How Much Of A Hermit Are You?

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OMG!! I am just like you two!! I am also a stay-at-home mom and almost never go out. When I do go out into public I tend to only ever speak to cahsiers and the occasional person at swim lessons or playschool. I always feel like they are "on to me". Like they know that I am a little weird or something. Especially the parents at playschool. I don't watch reality TV or popular television show. I don't follow fashion or hollywood. I am a film buff, but only for certain types of films that most people don't usually see..... sigh..... I used to get out a lot more. Not "going out", but being out in the world more. I was a graduate student and I had to talk to a lot more people. It was nice because I actually got over the eye contact thing!! ! There were people who wanted to talk "science" with me, so it was nice. Now that I have been home for the past five years... I am finding that it is really hard to look people in the eye!! UGH!! ! I think it is because I no longer "have to" keep up with interpersonal relationships. I talk to my husband, but he is pretty much a hermit and a loner, too. It just seems to work. Neither of us has the energy to really keep up friendships and we both prefer to stay home and play with the kids and entertain our interests and hobbies.

I live with my parents and very rarely go anywhere - partly because I live in a rural area and am unable to drive. I'm also very uncomfortable around anyone I don't know.

I am a terrific--or should I say terrible?--hermit. When feeling confronted about it, I manage to make up some excuse or another that they at least seem to accept. Usually I tell them that I "get enough of people when I'm at work" that I need a break....

yeah im one.
i started to become one when i was 13 and it seems to get worse

im pretty much kicking it at home all the time. it doesnt bother me

I am what you call a bit of a "hermit". I spend most of my out of school time on the computer. I do go out occasionally though and I am going shopping with a friend tomorrow and I'm going to a concert with her in july. Don't know what I'm doing inbetween though, probably nothing.

I live with my computers.. 24/7. Only leave to get groceries or to do my daily obligations at the job centre.

I have friends but i rarely visit them. I prefer to communicate with most of them over messenger, even one that lives just a kilometer away...

I can relate to wanting to make friends, but finding that the reality of it all doesn't add up to what I thought it would. That sort of thing happens more than not when I get into any kind of social situation. It's always different than what I thought it was going to be. It's like I have a social amnesia. I forget about how I felt the last time, so I expect a different result. For me, it isn't just about anxiety. I literally have nothing to say to people. I really suck at small talk, and having that back, and forth conversation that others make. Especially, with other women. Sometimes, it feels as if they're speaking a foreign language. They dance around subjects, never really getting to a point, while a dive in head first, all the way. I do make the effort every now, and then, like with my kids' friends' parents, but it never really goes anywhere.

Though, I have to say that if I didn't have my husband to talk to I'd be very lonely. I also have a severely autistic son that gets very overwhelmed by going out, so I always have an excuse to get out of social/family gatherings. Even if both of my ASD boys aren't overwhelmed while we're out somewhere social keeping up with them takes all of my attention, so I don't have to worry about sitting in one place chatting with anyone.

One time, I made the mistake of mentioning that I don't have any friends, or go out anywhere to a good online friend, and she threw me a big pity party. She just kept repeating 'that is so sad'. It was before I knew anything about AS, so I didn't think my lifestyle was all THAT weird. Made me wish that I'd never said anything to her about it. I like being at home. It's where all of my fav things are. My house is the way I like it, and my routine is predictable.

I like my house because I like to think about things I could do to fix it up and I daydream about that but then I worry about the cost of fixing it up and have trepidation because I fear the price tag.
So, I work on cheaper things, like making the yard attractive instead.

Spent pretty much all of last year in my room, coming out only to work and 'visit' my family downstairs.

But this was due more to circumstance and less about actually wanting to be in my room. It was horrible, I'll never go back to that again.

Circumstance called World of Warcraft?

I've actually spent a good deal of my life living like a hermit. I was never around other children, other than my older siblings who weren't nice to me, until I was 6 years old. Parents kept us in, we didn't play with the neighborhood kids or anything like that, I just stayed in and watched TV or played with toys. It never seemed to bother me until I actually met other children and they talked about knowing kids in their neighborhood and it didn't make sense to me why they did that and I didn't.

