I need my time alone. I need my solitude, alone with my thoughts. I'm an introvert who tires when he has to interact with too many people in person, and does not suffer fools gladly. When I am at work I do anything in my power to avoid having to interact with too many people, and luckily I am in the position of making that so, since my employees all know that they are the ones who do that by and large. Still, I find I have many people I look forward to seeing, those with whom I connect and enjoy the way we just sort of resonate with each other. The vast majority I push away, only a few I want to draw in, and I find I am about as intense with one tendency as I am the other.
As far as being lonely, I do find myself wishing to find my soul mate -- that one person who is everything to me and I am everything to her, and even as I was married for 30 years, do not think I was married to my soul mate. Right now, I am wondering if I am at that time in my life when I need to let go of this one yearning and start making my accommodations with life in such a way that my search for those things I will not have only leaves me with a void. In that, I draw upon my natural tendency to crave my alone time, and remind myself that while I may not ever have that one person who is IT, that doesn't prevent me from sharing myself with lots of different people in different ways that leave me fulfilled instead of lonely.