Enjoy being single?

Post Reply New Topic

My head will tell you that this life system is bogus.
That we were forcibly born kicking and skreaming into this less than friendly existence.
We had no choice.

As a consequence, we have no responsibility in fulfilling other people expectations.
Essentially, we are free agents once we become enlightened.

But there is a catch.
Our psychological and biological needs enslave us, as food and drink force us to act to satiate these needs.
In other words, life is a biatch and we are left holding the baby.

Most people struggle through, the best they can.
Welcome to the club.

You are missing formal logic and to a huge extent missing understanding what clinical depression is, you are confusing being upset for some objective reasons and being clinically depressed.

This is not how depression works. It's the other way around, when you are depressed, your brain will focus on being single and on belief that the reason is some innate inability on your part to attract a partner. If you are not single, you brain can just as easily focus on minor imperfections of your relationship, ruin it and make you single. Depression is one of major factors contributing to inability on your part to attract a partner or to maintain healthy relationship.

I'm pretty sure being upset for objective reasons can cause one to become clinically depressed. It can certainly cause people to become depressed. Are you asserting that clinical depression is only caused through chemical imbalances?


I'm sorry, but my lived experience contradicts what you're saying.

I've never had a relationship, and I'm quite distraught because of it.

However, there have been a handful of times where I met someone online who showed some degree of romantic interest in me. On the rare occasions where I've had a connection like this, even just having someone like that to talk to and flirt with made a world of difference to my emotional wellbeing.

If the depression had nothing to do with my romantic situation, I should be just as depressed with those sorts of connections as I am without them, but there's a marked difference.

Clinical depression as condition IS chemical imbalance. You are confusing things like major depressive disorder and condition. When someone is upset for objective reasons it leads to neglect of these basic needs, this neglect leads to condition. This is the only link between being upset and being depressed, there is no direct causation. What is known as "major depressive disorder" is just an umbrella diagnosis, huge ambiguous mess, which pretty much means "you get depressed on regular basis, but we have no idea why".

Just like dehydration, if you don't maintain liquid and electrolyte balance you become dehydrated. If you experience dehydration on regular basis because you forget to drink enough water, but doctors completely miss this link you get diagnosed with "major dehydration disorder".


Your subjective perception of your experience. What it really means is that you had remissions of your clinical depression, and that's why you were able to experience these connections.

Do you workout regularly?
Do you have enough direct sunlight every day?
Do you eat healthy food?
Do you regularly spend time just breathing fresh air, looking at trees, grass, water, animals?

If you make sure your answer to ALL these questions is a confident "yes" for like a week, you will notice two things:
a) you don't really give two s**ts about being single, it doesn't make you feel miserable anymore
b) those connections that make feel better magically happen much more often and almost effortlessly

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." -- Jane Austen, writing in Pride & Prejudice

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of an exact scientific language with a specific formal structure and signs that are governed by the rules of deductive logic." -- Corey Mohler, writing in Existential Comics

A bit of exercise doesn't have to take long, as badrobot said a 8-10 HIIT can be sufficient. I lost 17lbs (I'm now at 15%-16% body fat) just doing youtube videos and my only equipment was my yoga mat. The main point is to do exercise that is going to get your heart pumping and breathing hard for a bit. This is why just walking, even if it is a long distance may not be enough to deliver the benefit needed.

Is it not possible for you to do any of your school work outside(in shade if it's really that hot where you are)? Where getting outside for the sun and 'fresh air' is a good thing the main reason to get sunlight is for the vit. D. People who live in darker/cloudy places tend to have more trouble with being down and depressed because they are lacking D. You can always go to your doctor and have them check if you are getting enough of that. If not, there are D supplements you can take. If your D level is fine you don't need to stress about it too much. It's just that in general getting outside and connecting with natural elements are beneficial for mood elevation.


*noses her way in* Its kind of an assumption to say that TGI was in a remission and that is only reason he was able to find some connection. It is possible to gain bonds, and relationships while still in the midst of depression it's just much harder and the likelihood of the relationship being healthy is far in a way lower. My first relationship came about that way.

I also kind of think there is a piece missing from your list. Because I do disagree that doing the things you mentioned won't necessarily make it so someone no longer gives a s**t about being alone anymore. They work as the first steps, especially if the main goal is simply to banish the depression cloud to make you more appealing for someone to want to get to know. But those things alone and no feelings of human connection, for a lot of people is not going to be enough to keep them out of depression and stable. It does not have to be a romantic connection; friends, family, coworkers and or animals can assist. The connection piece is important for general happiness and well being for most people.

This is counterproductive advise. Vitamin D correlates with sun exposure, but also with consumption of fortified foods.
Human body also has melanocyte photosensory system and it needs sunlight to produce nitric oxide. Vitamin D supplementation will not cover these needs. Who knows what else we are missing. Human body needs direct sunlight PERIOD.



Ability to form a meaningful bond and enjoy it is a sign of remission. Your first relationship probably was a sign of remission as well. Just like optical illusions exist, we have cognitive illusions and biases. We can't help it. You can't "unfeel" that connecting with another human makes you feel better, but fundamentally this is a "symptom" of recovery, not the reason.



There is nothing to disagree about. You are mixing together very different things. Things in my list are what you need to have capacity to experience positive emotions, feelings. What you are talking about are these positive emotions. There are very simple and direct dependencies, e.g. your body can't produce oxytocin when you are deficient in Vitamin C.

I'm not gonna read all 4 pages of posts but I will say that I was VERY LONELY & HATED being single. I'm aLOT happier & more independent & capable having a serious romantic partner that I'm living with than I was when I was single. Even if I had the money & could afford my own place & to live by myself when I was single, I woulda taken in a woman who needed a place to stay instead of living by myself & being lonely. I have some mental issues including a delusional disorder that is alot better by being in a serious romantic relationship instead of being single. I'm very far from being perfect & I know that I never will be but I see alot of progress I've made by being in a serious romantic relationship.

