Resigned to Loneliness

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01 Mar 2011, 6:59 am

Most people are not worth knowing anyways.

I've recently realised I have tried to connect as a friend with people who value things like sycophancy, dishonesty, position and power, whereas I value honesty, intelligence(not always academic!!) and kindness.

What a waste of time, being nice to those bastards and b*****s.

Their priorities lie with position and power, and hence as such, aspies have nothing to offer them to attain these ends

Natty_Boh
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01 Mar 2011, 8:03 am

Count me as another of the "alone but not lonely" crowd. In my teen and college years, it would bother me that I was always the one to invite friends; rarely was I the one invited. (My 16th birthday party still stings - everybody clustered around our Super Nintendo and totally forgot that I was even there.) It's my conclusion that it can be a strength, though - it leaves me able to organize and arrange events without needing to place myself at the center or be noticed at all. So long as I have somebody to point me towards things that 'normal' people are interested in doing, I don't mind being the gal behind the curtain; and it's good to see others interacting and forming their 'normal' connections.

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whatamess
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01 Mar 2011, 8:00 pm

I understand. I feel the same. I have been so nice to so many...ie. I let people borrow things, I give things away that I no longer need if they want it, I've had many parties and everyone shows up (of course, I am very giving and ensure everyone's favorite food & drink is served), etc...and you know, I am sick of people by now. People are nice to me when they need something, then when they don't, it's like I don't exist. I'm worn out and sick and tired of it.

I do NOT think there is something wrong with us...I believe that most people are selfish, period. Unless they can take advantage of you, they don't reciprocate the friendship. Period.

I have to say I have about 3 friends that I've known for a long time that are always there for me and me for them. I believe though, the more I learn about autism, that they are somewhat autistic and that's why we get along so well.

Surfman
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01 Mar 2011, 11:18 pm

whatamess wrote:

Yup. I'm newly diagnosed at 47 yrs old, and most/all of my good friendships and lovers are/were with spectrum disorder others.

Cows and horses dont like sharing the same paddock.

anbuend
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02 Mar 2011, 12:31 am

Yeah when I finally made a few genuine friends they were all neuro-atypical in some way.

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DandelionFireworks
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02 Mar 2011, 9:59 pm

anbuend wrote:

I think it's possible to learn not to be lonely even if you are resigned to aloneness. Loneliness seems at its root to come from being cut off from the world in some way. It's hard to explain. It's the reason a person can be "lonely in a crowd" and another person can be happy even with no friends. It's not just some fixed value (the way people talk about introversion and extroversion can make it sound like that though). But when you develop a genuine, solid connection to the most important parts of the world around you, it's much harder to be lonely even if you're alone.

I started off incapable of loneliness, then as I got cut off from certain things I became more capable of loneliness even if I had friends (real or fake, either way). I ended up developing more and more connection to those parts of the world that are most important to me. Now, the only times I get lonely are when something's physically wrong with my body and it's throwing my mind out of whack.

The only problem in all this is to explain what those connections are, and what they are to. I can't do that. Don't know how. But I do know that this completely solved my loneliness problem regardless of presence or absence of other people. I hope this doesn't sound like I'm saying it's easy. It's not easy. And for some people (if they can't figure out where the connections are that they need to make) it may not be possible. But for me, it's been worth the struggle of at least trying.

I was actually trying to write something that I think is another way of describing this, possibly more useful, but...

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03 Mar 2011, 3:17 am

i learnt to see the advantages of being invisible and unwanted. there are many.

RayErnest
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03 Mar 2011, 4:07 am

Loneliness is not bad. It's a good thing. It's a trait that should be admired. I just don't think it should be called loneliness. Loneliness tends to be a word that has a depressive connotation to it. Loneliness tends to infer that one is sad about being by himself.

I operate better by myself. I operate better in a dimly-lit room with no sound sources and no people around. That's what I needed to study for school. I can function in many conditions, but I can't think properly with a lot of extraneous input. I have learned to live alone.

I don't believe that I have the capacity to feel lonely. I have a few friends whom I hang around with at times these days. Whether they tend to remain friends or not doesn't really matter much to me. They approached me. And we clicked.

If someone approaches me, I rarely will say no unless there is a dire need to do so. If they have similar interests, I may get involved. If they decide to remain close to me is a decision I simply let them handle. Even close friends with good intentions can feel overwhelming to me.

