Accepting Isolation

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I much prefer being alone to being with people, even people I know. Even my husband sometimes.

You have my sympathy - the difficulty of finding or ever having a girlfriend. Luckily one 'fell from the sky' for me thirty years ago, just as I was being chucked out of digs (lodgings) a year after being chucked out of the house where my Dad died. At my lowest point i had found help. Were still together and she is quite like me in some ways - different in others tho not too irritating. I have to be self employed as I cannot work among others and never in twenty five years even when money and overdraft are stretched has she ever criticised, found fault with or needled me to find paid employment.

Finding girlfriends / friends I suppose its all to do with going out at night. Luckily I had moved town to go into digs so could feel 'freer' and not constrained by all the crap and embarressment and difficulties of the old me that existed at school. My Dad was a poor social role model, very much a village boy with so limited horizons. Yet I owe him a lot, I have inherited his talents and importantly he imbued in me an ability to work. So by standing on his shoulders I have been able to see further - to paraphrase Newton. I suppose I was very lucky.

All i can suggest is circulate, hopefully others here know more than I do to help you.

Lamentations, lamentations!

This is such a difficult topic. Solitude can be a solice, a heady intoxicant. But at other times it can bring you down, you lose touch with people and their ways, making interactions perplexing. It's such a paradox, you want to, but not in a way that they do it in NT ineractions.

Personally I want to make contact, though in certain doses and with maybe one person. To offload yourself with someone else. But groups overwhelm me, I find it difficult to ineract with them and lose interest quick.

It is difficult to find a friend who just wants to do that, to be in fellowship, listen and mutually share experiences.

I nearly always feel I am being persecuted when in a group. Aha - that to me is a new insight. Hence the hell of school and why I will never seek out anything 'group'.

I lose energy quickly when i have to interact with groups, and need alone time to recover and recharge. That said, I feel lonely a lot of the time, living alone.

When I was at or near college, it was easier to meet up with people when I wanted to. I moved recently, to a much nicer place, but further away from college and people I know. I seldom have visitors.

I am slowly increasing my range of activities and hence the network of people I know.

I usually prefer to be alone because then there's nobody to judge or put pressure on me. I consider my best "friends" to be my cats and dog because they don't really care about how I act as long as I pay attention to them. They also don't do anything to intentionally get me mad or try to help when I'm upset, but just make things worse like some people do.

I understand how you feel. Sometimes I will lay down on the ground, and for no particular reason, my dog will come down and rest his chin on my leg, and we will just lay there for a while. These have indeed been the most magical of times. No one is nagging or complaining, and we just have an understanding of each other.

Well, if you're still down in London then I'd be happy to meet up with you. It's funny how I've just seen this thread and posted my own version: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt142969.html

I've basically come to the same conclusion that socialising doesn't do that much for me.

It's best not to feel the pressure or obligation to have lots of friends and engage in lots of social activities just coz other people (mostly NTs) around you do so.

Try to stay within your comfort zone, and if you want to be more social than you're comfortable with, then you can venture outside your zone a bit, but not too much to the extent that you get burnt out.

If you're a young adult and you're on Facebook, often you'll see lots of people looking really happy in the photos that they took of themselves while going out. Just ignore it. They're putting up an image to make themselves look really sociable and that they go out a lot.

But ask this: If they had so much time to go out and do stuff with friends, do you think they'd have the time to upload all those photos?

I actually enjoy doing many things on my own, and I don't have a great desire for constantly going out with people, probably once a fortnight at the very most. I have more time to do what I want, and I don't get overloaded. Plus, I don't irritate them much, and vice versa.

An advantage of introvertedness or social isolation is that you have more time to have insightful thoughts, with less pressure to conform to others, ie more originality.

I've just read your post on this thread and on mine and I agree with what you say. I needed the confirmation, thank you.

This question has probably been answered many times before...but is it that NTs are too scared to ask deeper questions, or that they're not wired to? If it's already been answered on a thread, please post it to me.

Vast majority of NTs are NOT wired to ask deeper questions. It's only when they take drugs like Cannabis and LSD, in which their minds get altered, away from the distractions of superficial reality, in which they think about deeper stuff about the meaning of life, and why things are the way they are, questioning. Or if they acquire a disability or disease later in life like Cancer, because then they realize that society's expectations (as perpetuated by NTs) is very much a load of BS. Many NTs lead superficial and materialistic lives, with desire for instant gratification because they get pleasure quite easily due to their neurological wiring. Unfortunately, NTs are the majority of the people in the world, and it'll always be like this. Sometimes I wish that a Great Depression will occur again so some NTs will get to their senses and be more practical.

Aspies on the other hand are wired to make it hard for them to be happy easily. That's why they have a few special interests that they focus on, to gradually build up their happiness. Because they're in the minority as well, it's hard for them to find like minded people who they can get along with socially, so they have fewer friends than NTs and feel more isolated.

So really you mean that NTs ARE wired to ask deeper questions, but only (when without drugs) when they're faced with something that forces them to challenge what they think about life i.e. death...and if they're already happy, they don't feel the need to ask deeper questions about why they exist etc. like aspies do.

I thought aspies had special interests because they need something factual and predictable, and as an escape outlet.

I think that your right about NT's being happy very easily most of the time. I don't seem to take away the same amount of joy that my friends do. Maybe this is why Aspies tend to self medicate? When I was in High school I quickly turned into an alcoholic (I no longer even enjoy drinking). It seemed like I was hardly ever happy and I just thought I was depressed, but I think it was just that I saw everyone around me having fun and always smiling and I wondered why I was the way I was.

I find myself fighting between two points. Where I love being isolated, I love being alone by myself. Actually I find myself more and more secluded. And more and more repulsed by the idea of having people around me. However, then there is a part of me that still fights and tries to find a little bit of something that is normal. That is less isolated. It feels nice to know people notice now and then, but I like the confinements of my own room more than being out.
Yet, I fight all the time between the love of being alone and the depression of being alone.

I'm having a hard time with my isolation lately. I'm fighting my usual habit of feeling sorry for myself because in reality, my life is better now than it has probably ever been. Healthier, that's for sure.
I notice that the more time I spend alone, the more I can get done and organize myself more efficiently.
I miss people, but I notice that when I interact with old friends- which are more like aquaintances at this point, I'm more awkward, more detached, and less connected to them. I'm bored of them and their conversation. I still feel that urge to connect. I just don't know where to find people to connect with.

Last edited by leozelig on 19 Nov 2010, 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

im in a weird borderline in between wanting to be around my friends and people but at the same time wanting to be alone. When i'm around people or even my friends too long I feel like my space is being violated and wish to get away....but once Im alone for a while I long for other people.

The best set up for me is when other people are in close proximity but not interacting with me, leaving me to do my own thing. In my room, with my family members around the house doing stuff or at work where I'm left to deal with customers while my co-workers do their respective jobs. I hate having to rely on other people