Substitutes for human bonds.

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These are random thoughts.
If you don’t succeed in establishing working relationships with the proximate other, job mate, school mate, relative etc. you may have some limited choices. You can use one or more of them to fill the emotional void, to make life somewhat meaningful.
You may choose to “love” a popular icon, Elvis Presley or Barack Obama or Diane Fossey or Rosa Luxemburg and enjoy with them their successes or suffer for their failures.
You may love animals. Communication with them appears, and at some extent is simplified, and less liable to interpretation. Interpretation of human messages of others may be hard work for ASD people. With a animals it is much more easy though on a more limited gamut of feelings.
Then you may try abstract ideas about humanity. You may find some meaning in the fight against injustice, poverty. This may also be a way to find some friends among faith mates. Though this route may be fraught with pitfalls.
I, you, may add something,

there is no substitute that truly fills the gap.

Is that a little existential Alex?

Books... and animals help soothe the ache.

And what Alex says holds true for me as well.

I don't really need substitues or connection, the only thin people are good for is dissapointment

meant to say thing

You can be very religious and talk to God.
You can play on-line role playing games.
You can talk to yourself.
But all these are very limited relationships. The question that has intrigued me most of all is that some people, and I’m not referring to AS or NT in particular, but some people inherently in general have less need for “human bonds” than others and some people have more. The question is what factor in the human psyche causes this difference of need for “human bonds” from one person to the other? What in particular makes people different in this way?

paolo wrote:

I have not read Robinson, for some sort of instictive repulsion. Robinson's scenarios are very frequent in fiction, and are mostly
used to convey utopian and/or ideological or religious messages. I have read Coetzee's Foe, with pleasure.
It may be interesting here a short piece of Wiki in the subject.

" Nobel Prize-winning (2002) author J. M. Coetzee in 1986 published a novel entitled Foe, in which he explores an alternative telling of the Crusoe story, an allegorical story about racism, philosophy, and colonialism.

In Kenneth Gardner's award winning 2002 novel, Rich Man's Coffin, he portrays the true story of a black American slave who escapes on a whaling ship to New Zealand to become chief of one of the cannibal Maori tribes. This is a reversal of racial roles, with the black man taking the lead role of the Robinson Crusoe figure.

Jacques Offenbach wrote an opéra comique called Robinson Crusoé which was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Salle Favart on 23 November 1867. This was based on the British pantomime version rather than the novel itself. The libretto was by Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux. The opera includes a duet by Robinson Crusoe and Friday.

French novelist Michel Tournier wrote Friday (French Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique) published in 1967. His novel explores themes including civilization versus nature, the psychology of solitude, as well as death and sexuality, in a retelling of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe story. Tournier's Robinson chooses to remain on the island, rejecting civilization when offered the chance to escape 28 years after being shipwrecked."

Of course you may have a mix of all these: you may be an animalist and have two cats; you may have as your icon Diane Fossey. But what is more important? Probably your two cats. Animals are universes of meaning if you really try to find a respectful empathy for them. Humans are a cooperative living “machine” of some trillion of cells, some (the neurons) the same for all your life, some being replaced at different paces. But this complexity is reduced by cultural stereotypes. A human is a human is a human (paraphrasizing Gertrude Stein). It may appear simple. But it is not: With animals you can’t break them into simple stereotypes. They remain enigmatic representatives of Life (with a capital L) and perennial sources for inspiration never entirely decipherable.

3 substitutes
1. the sun
the sun has always given me more joy, energy, peace and contentment than people ever could
2. the ocean
the ocean is thrilling and delightful, as well as the creatures that live there
3. nature in general
non-verbal communication with nature; i feel it's a 2-way exchange, nurturing and completely satisfying

alba wrote: