There is a vast difference between simply being alone, and truly experiencing solitude, which, given most monastic definitions, involves communion with God. Tony Jones, in his book 'The Sacred Way' quotes a blogger describing his retreat to a monastery, and his experience of silence.

There is something about solitude and silence, something that makes them both desirable
and awe-ful. I fear the silence. I fear that God won't speak. I fear what I may hear, or that I
may not hear.

He also quotes Foster: 'Simply to refrain from talking, without a heart listening to God, is not silence'.

Batter my heart, three person'd God, for You as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend...that I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
--John Donne

I think this is what Donne was driving at:

I have always been afraid of loving God because I feared His fearsome holiness might find me lacking. But for me, for all God-lovers, I know now that wildness comes to me as mercy. For me, His power is a fierce, earth-altering grace.

Neither can I expect Him to leave sin dormant in my heart. To love Him means the destruction of all that is wrong in me.
--the itinerant idealist