As long as I have a laptop computer and a place to live, then there is not much of a need to care about anything else. I can indulge in deep and personal interests, and that's simply all it takes for me to survive. I wonder about getting old, though? That's a bit frightening.

auntblabby
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03 Mar 2011, 5:18 am

RayErnest wrote:

I wonder about getting old, though? That's a bit frightening.

stroke, heart attack, and home invasion lethal violence, are the trio of [generally] un-detected terminators for the hermit. out in the sticks where i live, the local birdcage liner occasionally has an obit blurb about a loner found decomposed in his/her tin can or under a country bridge, with no survivors to claim the remains. a major occupational hazard of the hermit, for sure.
btw, welcome to WP

ToughDiamond
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03 Mar 2011, 5:35 am

RayErnest wrote:

I agree it's not necessarily a bad thing......like any other form of pain, it has a purpose (to tell you to get the problem sorted out). Only trouble is unrequieted loneliness, i.e. when you get the pain but can't do anything to fix it. Even that's not as bad as it looks, because there are always people who you could make friends with, at least in theory, if you just look around and make enough effort. Of course if you can make yourself comfortably numb to the social drive, that'll work, as long as you're not just repressing the pain.

auntblabby
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03 Mar 2011, 6:00 am

ToughDiamond wrote:

there are always people who you could make friends with, at least in theory, if you just look around and make enough effort.

effort/willpower is not enough for some folk, for whom the cognitive works are like an engine with no transmission, or a car with no steering or brakes. no amount of effort worked for me, it just dug me deeper into the hole.

ToughDiamond
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03 Mar 2011, 6:16 am

auntblabby wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

there are always people who you could make friends with, at least in theory, if you just look around and make enough effort.

Yes that's why I said "at least in theory." I suppose I do OK socially, at least superficially everything looks allright, but I'm nowhere near to being as close to others as I've always wanted to be. Still, the potential is always there. Interpersonal skills can always be sharpened, we can always learn from our mistakes. I wouldn't want to live without the hope of doing better socially.

auntblabby
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03 Mar 2011, 6:34 am

ToughDiamond wrote:

then consider my jejune reply as an object lesson, i.e., you can see how somebody like me, due to defects in cognitive processing in general, would be considered off-putting and would generally be avoided or attacked because my rashness/obtuseness would be interpreted as impertinence or hostility.

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03 Mar 2011, 6:49 am

MotherKnowsBest wrote:

I have finally come to the realisation that most people just don't like me. I also now see that perpetually trying to make friends ultimately leads to me being hurt. Therefore I have become resigned to loneliness and no longer try.

When I mentioned this to my doctor he immediately said that he thought I had depression and that I needed anti-depressants. But the thing is, I don't feel depressed. Yeah, I feel sad about it but I haven't come to this reality through mental illness. I come to this reality because it's true.

It may well be true that I'm a lovely person but that doesn't change the fact that others don't like me. I am sick of people invalidating that truth. Do you know what I mean? When others say that it's not true, lots of people like you, you just need to get out more, try harder, relax a bit blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

I'm guessing that Wrong Planet is the one place where others will know exactly what I'm talking about. Correct?

Im quite an unlikeable person, or an aquired taste. I prefer the last 5 years to not try to make friends as its more enjoyable to be on my own than to cope with people. I dont like how critical people can be, and how they want to change me. I made myself so miserable in my youth trying hard to make people like me when they couldnt and just ended up belittleing me and being mean to me (as they didnt want me around). I dont think I have what its takes to do friendship, I have not got what people need and Im too annoying. People often think they will like me when they first meet me, but never when they get to know me. I think one needs to go through a greiveing period and then have acceptance and feel ok about it.

ToughDiamond
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03 Mar 2011, 6:50 am

auntblabby wrote:

ToughDiamond wrote:

There's got to be people out there who appreciate the upside of bluntness (otherwise known as honesty).....and you could maybe learn to temper it - it probably can't be eradicated, but if you see it as your main social stumbling block, it ought to be at least possible to file off the sharpest edges.

auntblabby
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03 Mar 2011, 7:00 am

lotusblossom wrote:

People often think they will like me when they first meet me, but never when they get to know me. I think one needs to go through a greiveing period and then have acceptance and feel ok about it.

isn't it unfortunate that all the right people live in all the wrong places?

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