Asking to be alone. How do you do it?

Post Reply New Topic

Hi all,

I'm new here and am glad to have found people who seem to share my social quandaries, Asperger's or not. I'm not diagnosed, and am not sure if I would be, but I at least found a good forum to relate to.

My question is this. I love my alone time. I love to do things alone, I love to be alone. Not lonely mind you. I've just come to rely on that quite space to focus, and clear myself. Sometime I am only truly happy when I am alone. It's partially nature, and partially something I have come to appreciate and revere as I spent most of my 20's not caring for social interaction with people. I spent much of it driving to quiet, rural areas and hiking there, or in front of my computer.

I am now living with an awesome girl whom I love very very much and she loves me. She is the only person I can spend all day with and not feel like I have to spend a couple hours unwinding alone at the end of the day. I consider myself VERY fortunate to have met her.

Still, I find the need to be alone almost blinding. Sometimes I just need a few hours, sometimes I feel like I need a whole day. How do I ask to be alone without sounding like a jerk. I'm not asking to be away from someone because I don't like them, I just want my alone time. I feel that the concept of alone time is so foreign to most people that it inevitably gets taken personally. Even when I try to reassure them that it isn't personal! I'm quite introverted and all of my friends are extroverts, so this has cost me quite a bit in friendship status over the years.

Anyways, I just want to find a nice way to tell people that I want to be left alone for a few hours and not be bothered.

Thanks,
Jim DiGriz

Even social butterflies need alone time. Just not as much evidently.

I would just communicate much the same way you have here, maybe come to an agreement over alone time in the week. I would emphasize that it is nothing to do with them and you like it.

Get a copy of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", read it and get your partner to read it too. It talks about the man's need for a "cave".

If I really need alone time, I can say to my wife, I need to be in my cave. She knows what that means.

It also explains how the cave recharges men and makes them more loving and more receptive to love. It's not rejection, it's the opposite in fact.

You sound like my boyfriend. It’s not about the ask, it’s about the person and how they will react. He told me from the get go that he needs Jacuzzi time after work before he can pay attention to me because he needs decompression time. Hmm, since NTs react emotionally to everything instead of rationally, my thoughts were “waaahhhh”. My actions I can control even if I can’t control how I feel. So, next day he comes home from work all nervous that I was going to start a fight or bother him, but nope, I continued what I was doing in the kitchen, didn’t say a peep, let him go do his routine and now he is less afraid to speak up. Little by little he speaks up about what he needs.

Oh, NTs do NOT read into hints or body language for alone time. Work it little by little. Just a statement “honey, when I come home from work/get overwhelmed/am busy I really need down time. It’s just how I am and doesn’t mean I love you any less. Down time will allow me to be able to focus on you more later”. I don’t know. Something sappy. But honest. And firm. It was the seriousness in his tone that made me pay attention.

As our relationship went on, he requested to not be disrupted when he was working on things around the house. He said I was a distraction. Huh? Quiet me in the corner? Yes, indeed, if I so much as walk through the room he loses focus. So, I write “kiss Ann” on his to do list. And guess what, when he gets to that he stops and gives me a little peck.

Alone for a whole day? This you ease yourself into. I told my boyfriend repeatedly to tell me when he needs a day or weekend off, as I can’t read his mind. And I request that he doesn’t wait until he is at his wits end and explodes that he can’t take it anymore. He still has a problem with this ask, but I have taken initiative to plan things without him. This is a big step for an NT girl. As much as I like alone time, I do like being in the same vicinity and not interacting. Just knowing he is nearby makes me gooey and warm inside. Of course, the same thing makes him feel stressed. Sigh.

For friend alone time, my boyfriend has a great solution. Don’t answer the phone. It works. They call back or he calls back when he is ready. It may explain why he only has three intermittent friends, but they are really good friends to him. Ditto with family.

Me and my husband had huge problems before I was diagnosed. Because before he use to take it personnally when I needed my own space.

But since explaining to him, I just need down time, my own space, as long as let him know from time to time its not him, its just the way I am seems to work fine.