How Do You Feel About Being Alone?

[Ezra]

If you are alone most of the time, how do you feel about it? Love it? Hate it?

I prefer solitude most of the time.

 

[Kalinychta]

I love it. I can’t have it any other way.

 

[Misery]

I'm fine with immediate family members, so long as they stay out of my way much of the time.

Though, every now and then I'll somehow meet someone that manages to not be a walking slime bubble, but this is exceptionally rare, and even then, I definitely limit contact. Even people that dont suck still seem to usually have brain-meltingly boring interests, and want small talk and such, so.... very limited patience for that. Beyond that though...

Overall I dont see the appeal of socializing or any of that nonsense. Trying to argue the finer points of quantum physics with a dead houseplant would be more productive.

 

[NothingToSeeHere]

I'm an introvert, I enjoy solitude and need a fair amount of it to function. I enjoy spending time with friends and family but need alone time afterwards to re-charge.

 

[Ezra]

I have a very small social appetite. I like being around others. But after a while I have had my fill and want to go back to being by myself.

 

[Progster]

I like my own company. When I'm around people I always feel a bit uneasy, I can't really relax, but when I'm alone, I can. I do socialise sometimes and it's ok for an hour or so, then I tend to get bored, switch off and withdraw into myself. Groups are not my thing, one to one is ok. I'm not much of a talker though, and find it hard to make conversation. I don't talk much if I'm with other people.

 

[Ezra]

I like hanging out with my cousin and his friends. I am the "Silent Bob" of the group. He usually takes me home early and then goes back, or someone else picks me up when I have had enough. This takes place only a couple of times a month at most. Except during the stay at home situation.

 

[AprilR]

As long as i have 1-2 people i can rely on i don't mind being alone. Although if i am alone for so long i start to get anxious and scared.

 

[Ezra]

I don't like being totally alone. Just alone in my room.

 

[Karamazov]

I do prefer to be just left to my own devices: it’s so much easier!
However, it also turns out I need pressure from outside to actually do anything that’s in my own best interests (like, work, wash, eat something that isn’t pasta & pesto... so on and so forth).

I did live completely on my own for a year: it was lovely in a way, and definitely what I needed at the time (I’d spent the previous six months living at my grandparents after ~seven years of house shares)... but I didn’t really get anything done apart from a lot of commercially non-viable drawings and reading a lot of books.

So, yeah: I’m best living with someone else who generally leaves me alone, and working self-employed on my own for customers who tell me what they want accomplished and then vanish until pay time arrives.

 

[George Newman]

Choosing to be alone is easy for me.

Actually being alone is less complicated. I find that my day to day life is better for me to manage.

Choosing to limit relationships, friendships, and socialization reduces the anxiety that the management of such things bring. I live this life, day to day.

On the other hand ..... down deep inside I can’t help but think that by choosing to be alone that I am missing a component of who I am. A better way of saying, I can’t help thinking that I may be side-stepping a piece of life that is valuable and enriching by not interacting with others.

These social interactions are exhausting to me and to others as I have read many posts here at Autismforums.com on the subject. The mere surface management of work interactions cause a deep emotional drain on me.

Then again, I find myself driving to the grocery store to simply push a cart and be near other people at times. I certainly don’t strike up conversations, but I do seem to be feeding a need and can’t help feeling like I may be short-changing myself in this life and potentially denying others the experience of knowing me.

Sometimes I step aside and evaluate my current life situation. I mean really take a deep honest look and in some instances; in some situations, am I fantastically selfish with who I am and what I might have to give others.

Certainly we all have qualities that would be beneficial to someone, yes?

In my desire to live a less complicated life do I deny others and myself by not trying to be a friend to someone?

Maybe it’s a balance between the challenge that I feel by being accessible to others and the rewards of being caring, kind, and understanding to a friend?

Being alone? Ezra, I guess for me I love it and hate it.

 

[Moonhart44]

i dont like being alone. i wish i had one partner in crime who was always with me. i wouldnt care if it was a significant other or a friend at this point. problem is, interacting with so many self serving people makes you not want to go out and look for that person, if that person even exists.

 

[menander]

I do prefer to be just left to my own devices: it’s so much easier!
However, it also turns out I need pressure from outside to actually do anything that’s in my own best interests (like, work, wash, eat something that isn’t pasta & pesto... so on and so forth).

I did live completely on my own for a year: it was lovely in a way, and definitely what I needed at the time (I’d spent the previous six months living at my grandparents after ~seven years of house shares)... but I didn’t really get anything done apart from a lot of commercially non-viable drawings and reading a lot of books.

