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I realized something strange about myself a few months ago. At first I thought it was a bad thing, like I was missing a crucial part of my brain or something, but I’ve come to accept that it’s just who I am, and believe that it actually helps me be a happier person. Here it is…

I don’t miss people.

As in, when I’m away from friends and family, I don’t miss them. I’ve been in Spain now for almost two months, and except for a few brief moments of self-inflicted loneliness, I haven’t missed anyone from back home in Ireland, or from New Orleans (where I lived from 2007-2010).

This October I’ll be embarking on a three-year round-the-world trip without flying, and it’s likely I won’t see the majority of my family and friends for all that time. Will I miss them?

Nope, can’t imagine that I will.

Why do we miss people?

I believe we only miss people when we’re not enjoying the present moment. When we’re busy wishing someone else was around, we’re not exactly giving a vote of confidence to our current situation. It’s as if we’re saying, “Now sucks. It would be better if my buddy/sister/boyfriend was here.”

Funny thing is, when you’re busy missing people, you end up missing whatever’s happening right in front of you. And that usually includes a bunch of good stuff.

I choose not to fight the now. I choose not to resist the present moment. I do my best to focus on being fully present, enjoying new people and experiences, rather than pining for old ones.

If I find myself in a situation that truly does suck, I do what I can to change it. I see that as a vastly better course of action than wishing I was somewhere else.

Not missing people vs. not caring

Don’t confuse not missing people with not caring. Just because I don’t miss people doesn’t mean I don’t care about them. You can be my best friend and I won’t miss you while we’re apart, but next time we see each other I’ll be delighted. I’ll enjoy our time together as fully as I can.

And then I’ll move on to the next moment, with or without you.

I care about my parents, but I’m okay with the fact that I may not see them for three years while I’m off lapping the planet. As long as I know they’re happy and well, I’m all good.

But what if one of them died? Would I miss them then?

I think so. If I knew I’d never see a friend or family member again, that would upset me. But I’ve been lucky so far in that I’ve never had to deal with the sudden loss of a loved one. Nobody’s been taken away from me before old age.

Methinks it’s a whole different ballgame when it comes to death, because we never really know what comes after. I like to believe in an afterlife, in reincarnation (Deepak swayed me on that one), but there’s just no telling what happens when the blood stops, and I’m not willing to believe with any huge certainty that I’ll see people again on some other side.

So yeah, I would be upset if someone died and I never got a chance to see them again. But I see that as just another great reason why we should be living in the now and enjoying the present moments we have with people. Once those moments are over, move on and enjoy the next. Experience each now fully, leave nothing unsaid, collect no regrets.

Ebb and flow

People naturally come and go from your life, and that’s fine. It’s like that with one of my best friends. We drift in and out of each other’s lives, often going months at a time without contact. But when we are in each other’s company, we’re all there.

I’ve noticed though that we’ve grown more apart in recent years. Not because we don’t keep in regular contact, just naturally. That happens sometimes. I’m not going to fight it. Resistance is futile. Everything changes. That’s the transient nature of relationships. You can’t keep every relationship the same all the time. You have to accept the ebb and flow.

People will leave your life, new friends will come along, old friends will reappear… it’s all good. You roll with it.

That’s not to say you don’t make an effort to keep in contact with people. I touch base with certain friends every so often, make time to meet and catch up. But I only to do this when I want to, not because I feel obliged to.

Missing a romantic partner

I broke up with my most recent girlfriend a couple months ago. We got along brilliantly while we were together, but I was moving abroad, she was staying put, it was time to end it. I felt pretty low that last day. There were tears on both sides. Not much fun.

I allowed myself a little time to grieve, and then the next day I got right back to enjoying the present. I decided that the time me and my partner had had together was great, I enjoyed it all thoroughly while it lasted, but that time had now passed and it didn’t serve me to dwell on it.

I’ve thought about her many times since, but I can’t say that I’ve missed her.

This viewpoint can be tricky. I’m good with it personally, but try telling a girl that you’re not going to miss her when you’re apart. Not an easy thing for most people to hear.

If you take issue with this viewpoint, here’s a question for you: Do you really want your partner to be upset when you’re apart? Would it make you feel good if they were unhappy without you?

If your answer is yes, it sounds to me like your love for that person is totally conditional. You only want them to be happy in your presence. You only love them for what they can give to you, not for who they are.

The flip side

Since I don’t miss people and have come to believe it’s perfectly fine not to, I’d be a wee bit of a hypocrite to expect others to miss me when I’m not around. Luckily, I don’t. I want people to enjoy my company, sure, but I don’t want them to feel any sadness in my absence. Why would I wish that on anyone?

Yes, I love for people to remember me fondly when I’m away, but not at the expense of their present. I think of all the things they’re likely to miss out on if they’re busy missing me. No thanks.

