Preferring solitude to a busy social life is not the quiet failure our culture treats it as, provided you can tell the honest difference between the alone time you move toward and the company you are only avoiding

There is a certain look people give you when you say you would rather stay home. A small, sympathetic tilt of the head, as though you had confessed to something a little sad. The culture we live in treats a full social calendar as the visible proof of a good …