them in a fit of remorse. His example may be very extreme, but it does help to highlight the fact that loneliness can lead to terrible things. There was no history of sickness in his family and doctors testified that he had committed his crime while in the grip of a severe bout of melancholia, caused by prolonged and exaggerated solitude.

I life seems unjust when one thinks that some girls appear to have everything and others nothing but that is how things are and they must be endured. It is not the necessarily ugly and unpleasant who always suffer. Many very pretty girls find themselves alone and depressed. Jane M. is a perfect example.

"The town I came from was very small and I always had a good time there. When I came to London people said that I would quickly make friends and enjoy myself. I attended a secretarial college and lived in a hall of residence, but there were very few opportunities to meet people. I knew some girls who were very jolly. We had rooms beside one another and used to do everything together. The boys in this place were really weird. I suppose they must have been shy or something, because they never came near us. It nearly drove us mad, having all those good looking men living in the same building and not one of them even saying hallo.

Maybe we frightened them off because we were always together, but whatever the reason I went through six months surrounded by men, none of whom spoke to me. Eventually a man moved in with one of my friends for a night and I got to know him. Soon, I found myself going out with him, to the exclusion of all the female friends that I had made.

I was a virgin at the time, but my resolve was gradually worn away. He was older than me and he made love to all the other girls he knew, and at last I realised that I would have to let him do it to me, if I wanted to keep him. But don't get me wrong; he never said it or anything, it was just a feeling that I had.

One evening we went for a drink and I had five vodkas (which was too much for me) and I got very drunk. We went back to his flat and he soon had me lying naked on the bed beside him. I was frightened, but the effect of the booze stopped me from protesting too much. He kept saying that he just wanted to 'feel' me and that nothing would happen. And like an idiot, I believed him.

His mouth moved on my breasts and I thought I would die of pleasure. He sucked my nipples, taking each one between his lips and holding it there sucking and squeezing until they stiffened. After that he turned the attention to the soft space between my legs. I was scared even after the drink because no one had ever touched me there before. The experience was strange, to say the least. He proved a skilful lover and I could hardly feel the pressure of his finger as it pushed into the folds of skin around my vagina. I was, of course, soaking and a few quick dips of his finger had me entirely lubricated. I asked him to stop but he wouldn't. He raised himself into position, but I squirmed out of his grasp. Then he lay back on the bed and pulled me over him. I was very excited and I could feel the bulge of his hard thing against me. His hands went under my dress and it didn't seem fair to prevent him from stroking my bottom.

His hands became bolder and bolder until he had forced apart my buttocks and inserted a finger into me again. I was about to voice my objection, when I felt another finger slip into my other passage. I wanted to shout and tell him to leave me alone, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I suppose I had led him on, in a way, but I was surprised when I discovered his naked penis thrusting between my thighs. I pleased with him to leave off but he just kept trying to push it in and could feel the tip of it parting my lips.

There followed a huge 'scene', and I started to cry when he said I was too immature for him. He turned out to be a cunning bastard; I gave in to him and lost my virginity and my man at the same time.

After this, I took stock of my position and realised that most of my friends were no longer around, or had their own men. I had excluded everyone (except my boyfriend) from my life, and it wasn't long before I came to regret it. All those times I'd refused invitations and ignored people's remarks were paid back to me in full. I suddenly found that nobody wanted to know me."

Even more tragic is the following case reported to a psychologist of my acquaintance. It concerns the case of a young Irish girl who was in the words of my friend "a truly beautiful girl with the gift of making you feel good. She had delightful red hair which fell in rich cascades to her shoulders and a perfectly chiselled face complemented by a superb figure ..." Here then is her story.

"I went to school in a convent in Ireland and I was never so glad to get out of a spot in my life. The Sisters there would have driven anybody around the bend. They were always bowing and scraping to the Holy Mother and telling us to do the same. I'll bet my life that there were more girls

lost their virginity to a nun in that place than ever gave it to a man. It used to be the thing to try and attract the attention of the Sister who looked after the House, because that way there wasn't as much work to do. Sure half the ones in that school were at the same trick.

There was a beautiful looking sister who came to take charge of our House, and I knew from the start that she liked me. She never said a thing though and I was a bit disappointed. I'd never actually been with one of the Sisters but I'd heard the other girls talking about it so much that I fancied it. The outcome of the matter was that we managed to seduce one another. Many nights I spent in her arms feeling her hot mouth as it lapped my privates.

The first job I had when I left school enabled me to save enough money to come to England. I arrived and knew no one, and for months I just sat in my room. I thought, for all my experiences with the Sister at school, that sex with a boy was a sin, and I was frightened to go out with any. Most of the ones I worked with took me for a prude and stopped asking me. Then one day I met Angela.

She came to work in my office and was like no one I had ever seen before. She was marvellous looking and yet cared not a fiddler's elbow for any of the blokes we worked with. Hers was the first friendship I had in England. Because I was lonely she took me to meet her friends and asked me to move to her flat, and I rushed at the opportunity. We had been together for a week when she started asking me if I had ever done things with girls. I told her about my experiences and she seemed pleased and excited. That night, as I lay in bed, she crept in to me and asked if she could cuddle me, because she was lonely. I said yes, and found myself in the arms of an adroit lesbian lover.