Please be happy when I’m gone.

…

Methinks this is unlikely to be a popular viewpoint. That’s okay. I just wanted to write my truth. This is who I am. I’m a guy who doesn’t miss people. I enjoy experiences and moments, and I try to live in the present. I’ve accepted myself for that. I feel no urge to change it.

Not that I’m some master at living with present moment awareness. Not by a long shot. I still sometimes worry, still sometimes reminisce. That’s okay. I just keep trying my best to remain in the present. Methinks I’m getting better at it.

What’s your take?

I grew up in the Irish countryside with no sisters and very few neighbors, and I went to all-boys schools all the way up until college. So by the age of eighteen, I was terrified at the thought of talking to women. To me, women were these exotic creatures that spoke a completely different language and you couldn’t look directly at one you found attractive for fear of bursting into flames.

But I liked women all the same, and I wanted to know more about them.

My final year in secondary school, there was one woman in particular that fascinated me. I’d see her every day as d’Mudder drove me to school. We’d pass her at some point as she was walking over the Rice Bridge and up the hill, on her way to the all-girls school at the top of it. She was maybe a year younger than me at the time, had dark hair and looked more cute than sexy.

I called her Bridget, because she walked over the bridge every day.

Day after day and week after week I’d see this girl walking to school. I’d always sneak a look at her out of the car window. I started imagining what I’d say to her if I ever had the opportunity. How would I start the conversation? How would I keep it going? In my imagination, I was fantastically suave and charming, but the reality was that I always made an awful fool of myself when I tried to talk to girls, struggling to utter even one coherent sentence.

But I really liked this Bridget girl (based solely on the way she looked and the way she walked) so one day I up and decided I would overcome the terror of actually approaching a female of the species. I promised myself that the very next morning, I would join Bridget on her walk across the bridge and up the hill. I’d somehow manage to engage her in the best conversation of all time and she’d fall madly in love with me.

So, that very next morning, I got up early and spent about two hours in the bathroom making myself look the loveliest I’d ever looked. My eyebrows were near groomed to perfection by the time I was finished. I hurried d’Mudder so we’d leave a few minutes early and I’d be able to intercept Bridget at the bridge.

But disaster struck: Bridget was already crossing the bridge as we drove over it. It was a minute before I could get out of the car, muttering something to my mother about it being a lovely day for a walk, and then I was off in hot pursuit! As I rushed back over the bridge, I could see Bridget already making her way up the hill. I figured I had about ten minutes before she reached the school and my opportunity would be lost forever. Luckily, there was an old shortcut up the side of the hill, and I knew that I could run up that way and catch up with her.

So I did. I sprinted up the side of this hill like a madman, a bag full of school books in tow.

Now imagine the scene: I get up to the road, only to find that I’d run too fast, and I now had to stand there sweating and heaving for about a minute as Bridget walked up towards me. In her mind, she must have been thinking, “Oh my God! I hope this sweaty weirdo doesn’t try and talk to me!”

But talk to her I did. I turned to her as she came close and asked, “Do you mind if I walk with you?” She was a little stunned, but said okay. Maybe she was just afraid to say no, or maybe she was dazzled by my amazing eyebrows, I’m not sure. Regardless, there I was, walking up the hill with Bridget.

Happiness… for all of five seconds, after which I remembered I had to make conversation. I knew we didn’t have much time, so I thought I’d better impress upon this girl just how deep and sensitive a guy I was. So, noting the people sitting in their cars in traffic on the road, I asked Bridget, real mystically, “Do you ever wonder about the people in the cars? You know, what they’re thinking about as they’re sitting there? I mean, we look at them and form some quick judgment based on their appearance, but do they do the same of us? Are they thinking about what we’re thinking about? Do they realize that we’re wondering if they’re thinking about what we’re thinking about? You ever think about that?”

I believe her response was, “Uh… not really.”

I tried throwing a few more questions at her, but she just seemed to look at me a little more strangely each time as she quickened her pace. Two minutes later, we were at the gate of the school. And despite having just treated this girl to perhaps the worst conversation of her entire life, I somehow found the courage to ask her for her phone number. To which she replied, “Uh… I don’t think so.” With that, she turned on her heels and disappeared into the school, never to be seen by me again.

But I didn’t feel bad after that experience. On the contrary, I felt great about myself. Yeah, I’d gotten rejected, but I’d overcome a big chunk of that strange fear I had of women.

And that’s the moral of this story. It doesn’t much matter what happens when you face your fear, whether you emerge looking like a fool or a champ. The important thing is that you faced that fear in the first place. You stepped out of your comfort zone, maybe suffered some embarrassments, but discovered that the world keeps on spinning just the same.