Lonely Wolves
When David was in the nursery, the ladies working there used to say that he was ‘no trouble,’ ‘well adjusted,’ and ‘rather quiet,’ which they presented as a good thing. In the first and second year of primary school things were also, more or less, fine. In the third year, however, his mother noted that few boys visited him after school and he went to other boys’ houses only when his mother requested he do so. When she asked him why his pool of friends dried up, he replied that it was probably because he didn’t have an Xbox. His father bought him an Xbox for Christmas, but this didn’t improve things considerably. When quizzed by his father, David replied that it was probably because by this point Xboxes had become obsolete; other gear had become more fashionable. However, he asked his parents not to buy him new equipment to play games because, for his needs, the Xbox was more than sufficient.
In the last years of primary school David had even fewer friends or, to be precise, he had no friends at all. Boys stopped inviting him even to their birthday parties and so he didn’t invite them either. He told his mother that birthday parties were for small children, older kids made their own birthday arrangements. But he didn’t arrange anything, so spent his birthdays eating a birthday cake with his parents and waiting for the ordeal to end. Again, he was quizzed by his mother as to why he had no friends, and he suggested that it was because all the boys in his class were obsessed with football, while he had no interest in this sport. His mother suggested that maybe he could fake such interest, but he refused, saying that if it was fake, his pals would discover it and he wouldn’t like to fake anything.
A similar pattern could be observed in Scouts, where kids naturally divided themselves into groups to play and talk. Yet he only played when they were divided into groups by the scouts’ instructor. He told himself that maybe this happened because he was the only kid who went to a public school, which was frowned upon by his peers. David wasn’t interested in either the games or the other kids in Scouts, but decided to stay there because the Scout hut was near home and, also, in order not to offend his father, who was already dismayed by his son leaving karate club, school choir, and the debating society at his new school.
In secondary school, located in the town where his father worked – which was quite far away from home – he was the only boy from his old primary school and the rest of the pupils already knew each other. He felt so miserable there that after a couple of months he asked his parents to be transferred to the state school near his house, where most of the kids from his old school had gone. Admittedly, these kids weren’t his friends, but he knew how to operate among them; he was used to their non-friendship, which was pretty benign. Although David’s father had a low opinion of the local school, he gave into his son’s demand and wrote an application for David to be transferred there. But the same day his father was meant to send it, the boy informed him that he decided to stay in the public school. His parents weren’t sure what changed his mind, but sighed with relief, because they didn’t fancy looking for a third school for him if the second turned out to be a disaster. It was some time later that David told his mother that what had stopped him from moving was being approached by a boy named James, who asked him to visit him after school. He accepted this invitation and the boys started to see each other regularly, usually on weekends. When they didn’t do this, they would talk on the phone. James became David’s first and only friend.
When secondary school ended, James stayed on at his old school, to do A Levels, while David switched to a state college. He did so to save his parents money and because his father, following a divorce from David’s mother, moved to a different part of the country. Now there was nobody to drive him to school in the morning and he didn’t like going there by bus, as it took ages to get there and tended to be noisy. In the new school he was, again, on his own. He told his mother that this was because other people were already in their own bubbles due to coming from a handful of nearby state schools, while he was the only pupil from this public school. On top of that, there was Covid, which limited opportunities for interaction. But, by this point, he came to the conclusion that he was lonely not because of an absence of an Xbox, nor not being interested in football, nor being new at school. It was because of his personality.
“And how do you feel about it?” asked his mother, with tears in her eyes, when he told her what she already knew, but tried to hide from herself.
“I feel fine. And I know that there is no point in forcing things. Joining Scouts or cycling club won’t get me any friends; it will only make me miserable. Even other people trying to make friends with me makes me uncomfortable when I know we have little in common.”
“But this way you might stay lonely till the end of your life.”
“I won’t. I have James and you. I don’t think you will die any time soon.”
After his A Levels David decided to look for a job. This did not mean he lost interest in intellectual pursuits, but he believed that the things he wanted to learn about – the existence of forms, the arguments in favour and against of God’s existence – he could learn by himself. Reading books, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, and finding flaws in others’ and his own arguments would be cheaper, and save him from the discomfort of talking to self-entitled mid-wits.
After two months of applying for whatever was available in his part of the country, David got a job in an Amazon depot some twenty miles from home. The work was repetitive and required walking a lot, but both things he enjoyed. The monotony allowed him to concentrate on his intellectual pursuits and walking helped him to stay fit, which otherwise would be a problem as, by nature, he was a couch potato. Moreover, most of the tasks, with names such as stowing, splitting, or pushing, were solitary or required minimal interaction with others. Even the architecture of the canteen, where he took his lunch breaks, discouraged interaction, as it was made of numerous cubicles, separated from each other by plastic screens. These barriers were officially a legacy of Covid restrictions, but some lazy loudmouth who worked on David’s shift claimed that they were there to prevent them from organising a trade union. There was a table for table tennis in the canteen and David happily joined in the games, as it was one of few sports which he was good at, thanks to playing at home with his mother when he was a kid. Playing table tennis added variety to his working day and earned him a bit of respect from his co-workers. There were other things which broke the monotony of his life, such as visits to pubs and birthday parties, usually taking place on Sunday, after his shift ended. “It isn’t exactly my scene, but I’m happy to go,” he informed his mother every Sunday morning when warning her that he would be late. When the music wasn’t too loud, he was even able to exchange some views with his work pals about the role of philosophy in one’s life or the value of having a university degree. Predictably, the majority of his co-workers respected philosophers, but were sceptical about official education, either because they didn’t go to university themselves or because they did go and still ended up in the Amazon warehouse.
