Playing in Solitude

After doing that class activity where we created a costume of the random items, I've been reflecting on the reality that I am very much someone who often prefers to 'play' alone. I think there may be a few reasons for that:

• As a personality, I simply enjoy solitude. I think best there, and I don't deal with distractions well. I felt very different from others as I grew up. I was most at home in my own head.
  
• I enjoy others and interactions with others, but I also know that I can really be a people pleaser, so when I play by myself, I get to do what I really want to do, rather than just acquiescing to someone else.
  
• I am easily annoyed by what others do and don't get 'serious' about. I'm not very tolerant that way, I'll admit. I also just find that I'm busy enough that I don't think of many things as being a big deal. "Just make a decision, and go with it, already!" is often the mantra that runs through my head while working and playing with others.
  
• I've lived and worked alone for almost eight years now (for the most part - teaching is generally quite solitary, and my husband is on the road and away from home about 80% of the time), and I think I've developed behaviors (and perhaps even neural patterns - ways of thinking) that have helped me survive and thrive in that setting. I'm a product of evolution of sorts. I've often wondered how I'll do when my environment changes.
  
• Even though I consider myself a fairly adept communicator, I do have a VERY difficult time communicating a vision or abstract idea to the point where someone else could create or co-create it (nor am I that good at seeing others' visions), and I'm usually too much of a control freak to let go of a vision.
  
• I'm fairly competitive, and competing with myself is more fun for some reason than competing against others. Maybe I like that nobody loses or gets hurt in that scenario. Maybe it's just that I feel the most evenly matched there.
  
• Boiled down, group play often feels enforced or contrived (therefore, not play at all, but work); whereas solitary play is spontaneous and natural.
  
• I'm not crazy about others seeing my process because its often messy, embarrassing, and too revealing.
  

An interesting thing that just struck me, though, is that my favorite group activity is conversation. I love a good chat. I enjoy seeing others' perspectives and ideas and getting a chance to voice my own. That, to me, is quality 'play' time with others. I guess I'm just not great at enacting those ideas with others.