Her first kisses were no more than light pecks, directed at my cheek in a friendly manner. As soon as she kissed my mouth and I felt the quick dart of her delicious tongue thrusting between

my lips, I knew I was lost. Her hands played with my breasts and I lay in a trance, feeling the warmth of her flesh on my own. What came over me I don't know. I'm no lesbian, yet the things Angela did to me on that night made me her slave for the next 10 months. Never in my life had I known the joy and fire that lips could kindle in my heart. She had a ways of kissing that consisted of starting at the head and licking her way slowly to the bottom of the feet. On the way down the body, her tongue would investigate every niche she could find. The first time she did that, I nearly fainted.

I think the approach of a lesbian to lovemaking is absolutely perfect. Indeed, it was from her that I learned that nothing about love can be dirty. We used to have a bath together, during which we would use a long, rough sponge between each other's legs until we could stand it no more. Then we'd dry off in front of the fire. Once dry we'd lie in a 69 position, with our faces over one another. We began to kiss and then slowly worked our way down each other, thus delaying the moment of oral/genital contact until our delicious climax. I waited for her signal and as soon as I felt her tongue flutter between my buttocks and find its way towards my labia, I began to reciprocate her every action.

Things ended between us because she began to talk about us to lesbian friends of hers. I don't think I had ever thought of myself as a lesbian and the knowledge that she did upset me. I wanted to get a man quickly to show her that I was normal. Unfortunately, when I looked about me, I could find none.

My friends were all Angela's, and when I moved out of her life I moved out of theirs. I tried very hard to get to meet boys, but nothing seemed to work. In the end I was so desperate that I took to wandering the streets and sitting in cafes hoping that someone would pick me up. Eventually it happened; a man sat at my table and asked me if I was busy and how much I charged. I jumped up in rage and started to cry with anger as I rushed out — he must have thought me mad. Later I started to regret my action and to think about what he'd said. I'd been alone so long that I was desperate for some company.

The next night I tarted myself up and went to a hotel in the West End. The result astonished me. Before I even had time to sit down a real smoothie came and asked if he could get me a drink. He turned out to be nice and seemed convinced that I was on the game. Since he was so sure and it pleased him so much, I never said anything. Later we went to his room and he took my virginity, although he never knew.

I liked sex at once and my experience stood me to good stead. I showed that man a few tricks that I upon myself to spread the arts that she don't think he'll forget in his life. Angela had been a wonderful teacher of the delights of oral sex and I took it so put £10 in my hand. I couldn't believe that it was possible to earn so much for so little.

When I had time to think about it, I became ashamed of what I had done and resolved not to do it again. How-

ever, a couple of weeks of trying to make friends with people and I was desperate enough for anything. It struck me as ludicrous that men were prepared to pay me for what I tried to give them free. I gradually drifted into doing this every night and I was making a lot of money before they caught me."

Here is a sad case indeed, of a young girl driven into the practising of prostitution in order to satisfy her need for male companionship. Of the cases mentioned, not one of them chose a voluntary exile from his or her fellows. They represent the terrible truth of society, i.e. that it attacks all of society. One is never immune from the dread that one's friends may prove untrue and leave one stranded in solitude.

Yet the problem does not end here, for thousands of men and women go through life complete strangers to one another and everyone else. These people, adrift in what must seem a sea of despondency, have no one to turn to. Life for them seems pointless and many of them come to the attention of doctors only after they have tried to commit suicide, Contemplation of such a domestic situation reveals that it is usually a habit growing over the years. The couple become totally detached from one another and eventually live in separate worlds, seldom, if ever, communicating. For example, take Mr. & Mrs. A:

"We've been married for 13 years and I don't think we exchange more than a word or two each day. He was older than me and has his own ways and things to do. We had sex regularly for the first seven years, after which he couldn't do it anymore. Sometimes I really miss that and I imagine what it would be like to lie on a huge bed and be ravished by a row of muscular young men. I can visualise their bodies, and they all have very long thick members. As each one comes to me I kiss the tip of his member and it swells to an even greater size. Then I take it in both hands and thrust it between my legs as hard as I can."

The fantasy of a woman deprived of love makes for rather pathetic reading. She cares for her husband and yet gets no response from him. He is an older man who has opted out of the rush of the world and confines his interests to a few matters which concern only himself. They have never tried to share anything and so Mrs. A. now finds herself alone and not the type of individual to become involved in herself, and so undoubtedly will have a very miserable time. It's easy to give her advice about getting new hobbies and pastimes but much more difficult to tell her how to cast aside so many years of depression.

Sadly the fact remains that the only person who helps the lonely is the lonely themselves. If they fail to strive towards a more rewarding time-consuming occupation there is little to be done. All of us suffer from this malady at one time and having felt its cruel effect we should encourage others to face it bravely and seek out a purposeful and satisfying method of existing within the framework of society.