This past spring, I kept reading about Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's 544-page tome, filled with portentous claims about the demise of community. The book sounded interesting, until I leafed through it one day. Overflowing with incomprehensible charts and minutely-printed footnotes, its appearance was a real turnoff.

A few months later, I began to suspect that what I had really found most off-putting about the book was Putnam's assumption that belonging to a group--"social capital," as he calls it--should be such a vital part of our daily lives.

I was in the midst of--mired, I might more accurately say--editing a newsletter for my local civic association. As I suffered the expected consequences--the editing by committee, the politics of what made it into print and what didn't--I realized once again why I've never been a joiner. By their very nature, groups take away autonomy and I like autonomy.

I write this as that autonomy undergoes its greatest threat: holiday time. Like you, I'm overwhelmed with commitments to company parties, friends' dinners, and family gatherings, each loaded with time conflicts, geographic constraints, and long-standing, never quite abandoned emotional battles. As the days get shorter and the nights colder, now, more than ever, it seems as if we're all caught in a maelstrom of . . . company.

Alone again, naturally

There's no doubt about it. As a world-weary Greta Garbo did indeed murmur in "Grand Hotel," I want to be alone.

Which doesn't mean that I don't like people, or even that I don't want to be in a roomful of them. It's just that I think there's such a thing as too much "social capital."

I'm sure I'm not, er, alone, in feeling overwhelmed by the company we all are forced to keep. When I visit my husband's 11-person firm, for example, I notice that just about every employee is listening to his or her own music through his or her own set of headphones. They're alone, but part of a crowd. And they like it that way.

"Although I originally thought it would be considered rude for one person to be listening to his music in isolation, buyers began to see their little portable stereo sets as very personal," wrote Akio Morita, former Sony CEO and inventor of the ubiquitous Walkman. He was right. Walkman users do--still--look odd, bopping to their unknown, unshared tunes.

But I understand their motivation, too. It's no different than when I, looking to break up my workday, troop off by myself to the local artsy moviehouse. There, I can participate in an eminently solo activity while being part of a "group"-- usually six or seven other lonesome doves, in this case.

Call it semi-soloism: enjoying the buzz of a social beehive while not actually having to be on any team. Blame the Walkman, blame the Internet, blame tv--everyone else does. A press release for "media ecologist," Cheryl Pawlowski's Glued to the Tube, crossed my desk the other day. "Are Joey, Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Phoebe and Monica your best friends?" it asked. "You're not alone," it continued. "Research shows that TV has become such a part of our lives, it actually has taken over the roles once held by cherished family members."

Are they serious? First of all, I prefer Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and George. Secondly, how can fictional characters take over any "roles" in our lives--and who says all of our family members are "cherished"?

That last is a kind of false nostalgia, an assumed chumminess that Putnam plays to in his book when he yearns for the days of bowling leagues and, for God's sake, quilting bees. What exactly, I wonder, are the social advantages of donning powdery-smelling shoes a size too big or straining our eyes over tiny appliques?

Bowling for dollars

Now comes word that in the wake of these books, people--including Putnam--are actually being awarded grants to foster community. It's a doomed effort. We all partake in too many perfunctory cocktail parties, too many tedious office meetings, too many trying traffic jams to enjoy still more group activities. We spend so little quality time by ourselves, why this call to share those precious moments with people with whom we have no particular bond?

So from now on, instead of writing the newsletter for my civic association, I'm returning to my own brand of community participation. I'll pick up flying newspapers and candy wrappers as I wind my way through the park on my street corner. I'll ask my ailing neighbor if she needs anything from the grocery store. I'll knock on doors and gather signatures for an aspiring politician friend. I'll tell a graphic designer friend that there's a contest to design banners for the neighborhood. I'll be helping out, but I won't be joining. And I'll save my real social energies for those closest to me.

Best of all, though, I'll keep a few moments for myself. "It is never a waste of time to be outdoors, and never a waste of time to lie down and rest," writes May Sarton in Journal of a Solitude. "But it is a waste of time to see people who have only a social surface to show. I will make every effort to find out the real person, but if I can't, then I am upset and cross."

I'm with her. Let's reserve our most meaningful selves for those we feel truly appreciate and deserve them. Failing that, stay home and relax. Watch tv, read a book, take a nap. Alone.

Ahh, solitude.

JoAnn Greco writes from her lonely office where, despite what she says to the contrary, she is always eager to receive company. She last wrote for Jugglezine on tactics to avoid being "swamped."