Why do people think solitude is such a bad thing?

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Being the resident NT here I am curious what is a "proper hobby" KT?

Most of the human race is strongly social, having evolved as something of a pack animal, so it's probably not surprising that most people are driven to be social by feelings of attraction towards other humans and feelings of loneliness when they're isolated, and not surprising that they see solitude as more or less a bad thing. But Aspies are a bit different.

Yup.



I spend up to 20% of my time engaged in metacognition.
It is one of my favourite "hobbies".



Silly NTs.

They don't want us to end up lonely. They want us to learn to make friends when we are younger so that we will develop the skills needed to form relationships that will help us in later life.

No man is an island. We need other people. At a basic level we need to be sociable enough to find employment to pay our bills and keep us fed and sheltered.

On another level we need people we can rely on to enjoy life with and help us when we need help. Like when my car broke down. The AA towed me to a garage and i phoned a friend to drive me home. Another friend drove me to work the next day.

Sharing things with others is enjoyable. I made a cake with a friend the other day. It was more fun than making the cake alone.

I've had lonely periods in my life and it hurts, it sad, I was depressed. People need others to maintain good metal health. We are hard wired to enjoy and require interaction to make happy chemicals go around our bodies.

another congenial human being comes in handy, for sure.

Yep.
People need to explore the world for life experience, when they are young.
But when you are older, not so much.



Some who are financially secure, don't need to be sociable.



Yep, having reliable friends does help.
And so does the NRMA, and the taxi service.



At times, for some people.



Many people need real-life human contact, but not everyone, based on my experience.
I prefer online social interaction.

I apologize in advance if this question makes you uncomfortable, but I am just curious: how did you end up in the hospital? If it was your parents who turned you in, and they turned you in because of the solitude issue, that would be a bit surprising. It seems like they went from being overly-understanding (by letting you stay in your room all day without any interference) and not understanding at all (by placing you into the hospital). And what caused them to do such a drastic jump so suddenly?

Yeah thats what happened with me. Back when I was in high school, I didn't want to socialize at all since I felt like mathematics and physics is all that mattered. My mom kept trying to get me to take less math and physics classes so that I could spend more time socializing, and she never succeeded. The first time she DID succeed to get me to socialize was when she got me to join Hillel (a Jewish club on campus) at the time when I was 21. And that was when I was actually told (by the director) that people were avoiding me and why. So that was when my self esteem got hurt really badly and I decided I wanted to make friends. But it never worked I couldn't figure out how. So maybe if I were to listen to my mom back when I was 14 rather than 21, maybe it would have worked out better.

It is interesting though that -- as you said -- parents are able to predict this ahead of time. Like how would my mom be able to predict that -- even though I didn't have a need to make friends as a kid -- I would feel that need as an adult? Is it because it is a common pattern among aspies? But then how come my mom knew it back in the 90-s, when Asperger wasn't well known? Yes I was diagnosed back then, but not many others were. Or is it a well known pattern among introverts in general, not just aspies?

Yeah, I agree with the two of you. The time when I switched from not caring about socialization to being obsessed about it was when a director of Jewish club on campus told me that the reason people didn't talk to me is that they didn't like me. That was actually news to me. I was assuming if people say something positive, they like me; if people say something negative, they don't like me; if people don't say anything at all, they are neutral. And she actually had to explain to me that "if people don't like you they won't say anything they will just go to a different end of the room". And, believe it or not, I was 21 at that time. So, up until that late age of 21, I was blissfully unaware of it. Thats why -- up till then -- I didn't care about friends. But now that she explained it to me, I became obsessed with wanting friends from that point onward.

Even without knowing what autism is, there have been lots of people throughout history who have had this problem, so it's not unheard of. Most humans want interaction so it's a huge flag that there are issues with a kid if they don't want interaction.

And as adults we all I know weird other adults we don't really like, and we don't want our kids to turn into the person no one likes.

Lets put it this way. Consider the following two categories of people:

a) People that don't want interaction as kids but then want it as adults
b) People who don't want interaction their whole life

Since you said most people want interaction, that implies that both category "a" and category "b" are rare. Now the question is: which one is more rare? In order to assume that the kid will want friends as an adult, they have to assume that the category "b" is more rare than the category "a". But how do they know it? Is it because there were some examples of category "a" throughout history, that convinced people it is at least somewhat more common than "b"?

You're overthinking it.

They just know that they like having friends and that they get lonely without friends and they don't want their kid to end up lonely.

That's it.

Basically anything except getting drunk or making idle chit chat or threatening/doing fights outside the ring (I've actually come across people who have that last one as their 'hobby').

Anything from woodcarving to Scrabble to Art to sport.

My mum's capable of it and she's NT. So it really is just some people who 90% of the time in my experience tend to be NT.

My mum's been inside all through lockdown. Doing things like making toys, making art etc. Post-lockdown, she's only been outside where she took up nordic walking, at home or at granddad's.

My dad isn't NT (idk if he's aspie or not) and his proper hobbies (reading, walking, art) have gone by the wayside in recent years & all he does is meet up with people and watch TV. When it was lockdown he kept moaning cos he was bored of watching TV...

That should be taken as a hint to do something more interesting at home but he took it as a hint to break the rules.

People who don't have hobbies are bound to break the rules of lockdown and view solitude as boring. Because doing nothing, while being alone, is tedious.

In my experience, it's the 'aren't you lonely' types and the don't have any hobbies type that are almost a perfect circle as a Venn diagram.

It doesn't help that so many hobbies are stigmatised in adults. Things like lego, making things from clay, colouring books, are all real hobbies.

That's not NTs, that's Chavs.

Well, if someone *missed out* on doing it when they are young, then they would want to do it when they are older in order to make up on what they missed out on. At least thats the case for me.

Introverted NTs who love solitude are probably far more common than most of us think. It's just that extroverts are, by definition, more socially visible.... Also a cultural thing, maybe. I get the impression that in the UK it's considered more normal to "enjoy a bit of peace and quiet" than it is in the US, with similar variations in other countries.