I’m fine. And don’t suggest — please — that time spent alone is a problem for me.

My view of the Bistro area of the local Pick 'n Save. Usually, not many lunch companions, and rarely any interruptions.

There are a few things that I hope will leave my memory someday.

One of them is a column I read on a Wisconsin newspaper’s website a few years ago. It was in 2015, and the wayward piece suggested that anyone dining alone in public is likely too wrapped up in social media or mobile devices to have relationships with other people.

It was one of those reader-engagement pieces, and predictably, some readers said they feel bad for people they see dining alone.

As well as anyone, I know that one of the principle roles of a columnist is to spur thinking.

So, not quite three years later, here’s what I think about that: Just stop. Please. Stop.

I lunch alone two or three times a week. Sometimes more. I eat supper (maybe that’s dinner in your world) alone at least once a week. Solo breakfasts are fairly common, too.

There’s a perfectly good reason for this pseudo-abhorrent behavior: I. Like. To. Eat. Alone.

I like to spend other time alone, too. Introversion suits some of us.

This doesn't make me a bad or tormented person, nor does it make me a better person than you. But it is an essential part of being me.

I'm usually in the seat on the left.

I wrote most of this piece after a solo lunch in the “Bistro” area of the Pick 'n Save grocery, near the corner of Calumet and Memorial, on Appleton’s fashionable south side. I come here at least once every work week, unless out-of-town travel forbids it.

Aside from the whirrrr of refrigeration units, the occasional jarring rhythm of a shopping cart, and the music from the overhead speakers, it’s quiet.

The salad bar is great. I like the soup selection. The sandwiches are varied and good, and so are the chilled drinks. The cost is affordable.

So there I sit, alone with my thoughts.

I come because I can select my food and pay my bill without answering "how's everything tasting?" questions.

I come because it’s comfortable. I usually sit at a high table, next to the window.

I come to think. And read. And email. And read. And write. And wonder. And plan. And eat. And read. And think. By myself.

I come to observe and listen.

Just the other day, I was watching a lady probably in her 80s (put another way, 20 years older than me), pushing her cart, talking on a flip phone, saying goodbye as she closed it. She then finished the conversation by saying OUT LOUD, “I hope I never talk to you again.”

Eight quick words, and probably a lot to unpack. It might be a good scene in my next novel. But I’d have to write the novel. And I have no desire for that.

Anyhow. Mostly, I come to be alone. And that’s OK.

It has been this way ever since I've been eating venison and fried potatoes, as part of a quiet family. I don't recall many spirited supper discussions, mostly because we had to stop talking so Walter Cronkite could be heard.

There were a lot of solitary hamburger-and-fries dinners in the Clubhouse in Laona, before playing high school basketball for the Fighting Kellys. And a lot of sitting-and-observing meals in the UW-Green Bay Commons. And more than a few back-of-the-room, table-for-one meals at journalism conventions or company functions or family get-togethers.

It's clear that others prefer gathering with a team coworkers or occasional family events. Discussion and shared experiences carry the time. That's fine; I'm not opposed to those, and I've been there, too.

But too many people and too many voices get in the way for some of us. A few of my reasons:

• It's tough to make meaningful sense of multiple threads of conversations. 
• I have little patience for interruptions.
• I have less patience for idle, not-at-all-genuine chit-chat. I am not good at it.
• Talking is not more important than listening. It's probably true that listening is not more important than talking, too, but I'm better at one than the other.

Don't get me wrong. I am not socially inept. 

I have friends — and a few of them are close — and we converse and keep in touch. I contribute to group meetings, as much as I can. I attend community events, and meet new people. 

I'm fairly good at public speaking, and even enjoy it. And I've been playing guitar and singing on stages since I was 8 years old, and I love that, too.

Still, there are far more times when I need to be on my own, exploring and reasoning and planning and speculating, in a personal time-space continuum.

Trust me, it's OK. I'm fine.

Hope you are, too. 

I'd hate to be alone in that thought.