When I was single I often heard that typical clueshay advice about needing to be independent & happy with myself before I could be happy with someone else & my experience is the exact opposite of that. When I was single I was trying to work on myself in various ways & I've made aLOT more progress in the almost 9 years I've been living with my girlfriend than I did in the 8 year stretch where I was single after my 1st relationship ended. I was working & employed for over 3 years of that stretch & I was a member of an offline support group during some of that time & saw a councilor for a little bit too during that time. I'm proof that the tired clueshay advice will NOT work for everyone. Us Aspies can be very different from normal people in lots of ways & thus the typical advice given to normal people may not be rite for us.

Yes me & my girlfriend do have LOTS of problems sometimes but we have the security of knowing that the other has our back & will be there.

Perhaps, for a pedestrian thinker.

You are yet another proof that putting effort into personal growth, independence and happiness leads to ability to start and maintain a long term relationship. But you make the same old tired mistake about cause and effect.

I agree that is very important but it is quite possible to do all that after you get a serious romantic relationship instead of before. I felt like I was running in place a lot when I was single. I have a big problem with the tired old self-help advice being pushed onto any frustrated & lonely single guy. The people pushing that make me imagine the old-time apothecarys going town to town selling snake-oil. Their miracle cures contained alcohol & mostly helped by getting their buyers tipsy. That self-help advice does not actually help you suddenly have a romantic relationship, it just distracts you from being lonely like how getting drunk helps you feel your physical pain less while doing nothing to address the underlying cause of the pain. Not everyone can apply that self-help advice. For example they often told me that I needed to be independent & get a job without telling me how to actually get a job. It's like they expected me to be able to just walk into any business & ask for an application & walk out there employed. When I tried to explain how their self-help advice was not really working for me, they got b!tchy & told me how I just needed to try harder. Trying does NOT guarantee success & telling somebody that BS comes off as extremely dismissive & makes the person feel blamed. I can understand not knowing what to suggest to help someone solve their issue or problem but it is possible to help the person feel better without that self-help BS by making the person feel heard & understood & tossing that self-help stuff out your a$$ does the exact opposite.

This is fallacy. Ability to have a serious romantic relationship means you are already above threshold, did a good job at imrovement. I agree that usual self-help "personal growth" or "learn to live with yourself" or "being content with what you have makes you happy" advice is BS. But it is just as misleading as belief that being in a relationship makes you happy directly. I will not repeat, it starts getting annoying, you can read my previous messages to see what I mean.

I understand that what I'm saying seems to clash with our deeply internalized notion of happiness and role of relationships, but please take your time to understand it. It might help you to improve your current relationship. We don't understand true nature of our emotions and when we act intuitively it's easy to neglect some of those fundamental needs, sometimes "for the sake" of relationship when we experience difficulties exactly because we already neglected some and it makes situation much worse.

And of course you are the one person who is perfectly objective and has biases of their own. Am I right?



Bullsh*t!

Yes, those things are all important. But they are not the only factors. The research you are pulling from took for granted the assumption that everyone has some level of family, social, and sexual connection in their lives and never is never deprived of any of those for any significant amount of time. Chronically lonely people are neglected by research, just like we're neglected in every other aspect of society, and as a result the research fails to acknowledge us. I can attest that I did in the past do everything on your list, and I have reliable documentation from medical professionals that it did not help. And no, all that will not make someone stop caring about being lonely. Anybody who has experienced true long term chronic loneliness knows that, but it is nearly impossible for anyone who hasn't to comprehend that.

I currently work in a severe-profound special education classroom. Working with the children takes my mind off of my
own problems and being around coworkers who are open and accepting of ND people makes my depression go away. I genuinely feel like a completely different person when I'm at work vs home alone. This demonstrates that it is social connection that does the most to combat depression.

Allow me to fix your list for you:

Do you have enough direct sunlight every day?
Do you eat healthy food?
Do you regularly spend time just breathing fresh air, looking at trees, grass, water, animals?
Do you have a good relationship with your family and a thriving social and sex life?

Are you able to think about the good times you have at your job while you're home alone, Dorkseid?

I can relate. Sometimes, I get pretty lonely. And I haven't been having great times at my jobs recently. I have mostly "first world" problems----but I still feel like crap sometimes, despite that fact.

I am fortunate that there's YouTube to distract me from what I'm feeling.

I repeat again.

Cause side, what you must cover to be 'happy':
- Do you workout regularly?
- Do you have enough direct sunlight every day?
- Do you eat healthy food?
- Do you regularly spend time just breathing fresh air, looking at trees, grass, water, animals?

Effect side, what you can enjoy when you are 'happy':
- Do you have a good relationship with your family?
- Do you have thriving social and sex life?

You can't have form a strong bond, experience good relationship if your brain can't synthesize at least oxytocin and serotonin when even one answer to questions in the first list is "no". This is not some self-help BS, this is a fact.

The longer you are refusing to accept objective facts, the longer you will suffer.

Professional environment is a very different mode of motivation, it gives you structure and very clear directions, removes decision making factor, you don't rely on ambiguity of inner motivation, a lot of depressed people manage better in professional environment. You can create this structure in your life, the best way is to stick with some activities that you make part of your daily routine, e.g. making sure your answer to all these questions is "yes" every day:
- Do you workout regularly?
- Do you have enough direct sunlight every day?
- Do you eat healthy food?
- Do you regularly spend time just breathing fresh air, looking at trees, grass, water, animals?