Saw this critique of it a little while ago:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/russell-smith/youtube-video-about-being-alone-is-anti-feminist-retrograde/article1669519/

"I consider this kind of pair-bonding-obsessed weepiness to be anti-feminist, retrograde and disempowering to women... It’s meant to be encouraging, but it’s depressing. In what kind of 19th-century world do women need to be told that they may order food in a restaurant by themselves? ...Are there really women who have never been to a gym on their own? Or who feel sad about going to the library?"

I found the video charming and the critique linked to by theophileescargot to have completely missed the point. The video was NOT about getting over a break-up. It was about getting over the need to have constant company and noise as a distraction to one's thoughts. Probably true for everyone but especially for women are a much more suspect when out and about alone.

I also like the knitting because I am a knitter. Some people think it's quite odd to sit and knit on a park bench but that it was "wrong" didn't even occur to me until I realized that it required a movement (worldwide knit in public day) to make it acceptable.

This was very sweet.

I found it so interesting that a parade of names came at the end, after this homage to aloneness; it implied such a community, people working on art together, and really very un-lonely. As someone who's spent periods of my life without much of a community and sometimes very much without friends, I definitely came to terms and, yes, often happiness with being alone. But I've always appreciated spending time alone much, much more so during times of my life when I've had close-knit friends to rely on if I needed to. So I guess I wonder: Can being alone be just as fulfilling when it's not a choice?

Not criticism, just things I was thinking about after this. Loved the video.

I liked the idea of the poem, because as someone who's very introverted and whose immediate instinct is not to amass a group of people when I want to do something, I've spent a lot of time trying to force more interaction into my daily life because so much of society puts out the message that, if interacting with people is good for you, then more is better and less is worse. Which certainly isn't the case, at least not so simply.

It certainly appears the critique was missing the point in terms of alone=/=single, but I was curious about what made him think it was only directed at women. Also, the fact that he noted that the person in the video didn't look "happy and confident" struck me as odd. I mean, I don't think I would look particularly happy or confident reading in a library or knitting on a park bench. I don't know, I just throught it was a strange aspect to criticize.

First, I thought this was great.

Second, I think that the critic's reading of the poem is clearly influenced by his definition of the situation as following a breakup, which I didn't share at all. The depression he feels at the inability of people to go to restaurants on their own seems to be his, not the author's. The main problem seems to be that the critic finds the imagery lonely while the author is arguing that it doesn't need to be, that it is perfectly fine to be "looking anything but happy and confident" because you are NOT enacting a performance for somebody else. If you're alone in a room and you're not smiling does that make you sad and unsure of yourself? I think not.

If it's so great to be alone, who was doing the videorecording?

There. Perfect mansplaining this video into obscurity.

(sarcasm)

Young woman making a video about the pleasures of being alone. Not such an attractive situation when she hits forty perhaps ? Being alone is great when it is a choice, not at all pleasant when it is forced on us by life.

I'm so glad to see this video here! I swear that half my friends on facebook posted within the span of a week. I have probably seen it six times and cried every single time.

My friends posting it was good timing--I've been fighting depression a lot recently (although going camping by bicycle a bunch, and increasing the dosage of my anti-depressant, helped a great deal), and I find that being alone often increases my depression because I'm so painfully extroverted. It was just so perfect to get a reminder that being alone doesn't have to be sad.

I even emailed the poet thanking her, and received a very gracious response.

Years spent learning to live with restrictions imposed by chronic illness have made me a connoisseur of solitude. It's hard, but often deeply sweet.

I remember hearing an interview with an amazing teen boy who was setting off on a solo 'round-the-world sail. When asked if he was afraid of anything--storms, sharks, etc.--he said, "just being alone for so long." Poor lad.

Re-learning the value of solitude would be a good thing for our culture. Discussions like this are a great contribution.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes on the topic:

"He who does not enjoy his own company is usually right." (Coco Chanel)

"To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet." (Charles Caleb Colton)

"If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." (Anton Chekhov)

Yikes, talk about overreacting.

A request:
Can anyone find the poem in written form? I like my information in multiple media, and I think this deserves a self-reading as well. I also can't seem to find the info.

@fernando: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/

Hmm. Interesting. I posted this video to my facebook, and the one male friend that commented on it also interpreted it as about being single, rather than by oneself, although he had a much more positive take on it than the critic.

i love how this video brought out everyone's neuroses!!! hahaha!!!
well done!
i actually thought of my ex-boyfriend who could never be alone. thus, the infidelity, thus the breakup. hahaha!!!

its a cute video...for white people...j/k.
joke, anyone? just poking at your other neuroses sticking out...

