photo credit: Mountain/Ash

They may not talk about it much, but deep down, every entrepreneur, freelancer and consultant confronts it at some point: loneliness.

When you’re out on the road speaking, or writing code from the confines of your home office, or slaving away with earphones in at the coffee shop, you can’t deny the fact that you’re isolated. You’re making it on your own, and as great as that is, part of you kind of craves human interaction other than the kind that comes from communicating with a client or speaking to a room full of accountants.

Corporate America with its miles of cube farms isn’t necessarily the antidote to this disease. You can feel just as isolated in a room full of 250 peers with similar name badges as you do by yourself on your sofa. So it’s not just that you want people around, it’s that you want the right kind of people around.

You want friendly water cooler banter. You want the practical joke or the staff birthday to celebrate. You want the brainstorming session, the creativity maelstrom or the high-level meeting where the real decisions get made.

Is there a way to take the good without the bad? Or are you just left with the facts of the corporate or the entrepreneurial life when it comes to finding community during your day job?

One concept that has taken root in many cities is that of coworking, where entrepreneurs and visionaries find refuge, solace and community under one roof. But is it a perfect solution? Or should someone who wants regular interaction and even friendship start applying for jobs at larger companies?

Tell us: what’s been your experience with coworking? Anyone out there been a part of one? Or, how do you make friends and influence people as an entrepreneur? Or as someone who’s part of a larger company?

Image credit: MikeSchinkel, via flickr

Over at WebWorkerDaily, there’s an interview with Stephanie Booth, the founder of Eclau coworking space in Lausanne, Switzerland. Coworking seems to be getting a fair share of attention lately, and for good reason: it appears to be a great way for people seeking largely non-traditional work arrangements to have at least some of the advantages of a traditional workspace:

Comparing life at eclau with my years as an employee in a big company, where we also had an open office, I find that coworking brings out the advantages of sharing a space with “colleagues” like having people available to bounce ideas off, company for lunch or sometimes breakfast, without having the disadvantages like not being able to go to lunch without “talking work”, bosses, and people you need to get back to when you go for coffee break.

What are your experiences with coworking? Is it something you’d like to try? Something you have tried? Let us know in the comments.