"Loner" does not mean "psychopath"

books:


	• Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto Anneli Rufus Da Capo Press, 2003 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 98 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

From Childhood's Hour

A solid -- perhaps too solid -- addition to the literature of solitude. Party of One makes for diverting reading. Unfortunately, Ms Rufus adds nothing to the subject that Florence King didn't already cover with far more scholarship, wit, and dazzle in her 1992 book With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy. And, make no mistake, true loners ARE misanthropes, a far better title than loner.

Spoke to me in many ways

I'm not exactly an introvert, but still have many things in common with loners. I'm a person that goes to parties, but has to go outside or to a quiet area to take a breather for a hour or so every time. The best parties IMHO are those that are outside, so a person can go to a quiet area, instead of being trapped in a room or rooms.

She pointed out some things I had not really looked at in my own life, and explained things I didn't understand. I'm thinking there are lots of people like me, that like to be around people, to a point, then just have to get away to decompress.

I'm also thinking it would be a good book to give to people that are not loners, so they might get a little bit of understanding.

So, if you have ever felt overwhelmed with the "mob," you may find this book speaks to you.

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"Loner" does not mean "psychopath"

This is book is really just a series of observations about what it's like to live "out of the box," so to speak. Our culture is based on extraverts who constantly need entertainment and group membership, so the "loners" are not understood. They're suspected to be weird, eccentric, mentally ill, child predators, or serial killers. It's very interesting, and encouraging to those of us who sometimes (or often) find it necessary to shun all human contact in order to find our center. Message: being a loner is nothing to be ashamed of.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

The Buddha. Rene Descartes. Emily Dickinson. Greta Garbo. Bobby Fischer. J. D. Salinger: Loners, all?along with as many as 25 percent of the world's population. Loners keep to themselves, and like it that way. Yet in the press, in films, in folklore, and nearly everywhere one looks, loners are tagged as losers and psychopaths, perverts and pity cases, ogres and mad bombers, elitists and wicked witches. Too often, loners buy into those messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature?and hiding from it. Loners as a group deserve to be reassessed?to claim their rightful place, rather than be perceived as damaged goods that need to be "fixed." In Party of One Anneli Rufus -- a prize-winning, critically acclaimed writer with talent to burn -- has crafted a morally urgent, historically compelling tour de force?a long-overdue argument in defense of the loner, then and now. Marshalling a polymath's easy erudition to make her case, assembling evidence from every conceivable arena of culture as well as interviews with experts and loners worldwide and her own acutely calibrated analysis, Rufus rebuts the prevailing notion that aloneness is indistinguishable from loneliness, the fallacy that all of those who are alone don't want to be, and wouldn't be, if only they knew how.

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