I read once that for some people, safety is being alone rather than being in numbers. Suddenly I felt as if I made sense. It was more energizing and nurturing to be on my own, and in fact, I needed it to function at all. Being alone is a sanctuary to me - I don't have to deal with confusing social interactions, feel out of place, deal with bullies, or otherwise be hurt. I can process everything that's going on without the noise.

Most people I'm friends with are the same. Those that aren't, aren't around anymore.

I tend to pick up friends by the ocean, looking at the surf. There's a few of us dawn patrollers, rugged up in woolie hats and coats looking at the waves, tugging on wetsuits, going out into the big blue. We do it because we like being alone. But we sure appreciate a chat. We sit bobbing in the water between sets, talking about house renovations, how big the waves will be this week, and other life things. If we want to be quiet, we sit a little bit away from the pack. Stare out to sea. Doesn't matter. Most of us surf because we like being alone, even though even lone seagulls love a chat too.

Twenty years of marriage, I'm still trying to get across why I'd rather meet my husband at the beach in a separate car instead of go with him. I don't want to make decisions about where to surf with him. I just want to rock up and decide myself. I like the solitary drive to the beach. Less noise. Twenty years of marriage and he's okay with me 'going to hang out by myself' because it's 'not him it's me'. He doesn't get offended anymore.

Besides, he's a little the same. Fancy dress parts and raves are our worst nightmare these days. How his sister does it still, we don't know. Our lives have been stripped down of all those things. We don't need drugs or alcohol to get through a party anymore because we've minimized our social lives to just us. And we sure can throw a party for two. I don't need to worry about stupid things like what I'm wearing or what we have in common, which is probably nothing, because we're a bit wierd like that.

Whilst I love time on my own in this marriage, he's the one person I can just hang with and not feel frazzled and overwrought.

Family's a little different - my sister's family and my parents are my people. I could hang out with them all day. They aren't energy vampires. I don't feel less than or sapped when I'm with them. I feel appreciated and loved when I'm with them - I don't need to second guess their motives or feel any performance anxiety in their presence.

Part of it is a problem with emotional regulation I've had my whole life, so it's easy for me to be totally disregulated if I'm overstimulated, over stressed, over excited. @vincentnijman knows this one too well - he built a whole character in his fiction on a hypersensitive dinosaur. We aren't the only ones.

I need to totally shut down sometimes to ground myself - close the curtains, put noise cancelling headphones on, lay in the dark, breath. Just the most basic of functions - inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. You can't do that at a work function. It's better I make excuses: 'I have a migraine', 'I'm allergic to meetings' and so on.

Sometimes I get a little sad I don't have a bigger tribe of close friends. I worry that it's my fault, which it probably is. I know I've lost friends when I've rejected a dinner invite or changed my mind at the last minute because I didn't anticipate feeling anxious or depleted that day. These days I'm better at saying why I didn't rock up or changed my plans, but then, the people I'm friends with totally get it as they're the same.

Sometimes I think there's a lot of people in the world, and there's very few of them I actually really, really like enough to spend lots of time with. Or maybe I just haven't met them yet, which is likely. But mostly it's just because I feel safer and calmer on my own.

This was written in response to The Minimalist community's prompt 'How does minimalism have an impact on your social life choices? Share all the influences.'