Do NTs get lonely to the same degree?

Post Reply New Topic

(Edit: mods, I didn't intend this to be dating specific, but if it belongs in another forum please move it. Thanks.)

I've often met people who claim to be very lonely, but becoming not lonely is never their highest priority. That is, given the chance of being with someone they like, but who is imperfect, they will not make much effort, but choose to stay with their existing circle of friends and wait for someone better.

Three times in my short dating career girls have told me they are desperately lonely and like me "a lot." I mentioned to an acquaintance that I was planning to move house to be with one of them. The acquaintance pointed out that, for pressing economic reasons, this is madness. I have a job and they do not, they can get a job here but I cannot get a job there, etc. But as far as I can tell, in no case would the girl consider moving.

Their behavior suggests that they are not lonely to the same degree. What do you think?

For a given amount of isolation, the average NT gets even lonelier as that's the mechanism that motivates them to socialize (And usually more than the average aspie).

In your particular case, if this person already has a "social circle", then she might not feel the compulsion to find companionship due to loneliness or, possibly, the reasoning she brought up is a smoke-screen as she doesn't really desire *you* that much. There could be other reasons.

Not desire me as much? Unpossible.

Seriously though, I suppose this could work against my thesis: perhaps they really are desperately lonely, and they are simply afraid of me being some weirdo who isolates or abandons them.

must confess I wonder whether I was ever lonely at all when I realise that I was always unwilling to move to the other end of the country to be with the lady I loved more than any other before or since. But there were complicating factors - parenting responsibilities and a strong premonition that the lady would have made my life a misery once she got me onto her home ground.

Hmmm.....
A twin study found evidence that genetics account for approximately half of the measurable differences in loneliness among adults, which was similar to the heritability estimates found previously in children. These genes operate in a similar manner in males and females. The study found no common environmental contributions to adult loneliness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loneliness

If it has a strong genetic component, then Aspies might have their own level of loneliness to deal with.

I don't know how they study such a subjective thing. It's obviously not simply physical isolation....more the emotional reaction to being cut off from love and friendship. With me it's only there if I don't feel I'm going to be with anybody for a long time.......so even if I'm supposed to meet somebody tomorrow, I still feel lonely now unless I really feel I can trust them to turn up. I suspect that NTs don't feel loneliness as intensely as we do because they're in a position to feel more confident about their social future - they know that if need be they can make new friends without much trouble. For us, it's probably quite common to feel that every partner will be the last one we get, and that the world tends not to be our oyster.

I think on average ASD/introverts/SAD/HSPs tend to get lonely for different reasons than NTs/extraverts. I think this paragraph describes it well:

Extraverts, with their need for sociability, appear to be energized, or "tuned up," by people. Talking to people, playing with people, and working with people is what charges their batteries. Extraverts experience loneliness when they are not in contact with people.

Introverts, too, are likely to experience a sense of loneliness-- when they are in a crowd! They are most "alone" when surrounded by people, especially strangers. When waiting in a crowded airport or trying to enjoy themselves at noisy cocktail parties, some introverts report experiencing a deep sense of isolation & disconnectedness.

The notion of anyone wanting or needing much solitude is viewed rather often as reflecting an unfriendly attitude. Solitary activities frequently are seen as ways to structure time until something better comes along, and this something better by definition involves interacting with people. As a consequence, introverts are often the ugly ducklings in a society where the majority enjoy sociability. Introverts have reported that they have gone through much of their lives believing that they ought to want more sociability, and because they do not, are indeed ugly ducklings who can never be swans. As a result, the introvert seldom provides adequately for his very legitimate desire for territoriality, for breathing room, without experiencing a vague feeling of guilt.

http://cleansince1988.blogspot.com/2010 ... ion-i.html

Yes, that is definitely my experience. I live in a rural area: around 30,000 people live within 100 miles. 15,000 are female, 3,000 are within a reasonable age range, and of them 300 are single and in the dating market. For an NT those are pretty good odds. For an aspie with other filters (I'm highly unusual in several ways) the number of people who could be happy with me is somewhere between 0 and 3, and they are probably hiding due to their own bad experience in the past. Those numbers are scary.

Introvert -versus extrovert seems to be more a function of being different. Most people would definitely class me as an introvert, but when the rules are clear (e.g. in theater, choir, a meeting, at work) I can excel. If I ever met a whole group of people like me I think I would soon learn the rules and be the life and soul of the party.

Similarly, if normal extroverts find themselves in a group of completely different people (imagine a party going schoolkid at a convention of theoretical physicists speaking a foreign language) they would soon feel uncomfortable and sit in the corner playing with their iPhone. I agree with Carl Jung and the Myers-Briggs people, everyone can be either an introvert or an extrovert, depending on the context and their experience.

Last edited by trappedinhell on 03 Jun 2011, 9:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

I hadn't thought of it that way. I always say I'm alone but not lonely but in a sense I do feel isolated in a crowd. Certainly I feel out of place.

In my experience, extraverts get bored even by the right one person. They tend to prefer roaming around and mixing in small-talk with many people. They don't like very long, deep conversations with one person. In fact, I find extraverts to be less sociable than introverts/Aspies when it comes to deep one-to-one conversations. They seem to get bored. The opposite of introverts/ASD who seem to prefer deeper conversations on similar interests with one or a few people they feel comfortable with.

That's an Aspie thing.......we're not exactly introverts, our behaviour often seems introverted, but the reasons for it can be rather different than for "real" introverts. Though Kon's post makes a good point. Society does insinuate that it's somehow vaguely evil to keep out of the crowd........I even saw a set of guidance notes for members of an Anarchist commune that said "...but if in your hatred of humanity you must be alone, then you can have that space" Rather a presumptuous statement, I thought.

Very insightful. I have definitely seen that: people who go from relationship to relationship, yet never know their significant other. I know a highly extrovert woman who texts constantly and dominates any situation, yet she won't let her husband - her HUSBAND (who adores her) - even live in the same house! My first intense girlfriend was a huge extrovert, yet she hated long emails - I felt like such a stranger to her (or worse, the little she wrote was all there was, perhaps there was no depth to be had).

What you say is spot on.