We lived most of our lives that way when I was growing up, pretty much disconnected. My parents would force me to go places with my sister though, which I found very annoying. I got dragged to all sorts of social functions I didn't care for much, because supposedly, it upset her that I didn't want to go anywhere with her, which made no sense because for a long time, she didn't want me around then all of a sudden she wanted me to go everywhere with her. Once she moved out, I was free to pursue my interests and do what I wanted without having to worry about her.

When I got my first apartment, I spent a lot of time on dialup BBSes and later AOL. Saturday nights were spent this way, or with rented movies, takeout pizza, and beer, and of course, alone. It was all I knew. The other thing I did was work with my ham radio setup, even though I communicate with others that way, it's still a solitary activity I guess. Still, it was the only way I felt comfortable living.

These days, I'm married and I do know the neighbors on either side of me and we get along. Still, we don't go out and socialize much.

Daniel is a hermit crab.

I'm almost a hermit though I have my husband and teenage son at home, and my eldest son home at weekends. Since the teenager quit school I haven't had those dreaded teacher meetings etc and he never goes out or has visitors so we are pretty much on our own. My husband does most of the shopping so I do see shop assistants when I shop about once a fortnight. I am going out tomorrow to the theatre with my sister and mother for mum's birthday but that is rare due to distance and all organised by my sister.

We also went away a year ago for a holiday / vacation and met up with my son's interstate friend. otherwise the only people I've seen are the health workers involved with the teenager's aspie diagnosis and the psychologist he was seeing for his low weight. We stopped seeing him a month ago thank goodness as I would always go off into a monalogue about Asperger's. I was almost in a panic at each appointment and he must have thought I was a hopeless case though he kept trying to downplay the Asperger's as if he didn't believe I had it or it wasn't worth all the attention I was giving it.

It's going to be strange with no medical appointments and at last I can luxuriate in the knowledge there will be no more parents or teachers to deal with as that was agony for me. My son's first friend's mother was so friendly at first but then would get almost openly hostile that I didn't work, wasn't on school committees, couldn't cook cakes for market days, got in a panic at meetings or social gatherings, kept a disordered house, and talked endlessly about my favourite subjects without realising she was trying to get away. Why do extraverted people think socially anxious people just need to snap out of it?

One thing I did last month was to tentatively attend a support meeting for parents of aspie kids. One of the women has an aspie husband and I am keen to try to arrange meetings for people on the spectrum in our local area. These parents were actually sympathetic towards me and we did laugh a lot, something I don't do enough of. I plan to attend advocacy workshops for as long as I can stand going to them. This may turn out to be as bad as the school class meetings except I can let people know I am face blind wheras previously I thought I was just not trying hard enough to remember faces. It will be interesting to know if I can cope better knowing my (self) diagnosis. I feel like saying to people now, well this is me, like it or not, I'm weird so get over it! If I don't do that I am in danger of shutting people out altogether as the fear is just too strong.

Serenity, you sound exactly like me when my husband was military. Except I hated it. I was depressed. A lot of it though was my husband had other activities outside of work, so he was rarely home, and then when he was, he was playing the Xbox 360. All the while, I had a newborn and pregnant with kid number two handling all the housework by myself. I still do all that by myself, and now I live where my friends and family are, and I rarely see them. I do land them with guilt trips about it, especially when they complain about how much time I spend with my social world, WrongPlanet. But, nobody really wants to talk to me in my life at home, and when they do, they don't understand me the way people on WrongPlanet do, so I'm pretty content with my time here. I do wish I had more going on out of here, and that should change as I'm about to move again. This time, I'm moving closer to my friend from high school. That community is pretty close knit. This time, unlike high school, I'm going to give them a fair chance and get more involved. Either way, I think I wish I had more time to myself period. Not exactly social stuff as much as my stuff. And, I'm always with my kids (1 and 2). Even if I paid a babysitter, I would then have to leave my house for it to be worth it, and most of what I want to do is at my house. So I guess I'll wait till the kids are older, at least old enough to listen better when I say no, or old enough to join in. I like to paint, so you can see how that isn't going to work well if the kids are awake, and if they are asleep, well that's my only chance to get some too.

Fudo is Yamabushi (???)(Literally: "One who lies/hides in the mountains") lol
i'm an almost constant hermit (i was even diagnosed as agoraphobic) but i'm not at all happy with it..
i only go out when i have to & i have no friends that i know in person.