Anyone is alone 24/7 or nearly so?

Post Reply New Topic

Is it because you'd want to or due to circumstances? Can loneliness turn one insane?

I am alone a lot. My son lives with me but goes to school all week and spends one day of the weekend with his Dad. I do feel the need for alone time / quiet time everyday for a sigificant period of time but I am alone much more than I want to be. My difficulty is that I find it hard to make and maintain friendships. When I am friends with someone they seems to want to do things together and talk on the phone much more than me and they seems to enjoy being in another person's company for much longer than I can cope with. For me it's exhausting, for them it's fun.

I don't know if lonliness can turn a person insane. We are social animals though. If you look at other primates, they start to exhibit odd and unhealthy behaviours if kept in solitary confinement so I guess it's not good for them, and perhaps, by extension, not good for us.

If I'm not at work or my best friends house I am usually alone. I live with my brother but when he is not at school he is usually out with friends and doesn't come home til it's somewhat late. I dunno honestly, i enjoy my alone time but it can get lonely sometimes though i do find interacting with people at work extremely exhausting so getting home where it's nice,.quiet and empty is always a relief.

Honestly, if i were to acquire a girlfriend while having everything else stay the same, i'd be a content man. What i mostly yearn for is a romantic partner, having a large group of friends is irrelevant.

So yes I wouldn't say I'm "lonely" exactly.

I've been pretty isolated since the end of Autumn / start of Winter. I don't tend to go out during the Winter season, it can get pretty cold in Scotland, even down here in the Capital City of Edinburgh. Though I do get visitors, I tend not to do much visiting myself.

Technically, I live with another person, but given the nature of their mental condition, it pretty much feels like I'm living alone. It's a pretty big house too, with lots of rooms, which further intensifies the feeling loneliness. I try to find things to do to keep my mind busy, this Winter I'm focusing on improving my typing, a skill for which I am sorely lacking in. So far things are progressing slowly, but steady.

I'm alone for most of the time but I'm one of those people who actually thrive on that, rather than go insane, and I really mean that; it seems to actually be "good for me." My mental health improves when I don't have to deal directly with anyone. I'm perfectly happy when it so happens that my work week features none of my clients actually around and I can just get on with my job undhindered, and unstressed by awkward conversations with people whom I can't fully be myself around in order to preserve the professional distance. It's just better without contact.

Then I do go out into the world for shopping and for my particular hobby, and there are interactions, but I don't have actual friendships where I see someone deliberately and spend time with them, and I don't have a relationship, and I live alone -- and I really like it! I love living alone, I'm the boss of my own world once I close that front door.

At one period of time I had a long break from work while resettling location, and there were a couple of weeks at a time in which I didn't even leave my apartment. I loved it. I have had intensely socially-busy times in my life and managed to enjoy them, but they've also caused ALL of the fcked-up events and traumas in my life too.

Just because we are social animals as part of the ape family, doesn't mean certain individual outliers can't be healthy and happy naturally differing from the norm. Apes might suffer consequences of isolating from the group, and plenty of humans may too, but I believe some humans don't always.

It's having to deal with people that fcks me up, not being alone, which heals me.

I'm alone most of the time. I guess company would be nice, but since I'm resigned to a life of abject loneliness, I have to grin and bear it. Could be worse. I could be in Syria staring down ISIS right now.

I'd say I'm alone 99.9% of the time, usually due to circumstance, but also due to personal choice, I just prefer to be alone. And even when I am with others (such as when I was in school) I need at least three feet of personal space.

But I don't mind my circumstancial aloneness, it gives me time to write my stories.

_________________
Ya, I'm weird like that...