Romantic loneliness in men

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I think it would mine too. At least I'd be able to enjoy my life free of judgment and not have to care about how much I make or what I do for a living and actually enjoy helping people at my job.

i have to post without quote here, since this has evolved from AS male loneliness to "in sickness and in health."

The last 8 or 25 years have been that way for me, depending on where you want to start. 25 years ago, my wife (who is severely NT) and I decided to raise our special needs granddaughter. 8 years ago, my wife fell and broke her femur and has been in a wheelchair since then. This has brought up some interesting situations:

I do my best in critical situations, and my worst in everyday situations, with my wife's health problems. In a crisis I'm perfectly calm, but I panic when dealing with chronic non-life threatening problems. They just wear me down to where I can't handle something like an abrasion that won't heal, whereas I can coordinate perfectly calling 911 and calming her down during a severe asthma attack. Blood, bedpans, and smells - seen it all, done it all, kept my dinner down every time.

I can talk her through severe depression over her health, but can't talk myself through the same degree of depression.

Raising a special needs granddaughter and being a caregiver are things I am not, by either upbringing or AS, cut out for - yet I've done a better than average job. I feel there has to be a little help from a higher power here, since I'm the least likely person to be able to even tolerate it.

We have been married for 33 years and known each other for 35. It hasn't always been easy, but we've been known to drop our worst arguments instantaneously when one of us has had a medical problem. We survived my wife being in a nursing home for a year with the broken femur while I had my hours at work cut 33% when being sole caregiver of an out-of-control grandkid. I'm one of those stubborn AS types who sticks with things too long, and my wife is one of those stubborn NT types who believes that every situation can be fixed with enough love.

As for the loneliness aspect, I was once a dateless 19 year old facing the usual scenario, and this was before AS was a diagnosis. (In the words of my mom, I was just a normal kid who read newspapers at age 4.) I blamed my situation on everyone else, especially women. Women were too picky, had unreasonable expectations, were too materialistic, and so on. And it was true - the women I was meeting were extremes of these attributes. What we all lose sight of is that these women are like the newspaper headlines. Nobody prints "Husband and wife have been in good marriage for five years; Bright Future Ahead." You personally only get the bad stuff, the highlights (lowlights?) until you do meet someone who has compassion, honesty, patience, and all the qualities an AS person needs in a partner. Then you realize that they have been out there all along, and you've been focusing on the wrong thing, and the world isn't against you. It's a big step in growth, and one I hope that everyone with AS can reach.

Thank you for taking the time to post your story.

I'm a bit different in that respect. I wish I felt a bit more loneliness. As I can be complacent.

When I didn't have friends. I craved what I didn't have, as I felt I was missing out. It turn out I was (but I didn't understand why the time), but I'm not sure this feeling was loneliness.

Although i don't want a conventional relationship (marriage, kids). I do think that some relationship, albeit heavily based on mutual independence, would be beneficial.

I get the frustration that some of these men are going through.

I do point out though that resentment is mostly wasted energy.

We all have personal choice, we are all picky to some degree.

I also try an point out the mathematics of pairing, doesn't match common perceptions. Much of the assumptions of paring don't actually much sense mathematically.

There was a very interesting episode of Numberphile, based on a 1960s theoretical exercise. I plan to post it shortly so don't want to say to much, but is very interesting.

Assumed it's a he because the thread is about lonely men.

So see...you are a live proof that love can cure a certain type of depression - if the depression was mainly caused by loneliness or lack of love.

I WIN.

That's not exactly surprising. If people were happier alone they would have no reason to enter any relationships.

I was lonely until I learned how to appreciate the reflection in the mirror.

I've come to some level of acceptance that it is pointless to put all your desires into having a relationship when you are not at all equipped to start one because people are right that it is a two way street and I just don't see myself bringing much to the table with all my own issues. You have a desire for a companion, I'm very much a dependent person(much to my chagrin) and short of transferring that over to someone else I don't think it could work without significant improvements to myself which is what I've been trying to do for some years now but it is long slow and uneven process. A lot of times it feels like one step forward two steps back where I bite off more than I can chew and then have some sort of meltdown/shutdown.

The autism is one thing but there is a significant and maybe more debilitating anxiety and panic disorder that has arisen on top of it, a lot from real life experiences and trauma so it's not like it is totally irrational so paranoia and trust issues are all consuming. You want the emotional support, someone that you can talk to and confide in, my mother has been a strong woman dealing with all her messed up children and I'm just the first one and as a 24 year old I really should be able to function in the world and do the things that I need to do but it's just a daily struggle. I think I'm capable of returning love and support, I don't think I am so rigid in my ways and interests, it's really just cluelessness that I can't describe and anxiety/paranoia/trust issues that are my main barriers. It's frustrating, very depressing, I definitely can see how people can become bitter but I hate myself too much for that. Life is just boring and it gets hard depending on only yourself. It's whatever, you go on existing until you don't one way or another so hopefully it gets better before I don't. I'm just trying to get my s**t straight.

I've come to the conclusion that the people i'm compatible with, are all outside of my existential envelope.

Unfortunately, after today, I wish there was a way to delete it. Such is life with someone who is severely NT.

My depression is caused by lack of love and loneliness. Yes it is true. Getting a girlfriend will get me out of depression. Its not a typical normal depression of the life. Its about compassion, love and connection.

It summed up something I learned the hard way, that compassion honesty and patience are the attributes to look out for in a potential partner, not the other 'looks good' stuff.
It would be a pity to lose your words, but maybe contact a mod to see if they could accommodate a request to delete it.

Any loneliness I feel now pales in comparison to how lonely and inadequate I felt with the wrong person.
Forgiving myself for who I am was taking a step away from self hatred, yeah when I need to do something and my brain wont cooperate I sometimes fall back into the habit of negative self talk, but where did the habitual ways of thinking come from? Not from me, it comes from a few decades of being around people who communicated that I will not find acceptance from them.

Loneliness takes on different forms, and self acceptance is a daily habit, but maybe having even one person in your life regularly say that you are fine the way you are helps to balance out all the other times you were told otherwise. I think that's why self help advice can work for people who have not had extreme experiences, for everyone else it might be too large a task to undertake without outside help.

Is loneliness the same as feeling isolated?

It is a form of sadness related to isolation?

Or is it more the frustrations due to expectations placed on people?

I got locked out recently, I feel pretty isolated, becuase the one person who was in town that had my spare key went to a concert. It was like being a drifter for a while. After getting kicked out of shops due to Sunday early closing, I had to sit in the park.

It did make be think of the downsides of needing to be so independent, and not liking networking enough depend on more people for stuff like this.

I personally have no problem being alone in my own space, most of the time. It is the rest of the time. Also I'm probably a bit more content becuase I figured out how to fit friendship around this unconventional lifestyle. Now i have to find someone similar to me, for a lower dependency relationship.

A very famous expression of male loneliness and loss is this sonnet by John Milton, about his late wife who died in childbirth. When this sonnet was written, Milton had become totally blind. The idea of the poem is that in the day, when the world is bright, everything for him is darkness. But at night, in the darkness, while he sleeps he can see his wife again as though it were day.

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.