[Don Plumley]

I'm an only child, a closet introvert, and I work alone from home. My wife needs the interaction of going to a place of work - me, less so. I enjoy going out to dinner with other people, hosting people at the winery, business meetings, etc. I can be incredibly social, but I also seek my alone time to recharge. It's all about balance for me.

To your point Cliff, when I travel - which has been extensive at times - I really enjoy the solitude. The hours on the airplane without saying a word. A quiet night on my own at the bar of a restaurant and in my room. No issues. I rarely spoke with my wife as we operated on a "no news is good news" policy. Time zones were inconvenient, I was usually interrupting something. She was busy with the kids (or now dogs) and her goals in life - I was busy with mine. When we'd get back together, then we catch one another up and enjoy our time together in person.

As an observation, I know a couple that when one of them travels, they easily spend an hour on the phone with the other each day. They do not have children, so they are indeed one another's world. I have to be honest, I'm not sure what I'd talk about with my wife for an hour unless we have a specific thing to figure out. Much less every day. But we are really happy as a couple, and now with the kids out of the nest, we enjoy our time together and our time apart.

I have no concerns about being lonely in life. That being said, my two closest male friends are very far away and I see them too seldom. It would be good to have a couple of playmates every now and then, so one day I should try to fix that. For men, hobbies tend to be the other social lubricant. So happens my hobby is a winery, which provides plenty of lubrication.