For those of you who are happy being completely alone....

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I have a few questions for those of you who are completely alone (no friends, family or significant other nearby)....

1). If you are able to tolerate being totally alone in the world, how do you cope with adversity?

(I've always felt that this would be the single biggest challenge to face if I end up completely alone - there would be no one to help with a problem or crisis, no one to talk to)

2). Do you alter your daily routine, so as to make being alone less painful?

(For example, it seems that living alone would be difficult, but even more so if one is out at night, seeing people together.... So have you used any strategies, such as restricting your hours outside to daytime only? )

3). Did your ability to cope with aloneness increase over time, or was there ever a period when you couldn't cope, but you were able to cope better over time? What coping skills did you use? Did it help...?

Anyone feel free to chime in, whether you are alone, not alone, coping well or not coping. I would just like some feedback on whether you've ever been totally alone and what happened!

P.S. I don't mean just periods where your family or significant other is "out" for the day and coming home later. Meaning, periods where you had not a soul to lean on for company or support nearby.

1). If you are able to tolerate being totally alone in the world, how do you cope with adversity?

I think of solutions to problems and implement them.

2). Do you alter your daily routine, so as to make being alone less painful?

It's not painful to be alone.

3). Did your ability to cope with aloneness increase over time, or was there ever a period when you couldn't cope, but you were able to cope better over time? What coping skills did you use? Did it help...?

It's natural to be alone, so there is no need to cope with anything unnatural.

Panic attacks and thoughts of suicide, mostly.



Sometimes I can't alter my routine even when I mean to. I tell myself I'm going to do things differently tomorrow, but then the day comes and goes and I did exactly the same things the same way I always do them. It's like 'Groundhog Day.'

In any case, it isn't being alone that is painful. I rather like being alone most of the time. It's being lonely that becomes a dull and painful ache.



There are okay days and horrible days, but no, it doesn't get any easier.

In fact, the longer I've been retired from working, the more isolated and cut off from human contact I feel. Have you seen the movie 'Gravity'? It's sort of like when those astronauts find themselves floating off into space, with nothing to cling to and no way to get back to anything solid. It feels like that, only it's internal.

I absolutely and totally enjoy my time alone.

Don't restrict my activities outside at all.

I worry about not having help when I need it, but I don't obsess over it because that will do no good.

Caveat - I work 40 hours a week and the rest of my time alone is after that. If I didn't work 40 hours a week (surrounded by people and stimuli) not sure how I would feel about being alone all the time.

1). If you are able to tolerate being totally alone in the world, how do you cope with adversity?
There were times in my years of loneliness when I was homeless. I depended on shelters, soup kitchens and public social outfits for help. I depend on DSHS now as I'm disabled.
Being alone is a drag because if I was to keel over right now no one would know for weeks or months.

2). Do you alter your daily routine, so as to make being alone less painful?
Curiously, I find the time to go out to restaurants like I've always done. I don't go to the fancy ones, just buffets and Chinese food joints. I don't go out to clubs. That's where the couples are. I've also cut down on going to the movies. It's been years.

3). Did your ability to cope with aloneness increase over time, or was there ever a period when you couldn't cope, but you were able to cope better over time? What coping skills did you use? Did it help...?
Yeah, there were periods when I couldn't cope. Drugs and alcohol became my best friends. It took me to places normal people should never see. But then again, I'm abnormal so maybe it was expected. I've learned to cope better over time. I'm not a falling down drunk anymore and I've quit the drugs altogether.

1). If you are able to tolerate being totally alone in the world, how do you cope with adversity?

I am pondering what to do if the worst happens and my body is left for weeks before anyone finds it. I have considered setting aside a fund and arranging my own funeral or making some kind of funeral request in a will which I could leave with a solicitor I suppose. There wont' be anyone to come to my funeral though, that's if there is a body left to bury.

In regards to other problems I rant, meltdown, get depressed, rant again and then find a working solution.

2). Do you alter your daily routine, so as to make being alone less painful?

I enjoy living alone...what I don't enjoy is never having anyone to share a little romance or intimacy with or never having any company at all. I may not always feel like socialising because it is tiring or I'd rather fart around on my own with my hobbies but I do start to feel like I am the last human alive when I see no one. I don't work either so, unless I go out to the gym or up to the coast, I am home alone every day with just the internet for companionship.

All the same I have very little desire to want to live with someone else. My routine is more likely to be changed by the presence of others. One of the joys of living by myself is that I can have my routine just as I like it. I consider that a bonus!

I have a lot of freedom.

3). Did your ability to cope with aloneness increase over time, or was there ever a period when you couldn't cope, but you were able to cope better over time? What coping skills did you use? Did it help...?


