Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto

Party of One: The loners’ Manifesto, talks about how, where, and why “loners” are mistreated in the human society. Each chapter tells about a different aspect, religion, childhood, sanity, film, art, etc. Each chapter shows how, through out time, “loners” have been misunderstood and shamed. The author, Anneli Rufus, also describes herself as a loner and weaves in her own personal stories within the book. Although she exaggerates on some of the mistreatment a bit, most, if not all, of the things she says is true.

One thing I learned from this book was how shallow the human race really is. I’ve always know that people were somewhat self-centered, but this book puts it into a whole new light. One of the actions that I see “nonloners”, as Rufus puts them, exhibit is that they can’t be left out. People have labeled me many things all because they want to get “inside” of me, so to speak. The fact that I don’t let most people in, and that I prefer to be alone confuses them so they think I’m “weird”. Because I lack their same tastes and that I actually have others, confuses them. The list goes on and on.
One thing I learned about parents from this book, is that they want us to be popular. They keep on telling us that we don’t need to be popular, but yet, they pressure us to spend more time with friends, even if we bluntly refuse. They want us to have so many friends so that they can boast about us. They don’t see how some of us would rather be alone. When they do see that, be immediately think something is wrong. They think something is wrong with our mentality and send us off to therapy. My mom has tried.
Something I really liked about this book was that Rufus made sure that whoever was reading this book, knew the difference between being a loner and being an outcast. Many times, loners are outcast, but not all outcasts are loners. People tend to use those words interchangeably, and that is not correct. Many outcast are lonely, that is the exact opposite of a loner. Loners like being alone. They cannot get lonely.

When I was reading “Party of One”, I took a closer look around me and those who I associate with, and I realized that they were just that, associates, nothing more, nothing less. They were just there so I wouldn’t stand out so much, and that’s want all loners try to avoid, standing out. Reading the book, Rufus states that the whole human society has something against loners, there are constant implements that loners are crazy and should be changed, examples are Christmas cards that say that being alone is wrong, ads that imply that you can’t have a good time if you’re alone. Reading this book, I looked closer at my habits and surroundings and realized that allot of the time, Rufus was exactly right, with the ads, how I would react to somethings, even sometimes, why I react that way. Once again, there are some things, mainly the way other “nonloners” act, that she just slightly overemphasizes, but overall, she does a really good job on recording all of her observations like she did in this book.

-Tiffany P.