Lonely but bored of talking to people.

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I've never been very talkative, but over the last five to six years, I've become less and less engaging in conversation. I rarely feel like I have anything that I want to say to people in conversations now. In instances where I do have "conversations" with people, it mainly consists of them prompting me, or listening to them talk. I don't feel anxious about talking to them, or scared of them in any way, rather I'm just bored and spend the duration of those interactions wanting it to end.

The problem is that on the other hand, I feel very lonely and don't want to feel that way, but I don't seem to get any pleasure out of talking to people either.

If it helps, my psychiatrist suspects me of having Aspergers Syndrome, but I have not undergone a formal diagnosis.

What do you think is happening with me? Why do you think I am like this? Does anyone have this issue either in the past or currently?

Thanks.

"Talk" has always been meaningless to me. I need shared experience. Whether it's at work, while engaged in my special interest (mountain climbing), or with my wife and kids at home, I need the feeling of being engaged in a mutual task/goal/whatever for the interaction to have any meaning whatsoever. Interaction absent the backdrop of some more relevent purpose just leaves me feeling bored or drained.

Yeah I do the same thing, I kinda like it.

I don't like talking. I don't like it when other people talk, especially when they go on and on about pointless nonsense. That's why I like the internet. I can shut it off anytime I want.

I've never expirneced lonliness. My cat and bearded dragon are my best friends. They are all I need. I get very bored and frustrated talking to people when I can't talk about my obsessions. When I was a kid, I only wanted friends so I could boss them around and lecture them about my obsessions. My bearded dragon is bascialy an obsession so all my talking to her consists of "Look at the little face!" "You're so cute, Pippy!" "Who's a pretty beardie?" Sometimes I just repeat her name to her over and over again. I was extremly echolalic as a little kid, I wonder if I ever truely outgrew it and just learned not to do it in front of people. Before I got Pippin, I would repeat random things over and over again to my mother's chihuahua.

This is why I moved out of the cities and into a rural area.

And I have a cat, to assuage the lonliness.

If you crave human company but not conversation, perhaps taking an interperetive dance class or studying a mime troupe would be appropriate? In all seriousness. Might learn something about body language in the process.

The same thing has happened to me. I suspect we must have simply run out of interesting things to talk about. Everyone I've met seems to enjoy talking about the same things over and over and over. Perhaps everyone else just isn't very imaginative.

I used to get pressurised into being sociable when I was having a great time on my own. Then I would find myself having to sit around with people who seemed really bored and didn't know what to do with themselves.

My obsessions include Military History (pretty much from guns to battle locations), trying to get to know everything I can....Listning helps me a lot, I was very hyper as a kid up until 17-18 then my mother passed a few years later and I got even more quiet. A goal in a conversation is key to me, why I never liked party's/large social events due to the fact it's random conversational garbage mixed with a CRAP load of noise/other people talking to boot, History I can test my knowledge (with the one person I do socialise with but due to him forcing it by coming over unexpectedly and it's working out so far for him) he is down with mostly ww1-present, as for politics well the new's and forum's are my dose. Online Multiplayer Video Games are also my other dose.

Other then that I preffer to interact via internet, like someone else said prior, you can simply turn it off. I also have a Alley Cat, and a medium sized smart as hell Border Collie too keep me company, and an indoor garden. On that note ganja helps me interact again but I really get an imagination and my mind is not filtered at all and I do ramble....sorry I am baked now aswell so ya.

I get lonely, but I don't usually seem to get much out of being with people, and I can often hardly wait for the meeting to be over. I get very preoccupied with my own thoughts, and unless I manage to drop all that stuff and really focus on the other people and on my relationship with them, I just kind of sideline them.....I might say the right things but I think my body language gives it away that they don't really impinge on me.

It's quite a conundrum - if I need people so much, why aren't I interested in them? I suppose it's because I crave the same thing as everybody else - to share - but I don't have the usual capacity to make that sharing real.

There are exceptions, but there's nearly always been a sexual interest behind that. I'm never conscious of it at the time, but I think basically sexual desire can make me put an enormous amount of energy into the social thing, and as long as I can see some hope of advancing the sexual relationship, I won't notice how hard I'm working, but once things have settled down and the sexual side of the encounter is either established or struck off the list of possibilities, I seem to run out of energy and I lose interest in the social side of the relationship. Either that, or my partners have all turned out to be nasty people and they've lost my support because they failed to support me. I'm still hoping it's the latter, and that I'll one day meet somebody with whom I can sustain a properly mutual bond that I won't get bored with.

In my youth I would get quite spaced out by simple friendship, but I lost a lot of patience with it because it was never anything like so exciting as a new girlfriend.

One thing's for sure - people only unite when they have a common purpose. Just like any other human being, if I get nothing out of an association with somebody, I'll get bored and move on. Friendship feels like a very sentimental thing, but basically the participants have to be getting something they want from the deal.

Sometimes I think that I really enjoy meaningless "small talk," the same few phrases about the weather or politics over and over with strangers.

Used to hate it, passionately. But it seems like these small meaningless interactions are the building blocks upon which community and fellowship are made.

For example, when I lived in the Phillips neighborhood in south Minneapolis, I made a point to engage in saying these sweet nothings to my neighbor. Phillips is considered a "bad" neighborhood, one of the "worst" in terms of personal safety.

But after simply making the acquaintance of half of the people who lived there, I never felt to be in danger. There were always people out and about, and just knowing them gave me a sense of security. If anything bad happened to me on the street there, I know somebody, somebody I barely knew and who maybe didn't even speak english, would be there to help.

What about the always cool Imaginary companions?
What about lots of them in your own paracosm? You will never be lonely again!

I find that I'm both impaired and anxious socially. I can only have an actual conversation with family I'm used to being around. Outside world overwhelms me and drives me insane through overloads.

It can be awfully hard to think of things to talk about with someone. That's why doing an activity together and having a shared experience, as someone else mentioned, usually works much better.