Does Lonely=Alone?

So I've been doing a lot of thinking whilst on my university breaks recently. (I'm on one right now, hence this post which probably won't make much sense).

Thoughts of lonely, and alone. Are they really the same thing?

I've come to find that I can be sitting in lectures filled to the brim with 700 students and yet not feel a connection to a single one of them. Like they are all strange creatures and no matter how much I study them, I can't seem to work them out. I feel so utterly lonely in those lectures, yet I am surrounded by hundreds of people.

The opposite goes for my breaks where I get to sit by myself and simply enjoy the life that passes around me. At those points in the day I am, technically "alone" but I am on the opposite side of the scale to feeling "lonely". I tend to enjoy my own company and not once do I get bored. I am, after all left with the thousands of thoughts floating around in my head to keep me entertained.


I guess at the end of the day, I'm right in the middle of a quest to discover the true meanings of "Lonely" and "Alone." Can one exist without the other? And do the dictionary definitions of them truly make sense when put into practice?

I don't know where I thought this blog post was going but it seems I have rambled on with something which most of you will probably think I'm crazy for.

One day I'm going to work out the answers to my questions.

Over and out,
Erin.