I have also sort of given up on having friends. To be honest, if my job and living situation are stable and comfortable, then I don't really want many friends. I am perfectly content to just do my work and pursue my interests, and I enjoy life.
However I occasionally have periods when I feel isolated. I don't need much interpersonal contact, but I do need some contact. It is unfortunate that I often don't realize this until something goes wrong in my life, and then I am struggling with something alone and I wish I had a friend. On the other hand that feels one-sided of me, because why would someone want to be my friend if I only want to be closer to them when I am in a time of need?
I agree with what Mona Pereth said for myself:
Mona Pereth wrote:
Nevertheless I have always felt that it is important for me to have friends -- and to have an alternative extended family / mutual support network.
I have to remind myself of this constantly. Having friends to me is like an investment for the future. This seems a bit odd somehow, to think about my relationships in this strategic way. But when I reflect on some of the more socially adept "NT type" people that I know, many of them seem to be
quite strategic in
most of their human interactions. However, I definitely
don't want to just use people as a resource. Ideally I would genuinely connect with people, but I would also think of the friendship as a source of mutual support for both of us in future situations that might come up.
_________________
"In fact, my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the TeX project is that software is hard. It’s harder than anything else I’ve ever had to do."
― Donald Knuth, "All Questions Answered", Notices of the AMS
“We need to enter the conversation willing to be wrong, willing to admit the limits of our own knowledge, willing to reconsider our evidence, sources, and premises. That is self-skepticism.”
― Patricia Roberts-Miller, Demagoguery and Democracy
15 Sep 2021, 6:00 am
