Iknew that there was a problem when I found myself waiting for my telephone to ring. Not, mind you, to talk to the person on the other end, but to listen to my answering machine take the call.

My caller ID, you see, speaks to me. She doesn’t have an especially mellifluous voice — it’s kind of robotic, and her pronunciation is way off — but she’s reliable and efficient. I think of her as an electronic personal assistant whose job is to keep me company.

Yes, keep me company, because I work at home. Usually, I’m on the phone interviewing sources, but there are times when, if I’m on an especially pressing deadline, I can’t be on the phone at all. Sometimes I won’t even leave my house for a few days.

That’s when I welcome the ringing phone, just so I can hear the warm tones of my digital amanuensis. It sounds crazy, I know — the 21st-century version of an old lady and her cats — but I feel inexplicably less isolated just because she’s around.

“That’s really pathetic,” a friend of mine said when I told him about my invisible playmate. He’s right. But we do what we have to, those of us who work alone.

OK, I know I have been the envy of my office-worker friends, who complain about the lack of privacy, the politics, the gossip at their workplaces. And those are certainly things that I’ve wanted to avoid over the years. But now, frankly, I’d like to poke fun at the boss with my colleagues, or to know whether Sheila in accounting is dating the messenger guy.

We home-office loners compensate for our lack of community in myriad, pathetic ways. I try to get out at night, I see friends and hit the gym and check out hip city happenings, but none of that really takes the place of being around a group of people who are working toward a similar goal.

Telecommuting from Starbucks doesn’t do the trick, either. Sipping your latte while your fingers tap away productively can be satisfying, but sustained human interaction is elusive there. Most Starbucks dwellers are bopping away in their own universes, iPods firmly in ears, BlackBerrys at the ready. They seem to be perfectly nice people, but you are never going to bond with them over a shared challenge.

The funny thing is that I never wanted to go to an office. In 17 years of writing, I’ve had only one full year of office work. I never wanted to be a mere cog in the corporate wheel. I didn’t want anyone telling me when I could take my vacations or how many sick days I was allowed. I’ve always had a rebellious streak. (You’re not the boss of me!)

Existing paycheque to paycheque can be rough, but I always thought that the benefits outweighed the cons: I could work when I wanted and play when I wanted, and, above all else, I had no scary authority figure breathing down my neck.

I’m no longer so sure — something that struck me when I discovered just how dependent I was on my answering machine.

It also occurred to me that I used travel as a panacea for the isolation, and that it wasn’t always effective. For example, I often file articles from places like Panama, India and Brazil. My friends envy my freedom, but think about it: if the entire world is your office, when are you ever off duty? And, ultimately, what’s the difference between an Internet cafe in New Delhi and one in New York?

The final straw came a few weeks ago, when the battery in my answering machine died and I didn’t have time to replace it. For two long days, unable to screen my calls, I was forced to answer the phone myself — always a risky proposition. I was also forced to acknowledge just how much I missed that disembodied voice cutting through the silence.

That’s when I knew I was craving a full-time job in a real office. It wasn’t about money or health insurance or paid vacations, though those are certainly nice perks; it was about sanity and recognising that it’s OK to be just like everyone else. That sometimes it’s all right to be another brick in the wall. That conformity exists for a reason.

No, I don’t especially love the idea of being told what do to. And the idea of an authority figure still haunts me. But I’m thinking that it would be nice for someone to await my arrival. Not a voice on the other end of a wire. Not an e-mail or instant message. A real person!

Maybe I won’t see it as a noose around my neck, but rather as something liberating, the way I imagine that people must feel when they marry: finally, I won’t have to be so focussed on one thing (whether it’s finding new work or finding a mate), and I can think about everything else I want to do.

Of course, there are no guarantees — in work or in love — and maybe my feelings will change. Maybe I’ll take a job and promptly yearn to high-tail it out of town. But for now, I’m looking forward to sharpening my no. 2 pencils and shining my shoes and bidding “good day” to my doorman as I waltz to an office full of chattering people. I just hope my answering machine doesn’t miss me too much.