The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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This is a weird question, but my dears, if I can't find weirdoes here to help answer it, where will I find them?
So... what do you do if you're not lonely?
By which I mean, all the pop psychology and media opinion pieces and chatty helpful (annoying) little mental health wellness driblets tell you you should be lonely if (check off list of things).
Apparently there's a loneliness epidemic. Or maybe there isn't, opinions differ. But there is agreement: lack of connection is bad for you, including bad for your physical health. Some are optimistic that AI can be your friend instead.
Yeah, but... I'm alone, but I'm not lonely. I can check off that list:
Lack of human connection? Yes
Social isolation? Yes
No friends? Yes
No close family members? Yes
No romantic partners (this seems to be the big one, the cri de coeur of the incels and I do not mock them with this)? Yes
No kids/fulfilment? Yes
Not even furbabies? Oh hell yeah no pets
But you socialise? You travel? You do things? You have hobbies? No
I should be curled up in a ball crying and weeping and wringing my hands about wanting all that, and I'm not.
Now, am I depressed? I think I might be (can't get a diagnosis, the one and only time I mentioned suicidal ideation to my doctor I got asked was I self-harming or tried suicide? no? nothing to see there, then), but while the big light-bulb "aha!" moment there should be "and that's because you're so isolated", I don't think so. I've wanted to be dead (not the same as wanted to commit suicide, I've never tried that) since I was about eleven, but here it is decades and decades later and I'm still here.
The cynical view is "but you need friends because friendships are transactional and can be monetised; if you do things for them they have to do things for you". That's never worked for me, because the few times back when I was young and dumb enough to ask, in return for 'do this for me get that for me of course we'll do the same for you', "okay so now can you do this for me?" suddenly and miraculously it was always the wrong time, inconvenient, impossible for some reason.
So I never grew to regard friendship as transactional because I could never get those transactions going (sorry, Rorschach, I disagree with you there even though I would be sympathetic to a lot of your thinking and if that makes me an authoritarian, Alan Moore, then too bad).
But I'm not lonely. I'm on my own, and I'm happy that way (if you accept that this, for me, constitutes "happy"). Mostly I don't like people. I can fake it, I can get along for short bursts of interaction at work and elsewhere, remember things other person said and bring them up or talk about some topic in the news, but about five minutes is my maximum tolerance and ability to pretend normality. After that, I have to consciously remind myself "do not say out loud 'I wish this person would shut up and go away and stop bothering me', keep the expression of mild interest and pleasant smile on until they do feck off, don't look at something else like paperwork or computer screen or whatever".
So what do I do, when I'm supposed to be lonely and wanting all that human connection, but I don't. I really, honestly, don't.
What do you do when you're supposed to be lonely but you're not?
I'll add that if you're alone, and it's all you've ever known, it's hard to know what you're missing. I've lived all my teens completely isolated, and had you asked me, I would've said I was happy, or at least "satisfied". Then I got a friend, who became my best friend, and I realized what I've been missing this entire time. Later I got a partner too, and that truly cemented that I never want to be alone again.
While I do know that people who genuinely aren't interested in other people do exist, they tend to be extraordinarily rare. Now this is going to sound really dismissive, but I would put most people like me (and maybe you) into one of two camps. They just either haven't found someone they actually work well with. Or they do interact with others, but it's unpleasant, basic interactions that drain you instead of adding anything. Which gives you the perception that you don't like socializing in general.
But I bond with people over common interests(presumably most people do). If you don't have hobbies, if you don't have pets, if you don't have some common interest in talking about something with someone, why should you talk with them at all? Why should they talk to you? There is another option with which you can bond with others, which is your own personal life experiences, be they good or bad. But I wouldn't recommend that, since it hasn't worked well for me in the past.
I would recommend socializing more, because it can be an incredibly pleasant and fulfilling experience.
Also I have to ask, do you truly not have hobbies? Like what do you spend your free time on? Maybe your definition of a hobby is just more strict, but pretty much anything you do in your spare time from reading, to cooking, to playing games, or working out can be counted, among many others. Do you not do any of that? You mention Alan Moore, so presumably you read comics, so that's one thing, that you either don't count so it fits into your post more cleanly.
Tried that, in my youth. Hated it. Really find it draining to be around people, with noise and lights and drinking and chatting and everything. I've skipped more "this is our graduation dinner and happy time, here's your invite!/this is the work Christmas party!" occasions because I've gone to one or even two of those previously and the result was "the amount of enjoyment I got out of going was much less than staying home and doing my own thing".
I'm happy under my little rock!
That's not what I mean. I was also happy under my rock, but I'm happier under my rock with someone else. Even simply mundane everyday activities are more pleasant if you do them with someone you like, and who likes you.
Like this study showed anything is more enjoyable if you do it with someone else. Doing laundry, cooking together, watching movies, going out. That's the kind of socializing I'm talking about.
Not work parties where you're surrounded by strangers you don't know, don't care about, and aren't invested in.
And that gives me the hives. Possibly because I've become too used to This Is My Routine And This Is How Things Are Done, but trying to (for example) work in a kitchen with a sibling makes me very uncomfortable. I'm working training in a new co-worker and the amount of times I've had to bite my tongue about "go away! lemme do this myself!" (because I am not doing this myself, that is the point of training someone else to do it) has been very high.
I really am just "hermit crab, this my shell, go find own shell, farther away the better".
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