I have always enjoyed living alone and really have little desire to change that. I do get very lonely some days though, especially when I have not been out and have not had any real life contact with other human beings for a while. I do desire bonds in my life and I have none at this time. This again makes things feel very lonely, particular in regards to the lack of intimacy in my life. I especially yearn for a lover or life mate or even just a love affair. I am not asexual but do not like casual sexual encounters with random men. I have to have a degree of attachment to someone to enjoy intimacy with them.

AaAAAaAaUuUGgHh!! ! Isn't that the most maddening catch-22 in the universe?

Why do humans all seem to feel they must cohabit in order to have a healthy relationship? Seems to me the ideal marriage would involve a duplex, at the very least - or separate cottages along the same country lane. Now THAT would be romantic.

I will second the separate cottages up the same country lane. That would be perfect!

I enjoy being alone. The only time I feel 'lonely' is when I'm with other people, and it's painfully obvious that I don't belong. But on my own I'm generally very happy!

I am getting tired of people who project their own need for company on on every living being on the face of this earth.There are people who like to be alone. Whether you believe it or not, it is the truth. My problem is that I can't cope with the company of others for prolongued periods of time. I need to be alone for a fair amount of time because I go nuts if I don't. I would change from a relatively friendly person into a fury if I would have someone around me for 24 hours a day because that is just impossible for me. I can only speak for myself but I am tougher than people think. I have learned to cope on my own and am able to deal with good as well as bad times.

Being alone is not painfull to me at all, on the contrary. Do you want to know the absolute thruth?
I think that people who are unable to cope on their own are weak and I don't have a whole lot of respect for that. You have to be able to stand on your own two feet!

1). If you are able to tolerate being totally alone in the world, how do you cope with adversity?

Not a lot you can do about adversity. You either endure it, suffering alone, or....?
I guess I've never found an alternative.

2). Do you alter your daily routine, so as to make being alone less painful?

I don't think I'm as fixed in any daily routine as some are. How I do my little projects may be fixed, but my days I do whatever I want whenever I want. No fixed routine for the day as a whole.

3). Did your ability to cope with aloneness increase over time, or was there ever a period when you couldn't cope, but you were able to cope better over time? What coping skills did you use? Did it help...?

When I was younger I would cry myself to sleep most nights, as well as get drunk and rage at the world.
Then I fell into depression for 4 years until I finaly attempted suicide.
That snapped me out of it, and I decided the world can go f**k itsself. I determined to live for myself.
So I think the anser is NO. It didn't get easier to cope. But changing my focus did change my outlook.

I get tired of hateful people who feel compelled to spit their internal bile at others unsolicited, insist that they are completely detached from human feelings and emotions (as though that were a desirable quality) and pour scorn and derision on anyone not as impaired, by calling them weak.

I rather suspect that you have never felt loneliness as painful, because you haven't yet experienced true isolation for a long enough period of time yet.

Autism may make us content with our alienation for long periods, but the human brain is not made to withstand suspension in utter absence of all contact indefinitely and remain rational. We are not machines.

I agree. I don't like it when people project like that on other people and assume everyone is like them. I see people say that a lot about things like being social or being sexual, not realizing that some people are really not social and there are asexual people.

I'm not a social person. I literally never go out for the purpose of meeting new people and the only time I go out to socialize is for the week my friend from out of state visits and then only with them. I spend most of my time home alone or home with my mother because I live with her and she supports me. When she is gone I'll be spending almost all of my time alone.

I also don't like how no matter what you say it seems like people want to prove you wrong. When I mention not being social people try to argue that I socialize online. Then there are others where if they complained about my lack of socialization and I mentioned socializing online they would tell me that it's not real and doesn't count. Actually I don't socialize online much and have never used voice or video chats. I just post on message boards once in a while and occasionally talk to a friend in the mmorpg I play.

I dont know if I match for your answers, so I need to do daily work, when a minimum of socialization is forced on me, as well that I like seeing friends in a small group once every 1-2 weeks. I am as well in an partnership since some years, but liked being alone before, so after a few partnership experiences as a young teenager, I decided to skip that part and prefered to stay alone (until I found my partner some years later.) But in comparison to typical NTs I am told to be rather a loner, so I´ll answer your question.

