Working alone sucks

I have experienced feelings similar to these in the past as a freelancer working from home. My advice is to join a local coworking group where freelancers come together to share office space. I have found the social atmosphere helps everyone get more enthusiastic about their work and allows for easy collaboration between designers, developers, marketers and businesspeople.

Good point. I have also successfully experimented with this in the past.

I can definitely empathize. A few years ago, I co-founded a startup with one of my close friends - except he had relocated to Shanghai and I in Virginia living with my parents to save on rent.

We talked or IMed every day, but it definitely wasn't the same as working with a co-located team. There's no grabbing lunch together or the occasional drinks after work. It definitely got lonely, and led to some unusual behavior.

By the end of the second week, I'd stopped getting out of my pajamas - it wasn't like I was leaving the house, so why bother?

We have a dog, who isn't allowed in the house, so I set up a desk in the garage and worked from there. I'd keep the garage door open all day, for natural light but also to let the dog run around.

I distinctly remember one afternoon, where I'm cranking away in my garage/office. Some neighborhood kids were cutting through our yard to get to the local basketball court, and they definitely paused for a moment to stare at the unkempt weird hermit guy, still in his pajamas, a bathrobe, and slippers, hacking away in the garage of all places.

Good times!

This post hit close to home for me. I have had very similar work experiences as the OP (having done both a startup with two co-founders and management consulting), and found that the biggest factor is whether you are introverted or extroverted. He notes that he's extroverted, which is likely why he hates this method of work.

As an introvert, I don't mind long periods of alone time as long as it's occasionally punctuated by social events. However, I tend to avoid the local networking events like the OP described because I find them to be full of blowhards and vendors pushing a service (YMMV). Instead, I prefer smaller group gatherings with people I trust.

I'm trying to decide if my next startup is going to be solo or with co-founders, so this is weighing on my mind at the moment. I find that the biggest drawback of solo is the sense of loneliness, and I'm trying to balance that with the considerations of equity, creative control, etc.

There is a difference between general human interaction and specifically having a peer working with with you on a common goal.