Seriously folks, this video struck me as pretty gender neutral, really more or less just directed at people who like having some time to themselves. Somehow this turned into the typical diatribe about male privilege. I think the word mansplaining appeared like thirty times. You've got to realize this word seems kinda charged and hostile toward all men and is really not suitable for civilized discourse, even if it's meaning is not directed at all men. If similar word play were used to describe a characteristic female behavior many women on would probably take offense, and I'd say that would be justifiable. Then again perhaps I'm being overly sensitive.

I was just kinda hoping the commentary would be on the subject of being alone, introverted etc., which is an interesting subject in it of itself. However, the lens of gender does bring some nuance to the discussion.

It is interesting to note that women do have a different experience being alone than men. For example, schizoid personality disorder, characterized by an individual having no interest in personal or sexual relationships, is much less frequently diagnosed in women than men, likely owing to cultural pressure on women to be more social than men. Basically, if you want to be alone and you're a woman, you're more likely to be hassled for it than if you're a man.

The flip side of this is that it is sometimes easier for a man to become socially isolated than a woman. Men tend to have less extensive personal support networks, owing, at least partly, to concept of men as stoic and independent, not in need of the help of others, whether emotional or otherwise. This kind of cultural message can be quite harmful to some men, and lead to psychological isolation of an unhealthy kind.

Just read it. The correct term for that article is not "mansplaining," it's "being a fucking idiot." The video is, at least as far as I can tell, directed at introverted people who enjoy alone time. This guy just makes a massive assumption and then writes an entire article based on that assumption. Yes, he goes on to talk about women at length, but the writer clearly just has a total lack of insight as to what the video is about, grasps at straws, and comes to the conclusion that it must be about being single and female because the poem is written by a woman, it's about being alone, and there is (admittedly) a bunch of insipid literature out there on the subject of being a single woman. I don't really see what this has to do with his gender (I could maybe see some ultra-extraverted, relationship crazed female making the same mistake in judgment), so much as it has to do with him completely missing the point.

Anyhow, the term mansplaining is even more offensive to me as a man if this is the kind of thing you're attaching it to. I need to find some examples of women making asses out of themselves by fumbling about and finding some gender coded explanation for something, then come up with an nifty word for it that implicates the entire female gender. It'll really elevate the discourse around here.

Wow, just wanted to say, what a beautiful poem!

http://imanacquiredtaste.wordpress.com/

Yay, this was shot in my city! Go Halifax!
Great poem, made me feel a gazillion times better and more optimistic about some things.

I really enjoyed the video and its contents. Solitude is a way of being of the soul, a state of the mind. You can be in your room reading a book and feel in company of the author, you can be in the midst of hundreds people and feel alone. It seems the hermits are not alone as they can commuticate with other hermits who have the same wavelenght. Personally in my life I follow the middle way: I live my life but don't give up the will to think about the life and its end.
The book I have recently written may help in this direction and I want to draw it to your attention. The title is "Travels of the Mimd". It is available on my website www.ettoregrillo.com
If you have any question I am most willing to discuss about this topic.
Ettore Grillo

This resonates with me a lot. I'm a college student who is shy and socially awkward, and kind of stuck in an intermediate between extroversion and introversion. Basically, I like being by myself and having my own interests, but I also tend to crave the company of people my own age. I had close friends in high school, but since they go to college in other states, I rarely see them or even talk to them, since they're both busy. And I commute to my college, so I don't have the added benefit of living in the dorm and meeting people. I can't say I have a single close friend here, and I've never been in a romantic relationship. It's not that I don't want to have friends, but I don't quite know how to go about making friends or meeting people. I think I was actually more extroverted in high school, so my shyness and isolation in college is unsettling to me. I have goals and my own interests, but I worry about life after college. It seems like when I stop going to school, I won't be in contact with people much at all. I worry about being alone my entire life. I want to change, but I can't quite seem to do it. I don't really mind being alone, and my family is very supportive and loving, but I still feel like I am missing out on life by not having friends.

So I can really relate to this video, but being alone isn't always nice when it's due to a person's shyness. I would rather have friends that I can do things with and have things in common with, and I would also rather be in a romantic relationship. I'm hoping that I will become more confident over time. Twenty is still pretty young, but as "the best time of my life," I feel like it should involve more than this.