Single, Sole, Solitary...

Only child syndrome or single child syndrome, or bratty bitchiness. Call it what you like, we probably won't notice, although if we do we'll never forget it.

See, we (only children) are often in our own little bubbles, even when we're in a group of people we can withdraw into our imaginations, voices in our heads, images, or distractions: the grain of the table at the restaurant where our friends are celebrating a birthday; the smell of the wine; the smirk on so-and-so's face when he said hello to you. It's very easy to get distracted from the activity of a group when you spent your childhood making up your own amusement.

What I'm trying to say, although not as articulately as I'd hoped, is that while we can completely disconnect from a group environment, we often pay obsessive attention to the details of that environment...when we decide to, in any case. We're always paying attention, maybe not to you but to your outfit or facial expressions or tone of voice or the color of your hair. Maybe we're thinking about what we ate earlier that day. And yes, sometimes we're paying attention to our good ol' reliable thoughts.

Our attention is obsessively tuned to SOMETHING. It's just not often the something that everyone else is tuned to.