I recently heard the question, Would you like someone to sit with you, or would you like to be alone? The question was asked in the context of one person seeing another doing just that, sitting alone, in a setting where that could be perfectly appropriate or desperately lonely. It’s a question I ask my students when their table partner is absent, whether they are happy where they are, whether they would like someone to sit with them, whether they would like to move seats.

Would you like someone to sit with you, or would you like to be alone? suggests that the individual has been seen as part of something rather than a spectator, that an introduction to a group will be there when the individual is ready. It suggests that being alone is a choice rather than a condition and that being alone is not the same as being lonely. And it suggests that there are times for both aloneness and togetherness without placing a value judgement on the choice.

I found this question beautiful in its simplicity. Beautiful in its openness and honesty. Beautiful in the way that it required the individual to do nothing but answer, while the person asking the question had done so making a promise to be there when the fitting answer was given.

Such a question opens the door not only for dialogue, but also for recognition, perhaps of a kindred spirit or of a searching soul. A beautiful question is one with which we can all imagine ourselves confronted or asking, a sign of shared humanity.

I am reminded of the people I know at the climbing hall, groups forming based on casual questions about who is coming that day, who is looking for a partner, who is there for a solo training session. I have both extended and accepted the standing offer to climb with another group when no one from one’s regular group is available. I am reminded of my colleagues who are clearly searching for something, and to whom I have recently asked a form of this question.

Would you like someone to sit with you, or would you like to be alone?

It could only be a good thing, a kind thing, the right thing, to ask. To answer honestly is to trust. So are connections built, relationships formed. To ask and answer is to recognize, and with recognition comes being, in a particular time and particular place.

Would you like someone to sit with you, or would you like to be alone?