I do not tolerate being alone, but for a certain amount of my time, I favor being on my own. That does not keep me from accepting, that right now, I am not alone in that world, and that in bad situations other can be of help for me, and mostly will do so, if I am willing to help them as well in bad situation. You dont need always to socialize to show your will to help others if they need it. So my neighbors know that I am not chatty, and that I avoid typical neighborhood invitations like the pest, but when it comes to stuff like "Bringing old neighbor xyz to the doctor on my work to work.", or doing some services for older people when the rest of their family is on holiday (carrying firewood inside and upstairs into the living room, shopping of heavy stuff, removing snow on their walkways before the house...), allowing them to enter my ground for certain garden work at their fences or to collect some fruits of my trees when they are full, ... borrowing my washing machine if theirs is broken, ... Everything of that is no problem with me. Just as in the opposite I was offered help, when my car would not start and so on. That I am not chatty and avoid unnecessary social situations, does not mean that I am antisocial and would denie others help, that they need. So in opposite I do receive help as well, when I am in an adversive situation.

Your question does not make sense. In the thread title you are refering to people that are happy being alone. When I am happy being alone, I dont need to alter anything to make being alone less painful, because if being alone makes me happy, then it hardly can be painful at the same time. Its as if you would ask, people that like to party, how they alter their routine to make party less painful for them. I simply did not feel it that way, when I was younger. I never thought so much if someone "must be done in groups or alone" as a younger one, and simply did not knew, that my behavior might have been strange to others. I went to cinema or events, when I was intersted in seeing a certain film or event. If people I knew mentioned, that they are anyway of going there as well, I understood that it was polite to go together, but it never came to my mind, that I "needed" other people to go to certain events or occasions, and it did not feel weird to me going there alone. - I do not understant your question, why should I restrict, when I go outside or not? If I want to see a certain concert, then I go there, when that concert is. Going there before or after the concert, does not make sense, because then I wont be seeing the concert?

I remember that around teenie time of 12-13, that it was pretty hard for me. Before that time, I may have been a bit inmature to my classmate and peers, but it was not that much of trouble. So normally before that age, when you meeted, you simply played games, and for that games, being a bit inmature did not really trouble that much. When my classmates got into puberty, then suddenly it slowly changed, they became less interested in playing stuff as board games and so on, being with "cool friends" (which I was not ^^) suddenly became important. I was not denied hanging out with my further friends, but because of their changing interests it simply became boring to me. So they only did stuff, that was weird or boring to me, and nobody wanted to do what I favored, simply playing games. I felt really sad about that and was as well a bit in an depression.

I finally accepted it the way it was, and focused on the stuff that I liked to do when I was alone (Lego, lots of reading, playing computer games, ...) As well that I joined certain groups that shared similar interests. When I accepted, that I lost connection with my further friends, I simply focused on finding people that share interests, so clubs that you meet one a week for certain times to spend together with your hobby and so on. Thats sufficient for me. More contact becomes burdening for me, and so I often denied certain invitations. So in "high school" I had really nice classmates, and if an event was done for the whole class, I was invited as well, but often denied, because of me prefering to do my interests on my own in my free time. I did not understand then, that this might have seemed rude to them, when I preferred playing videogames on my own, then going to a party of my classmates. XD

1). If you are able to tolerate being totally alone in the world, how do you cope with adversity?

I don't know if I could tolerate being totally alone, but I've coped with many things by accepting that I don't have someone readily available to help me do things, so I figure out how to manage on my own.

2). Do you alter your daily routine, so as to make being alone less painful?

I have a routine. I don't know why altering it would make anything less painful. I suppose if I was going places that reminded me of how alone I was, I'd consider going at a different time or to another place so that I'm not reminded of it.

3). Did your ability to cope with aloneness increase over time, or was there ever a period when you couldn't cope, but you were able to cope better over time? What coping skills did you use? Did it help...?

At some point I accepted that I will probably be alone for most all of my life. It was a sad thing to deal with, but the evidence was impossible to ignore. I don't know if I had a coping issue or not. Much of this happened over a period of years from grade school to post-college as I saw things didn't change over time.

There are always services to turn to for help. For a long time I had a close cousin living near me to help me out.
But 90% of the time I found a way on my own rather than asking him. That was always like a last resort, due to my desire to be as completely self sufficient as possible.



Not consciously. For me personally being by myself is not at all painful. If I had the choice of living with family members or a room mate or whoever - I would choose to live by myself. I don't hate people, I just enjoy being by myself. Seeing people together does not bother me, because when I am with a group, what I really want to do is get back home to be by myself, left to my own devices where I can do whatever I want to do.



I have always been geared towards being solitary, so there has never been any need to cope. I am extremely self sufficient. Right now I could easily move in with my favorite relatives and they would love to have me because I have always been so helpful to the family. But I prefer to live by myself and just visit. Everywhere I go and everything I do, I prefer to do it by myself. I'm okay being with others and even enjoy it from time to time. But I mainly like being by myself.