So, yeah: I’m best living with someone else who generally leaves me alone, and working self-employed on my own for customers who tell me what they want accomplished and then vanish until pay time arrives.

This hits many truths. Even if we like to be alone, it can take a toll. I do need to be alone to manage my disalibity because it's bad. But I wish someone would acept it, which they can't. So it's hard

 

[Raggamuffin]

I have a good balance between time around people and time on my own. Unfortunately, at work I sometimes wish I was alone, as most office conversations distracts or upsets me. Still, I think if I worked alone I would miss the company of others. In previous workplaces there were usually several people I got on well with. This made a big difference to improving my mood. Some of my best friends have been people I worked with. Right now, I don't have anyone I get on with, so my mood is bad at work. I feel incredibly lonely and it's hard to stomach.

At home, my partner often has days off which don't match up with mine. So I get quite a lot of time to myself. Whilst we enjoy the time off we get together, I also enjoy the time I get by myself. She has quite a few social events, some of which occur at ours. It can be a mixed bag, I'm either quite chatty or I'm sat in silence all evening staring off into space. After any social event I feel a real need to get alone time to be able to de-stress and calm down. It's overstimulating being around people - too many variables.

Before we dated I wasn't in a good place, and personally I think I may not be in a great place if I was single. Too much time in your own company can be bad - without someone there to help keep things more in check, I think it could possibly have me regressing back to high anxiety and difficulty going outside the house. Maybe even reverting back to substances too. I think it's because when I'm in my own company there's no self control. When my partner isn't home I don't tend to eat properly, I eat junk food, cakes, biscuits etc. If I was single - I think it'd revert back to how I used to be: eating all the above nonsense daily whilst also boozing and getting stoned all the time - terrible mix. Comfort eating foods that make my body uncomfortable.

I think my private life is the best it's ever been. I've been making good progress in sobriety, exercise and other areas. But at work, I think this is one of the least appealing places I've been, and it's having a stark effect on my mood - especially as I'm having to deal with all these issues sober now, so I feel like I'm carrying a large amount of emotional baggage each day. There's days where I simply can't focus for most of the day, other times I'm highly focused on what needs to be done, but it doesn't take long before I burnt out.

Every lunch break I get out of the office as quick as I can to walk around the woods and be away from people. Whenever I see people in the woods, I tend to feel a little tense. I often smile at them when they walk past, but I'd prefer to be secluded when I'm on my lunch break. Time to myself to help me unwind a little. I just feel so tense each day in the office.

Honestly though, my mood around people who aren't friends is getting worse and worse. My patience is hanging by a thread at the best of times. This heat doesn't help either.

Ed

 

[UberScout]

Well... after learning what happened to my mother...

Now I know how it feels.

It feels like you've died yourself. But you don't go anywhere.

You're just a ghost. Wandering. Life is continuing without you.

 

[clg114]

I have a wife and a very large family, so my alone time is limited. However, I need my alone time and these days I spend time in my office, researching various different subjects or poking around on our forum.

When I was a young fellow, I was not very smart about my alone time. My wife did not like it, but I used to go trail riding by my self. If I got hurt in the back country by my self, that would be very bad. It kind of scares me to think about it now, but the young version of me did not have much common sense.

 

[Sherlock77]

I am often on my own, just me, myself and I... In a manner of speaking

But I do love the big city, urban scene, of downtown... But I'll spend most of that time on my own with my photography, very much as an observer with some limited interactions

I can also drive for hours on end on the highway, exploring rural areas, nothing beats the open sky of the Canadian prairies, an empty highway with hardly any traffic, just the view of that, stopping a "few" times to take photos and explore... I have sometimes gone with a friend, sometimes it has been just me in the car... I once spent six days in rural Saskatchewan, logging 2500 kilometres on the highway, glorious!

I can spend time with friends and do that often enough, but eventually get social fatigue and need to head out on my own to clear my head

 

[Judge]

It's a way of life for me. Keeps me sane.

 

[SimplyWandering]

I have a social need, but social anxiety and other things keep me from being around others.

So while i really want and yearn for friendships, i also don't like to be around others for extended time. Its also difficult to necessarily care about what others have to say.

 

[PastelPetals]

I love it. I have a pretty low social need and when I do I tend to agree with @SimplyWandering that while I want friends the reality does not match with what works for me. I spend most of my time alone even more so since quarantine and I am happier that way. I need to be alone a lot anyway to have the energy to interact with people anyway.