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Author
Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto is a challenging book written by Anneli Rufus. She pugnaciously defends those who prefer to be alone with their thoughts rather than melting into a mob. It is a thoughtful and clever approach to defending a group that almost never defends itself.
We Loners Are Not Alone
By on April 16, 2017
Byon September 7, 2003
Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto is a challenging book written by Anneli Rufus. She pugnaciously defends those who prefer to be alone with their thoughts rather than melting into a mob. It is a thoughtful and clever approach to defending a group that almost never defends itself.
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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.
-- overview of
Anneli Rufus’s Party of One on
Amazon.com
Reviews by Amazon.com
readers
5 StarsWe Loners Are Not Alone
By on April 16, 2017
Finally, someone who gets it and expresses it so well in
Party of One. I loved this book and found it both comforting and witty as I resonated
with many familiar situations and feelings I've had throughout my life.
Finally, someone understands! I feel more happy within myself after reading
this to be who I am. I like the examples of famous loners and how many are
misunderstood as "hermits" with bad temper. It's tough to be in a
world of group people who don't understand a desire to go it alone; indeed,
they may even vilify you for doing so. I just read an article in the NY Post
about an author who was described as a loner in the usual negative terms such
as "hermit", "lonely", "sad", she was considered
moody and yet incredibly creative. I thought to myself, Are we sure she was
lonely and sad? That being said, there are misanthropes and hermits who are
alone who let their negative beliefs eat away at them; this is not who she is
referring to for the most part. As long as you're happy and enjoy being alone,
just be who you are. There is a difference between enjoying solitude (being
focused more internally) and feeling lonely. In fact, many artists and creative
types NEED their alone time. An excellent and enjoyable read.
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5 Stars
Someone Finally Tells It Like
It Is!Byon September 7, 2003
I was an only child of a single parent who loved to draw,
read, do mind-game puzzles and generally enjoyed more solitary activities. I'm
also a Virgo and supposedly, as a sign, we tend to prefer to work more behind
the scenes and shun the limelight. I mention this only because, for years, I
used these truths as excuses for why I was the way I was.
Growing up, most people thought I was weird or odd or just a bit off simply because I hated group situations, avoided being a joiner and was just interested in things that most kids my age couldn't conceive of - and interested in pursuing those interests alone and in solitude. Although, when in groups, people tended to defer to me because I was so level headed, conscious of the bigger picture, detached in a way they were not able to be and able to articulate my thoughts in a thorough and often persuasive kind of way - I still hated being involved in groups!!
As a teen, when fitting in becomes so life or death, I shunned many of my more loner tendencies... and wound up suicidal and in counseling for three years, suffering from an identity crisis. In my 20's I was convinced, still, that there was something wrong with me that needed to be rooted out and fixed so that I could be "normal" - or, as Anneli Rufus terms it, a non-loner. Now in my mid-30's I'd finally made peace with myself and the way I am. If people thought I was odd as a kid, whoa! I've embraced that oddness now, full force. But I'm happier and more content than I've ever been in my entire life. And it was at this time of settled inner peace that I found this little gem of a book.
All the issues that Rufus tackles in Party Of One and how these issues are seen so differently between loners and non-loners were things that had crossed my mind over the years, too. I don't know how many times I've said out loud while reading this book, "How many times have I said that very same thing myself?" or "Yes, yes, yes!! That's how I feel and what I think, too!!" It never occurred to me that there were others like me. I thought I was the only weird one... but then again, it makes sense that most loners would think this about themselves simply because, as Rufus points out, loners seldom encounter other loners because by our very nature, we are anti-group so the likelihood of other loners hooking up in some sort of support group... it just wouldn't happen!
This book didn't enable me to suddenly think I was okay as a person and to stop fighting my basic nature - I came to that realization several years ago. But it was comforting in the sense that I realized I was not alone in my supposedly eccentric ways and that there's nothing that needs to be fixed because there is nothing wrong with those of us who are loners. If anything, like most loners probably tend to feel, it's the rest of the world comprised and often governed by those nutty non-loners that's a bit off center.
Not only did this book provide comfort but it also raised some additional issues that I may have thought about in passing but never brought to the front burner of consciousness. It's a book that you'll want to give to all your non-loner friends and family members so they can better understand you and it's a book you'll want to recommend to other loner friends and family members who struggle in the predominantly non-loner world. I now have a 13 year old sister who is also a bona-fide loner and who's demonstrated those clear loner characteristics since she was 2. I'm saving this book for her when she gets a bit older and starts to wonder why she is the way she is and why I and only a handful of others around her truly "get" her. It may spare her all the drama I endured before I finally found self-acceptance and made peace with my loner self.
Growing up, most people thought I was weird or odd or just a bit off simply because I hated group situations, avoided being a joiner and was just interested in things that most kids my age couldn't conceive of - and interested in pursuing those interests alone and in solitude. Although, when in groups, people tended to defer to me because I was so level headed, conscious of the bigger picture, detached in a way they were not able to be and able to articulate my thoughts in a thorough and often persuasive kind of way - I still hated being involved in groups!!
As a teen, when fitting in becomes so life or death, I shunned many of my more loner tendencies... and wound up suicidal and in counseling for three years, suffering from an identity crisis. In my 20's I was convinced, still, that there was something wrong with me that needed to be rooted out and fixed so that I could be "normal" - or, as Anneli Rufus terms it, a non-loner. Now in my mid-30's I'd finally made peace with myself and the way I am. If people thought I was odd as a kid, whoa! I've embraced that oddness now, full force. But I'm happier and more content than I've ever been in my entire life. And it was at this time of settled inner peace that I found this little gem of a book.
All the issues that Rufus tackles in Party Of One and how these issues are seen so differently between loners and non-loners were things that had crossed my mind over the years, too. I don't know how many times I've said out loud while reading this book, "How many times have I said that very same thing myself?" or "Yes, yes, yes!! That's how I feel and what I think, too!!" It never occurred to me that there were others like me. I thought I was the only weird one... but then again, it makes sense that most loners would think this about themselves simply because, as Rufus points out, loners seldom encounter other loners because by our very nature, we are anti-group so the likelihood of other loners hooking up in some sort of support group... it just wouldn't happen!
This book didn't enable me to suddenly think I was okay as a person and to stop fighting my basic nature - I came to that realization several years ago. But it was comforting in the sense that I realized I was not alone in my supposedly eccentric ways and that there's nothing that needs to be fixed because there is nothing wrong with those of us who are loners. If anything, like most loners probably tend to feel, it's the rest of the world comprised and often governed by those nutty non-loners that's a bit off center.
Not only did this book provide comfort but it also raised some additional issues that I may have thought about in passing but never brought to the front burner of consciousness. It's a book that you'll want to give to all your non-loner friends and family members so they can better understand you and it's a book you'll want to recommend to other loner friends and family members who struggle in the predominantly non-loner world. I now have a 13 year old sister who is also a bona-fide loner and who's demonstrated those clear loner characteristics since she was 2. I'm saving this book for her when she gets a bit older and starts to wonder why she is the way she is and why I and only a handful of others around her truly "get" her. It may spare her all the drama I endured before I finally found self-acceptance and made peace with my loner self.
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