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Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto ReviewAs a dyed-in-the-wool (and unrepentant) introvert, I wished, at first, that Anneli Rufus hadn't chosen the word "loner" for her title, linked as it is with inevitable prefix "crazed" in so many news stories of murderers on the loose. But that's exactly her point: Rufus is determined to rescue the word -- and more importantly, the reputation of the people the word accurately describes -- from the misinterpretations and calumnies heaped upon it, and us, for so long.
It's an uphill fight, but it's definitely worth the effort. This book isn't one of the many attempts to offer introverts "coping skills" or networking tips for surviving with our sanity in an extroverted world. Instead, it's more of a call to extroverts out there to understand whom you're dealing with ... or more correctly, whom they're not dealing with ... and what we're all about.
To do this, Rufus covers a wide range of history and popular culture, showing how introverts have carved out places for themselves and learned to live with at least some degree of peace, despite the constant tug of "caring" people crying, "Come out of your shell and live a little!" It may seem paradoxical for a loner to tell other loners "We're not alone," but in this instance, it's a surprisingly comforting message.
Rufus's chapter on crime may be the most important, and the one with the widest implications outside the introvert community (so to speak), because it's here that she tackles the myth of the murderous loner and attempts to salvage the word from those who, she argues, misuse it so terribly.
Loners, she says, are people who *want* to be alone. Who enjoy their solitude. But many of the criminals who have been tagged as "loners" don't fit that description at all. Many of them have been marginalized from society, and want to strike back at it. They want to impress others, and be accepted by those whose approval they crave. Or, like Mark David Chapman, the "pseudoloner" who killed John Lennon, they simply crave attention. There's no such thing as an "attention-seeking loner."
There are other criminals, she argues, for whom the "loner" label doesn't even remotely fit, and she roundly criticizes the police profilers and news reporters who use the term so sloppily. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, for example, wasn't a loner at all, though he's often described that way. Neither were the Columbine High School shooters, or Ted Bundy, or John Wayne Gacy, though all of them have been called "loners."
Her point is an important one, if one many may dismiss as mere semantics. And it ties into her other important chapter, on raising loner children. If parents believe -- as many apparently do -- that any child who prefers to play by himself is liable to grow up to become a mass murderer, and therefore needs to be "cured," or "trained" out, of his introvert personality, life for that child is simply going to be hell. Though my situation growing up was hardly as extreme as some of the stories told here, I nevertheless sympathized completely with children made to act more extroverted than was comfortable for them. Loner children recognize they're different, Rufus writes, but don't know why, or what about them needs defending. If their parents are convinced there's something "wrong" with the introverted child, and try to "fix" it, they will create wounds that may never close.
This book struck close to home for me, and I really enjoyed it. I'm comfortable enough in my introversion ... my "lonerism" ... not to need a defense for it. But I'm glad this book exists -- not just for my loner brothers and sisters, but for the great mass of extroverts who can't understand why we're so "shy," and why we seem to enjoy -- how sick! -- our time alone. In a world which seems convinced, as the author puts it, that the only things worth doing are things done with other people, her proud declaration that we're perfectly well adjusted, "just not to their frequency," is a deeply welcome one.
Loners of the World, don't unite! There's nothing wrong with wanting to be alone!
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