Are you happier with no friends or social contacts?

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I have one friend (besides my dogs), and when she visits me, she constantly wants to talk to me the whole time. I like her, but I don't want her to visit me so often because her constant talking makes me tired.

I'm 19 and when I was younger I desperately wanted friends and to feel "normal",(I tried to mimic other kids' behaviors) however my social ineptitude and other odd traits caused by my AS resulted in my being harassed and bullied a lot by my peers. That, along with being mentally abused by my parent and experiencing other forms of mistreatment from others, further developed my distrust in people. Now I have a very small network of friends, some closer than others, and I no longer have a desire to fit in with people who don't simply accept me for who I am.

I guess I'm mostly content with the one long-distance friend and one "smoking" buddy I have. I wish I could hang out more with my long-distance friend, though. She is very busy, and I often can only come to visit once a year--I'd prefer more like having visits (whether me visiting her or vice versa) every 3-6 months. I feel lonely when I can't visit her as much I want to, but I understand why I can't.

Last edited by emimeni on 14 Jan 2013, 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not happy about being alone but I know trying to fix this will just result in me being hurt again, so I don't bother.

At 45, I'm probably becoming more of a loner the older I get, although I'm as happy as anyone could ever imagine to be. And evidently, and contrary to what many professionals suggest, true happiness and success does NOT require having friends involved . My wife is my best friend, and although I have many friends per se; that is people I've been friends with for years or decades or even since early childhood. But I spend very very little time with them; maybe 2 hours per month. The problem with long-time friends and me, is that when I was a child, most of my friends were in their 60s and 70s, so I needn't explain further on that. There are still a few of those friends; now in their 80s still alive and kicking; those who were in their 30s or 40s at the time, and even fewer who are peers I met in school. Otherwise, all of my social contact is in the business world, such as talking with tenants while working on our rentals, or visiting a few minutes with people I see regularly in the farming business, etc. For recreation and going out places, I prefer either alone or with my wife, if it's something she'd enjoy doing. I go to vintage car shows, or Sundays I'll go out for a cruise up the Pacific Coast Highway on my motorcycle, and am out & about all the time, but I just like to do those things MY way and on MY time. Never feel lonely unless my wife is gone for a few days, which has happened a couple times last year due to family illnesses, etc.

Charles

From my experience getting older makes you more and more miserable that you don't have friends... therefore I recommend to get them while you are young and keep them. It's worth the effort... female speaking. Males might be different?

As I get older I want friends less and less and just want to be left alone.

I am female and I don't have any female friends except people I speak to online for varying periods of time. I don't regret this fact at all, in fact my life is better for it! Other females have never done anything but ignore, ostracise and ridicule me and my life is infinitely better for not having any of them in it! So people who go on about the value of female friendships are most certainly not speaking on my behalf - give me a man any day for friendship.

Last edited by nessa238 on 14 Jan 2013, 11:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, when I don't have any social contacts at all I become depressed.

However I would be content with one good friend, or a group of colleagues that I can have fun with. And I very seldom want to go out or actually meet.

But I had a phase when I had absolutely no one to talk or rely to, and that was absolutely terrible.

Of course, now I have no reason to hang out & get drunk! So a minor upside..

Sincerely,
Matthew

I guess I'm the opposite of most people here: as I've gotten older, I've become more aware of the friendships people around me have and of the way people around me make friends so easily and have fun, and I've wanted friends more and more. Unfortunately I haven't been able to make any. And the more time passes, and the more I try and fail, the lonelier I get.

So yeah, definitely not happy, but haven't been able to do anything about it

I'm an introvert: I like people, but only in small doses. Too much socializing, and my brain blue-screens.

When I have a friendship, it tends to be deep and meaningful, the sort of friendship where you'd do pretty much anything to help the other person, and you know they'd do pretty much anything to help you. Sometimes I can find people like that, sometimes not.

I'm usually friendly and not socially anxious, but I'm no social butterfly. I prefer the peace of solitude, and much of my socializing is done for the purpose of exchanging ideas, not building relationships.

Have you attempted joining clubs or the like that have something to do with your interests or hobbies? Someone advised me to do that, a couple of years ago, when I was feeling lonely myself.

The things I joined/visited include:
-a field biology club
-a Mandarin Chinese language class
-Indonesia-themed festive markets
-a monthly autistic meet-up (!)

When it comes to meeting people I could be friends with, I've had varying success, but it could be different for you! At any rate, it was nice for me to have conversations on subjects that held my interest.



I am pretty much like this, myself, Callista. What I imagine a true friendship to be, is something deep, but I haven't found it yet. At this point, I'm not convinced that friendship is something that's meant for me at all, though. Paradoxically, I'm quite happy having only distant acquaintances, and nothing that comes 'too close', so to speak.

Last edited by CyclopsSummers on 15 Jan 2013, 6:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

That would be my experience too. I used to have lots of superficial social contacts which wasn't great but I went way too far the other way and now spend nearly all of my time alone - not out of choice.

I'm the same re information and idea exchanging - that's what I like to do the most.

I have friends I dont' see regularly but I know they will reply if I send an email or text then we'll meet up every so often for a long
chat and this works well - it would be too much to do regularly so isn't necessary. I know they are always there if I need to talk about anything though and I am for them too.

It's like a download of information into each other's brains when we meet.

It's kind of a damned if I do, damned if I don't situation. Mostly it just feels like a game trying to talk to people. One that I'm apparently very bad at playing. But I can only distract myself from the game for so long because everything else just reminds you of the game.