Expat issues - Coping with your own company. Is it ok to be alone?

Like it or loathe it, regular employment brings many elements to one’s life beyond the basics of getting paid. It gives form and structure to the day, whilst clearly delineating the week from the weekend. It (preferably) requires you to motivate mind and body giving a sense of achievement and contribution. And crucially, it tends to involve regular social interaction, whether that is with colleagues you care for or not.

One of the biggest challenges I have faced as an Expat who has moved for their partner is that, having left a job behind, I now have to structure my own time. Friends back home ask what I am doing with my day and I increasingly sound like Will from About a Boy: "Morning - get up and go to gym. Come home. Shower. Job hunt. Lunch (sometimes with partner). Wander round a museum. Come home. Update social media (blog, tweet etc). Evening activity."

Whilst much of this is rewarding to a degree, it involves an immense amount of time spent in my own head - much more than I am used to. Before we moved I used to relish the approximately one day a week I had to myself. Now, I long for company. I have had enough "me" time. I am sick of me.


Photo by Flickr user Alyssa L. Miller

It was not until after one particularly fractious lunch date that my partner had any idea I felt this way. I had been sniping for the best part of an hour when I finally broke down and admitted that I was bored of my own company and missed my friends and family terribly. I do not know why it took so long to admit.

But there is something about saying that you are lonely that makes you feel like some sort of leper, or a social failure. Successful people do not submit to loneliness, unless it is for self-indulgent theatrics (and I quote Lady Gaga: "I’m perpetually lonely. I’m lonely when I’m in relationships. It’s my condition as an artist.")

Clearly, however, I am not "alone" in my loneliness. Turning to the solace of the internet and belatedly reading articles on Being an Expat Spouse, it transpires I can actually be plotted on a Spouse Graph: I am currently in a trough. Well. Quite.