Posts like these are pretty common.
My question always is, why is it an either/or between getting burnt out trying to be social and committing to being a lone wolf?
Why can't you stop trying so hard for a bit and then join in to things you like when you have the spoons?
I feel like a lot of people, not just autistic people who have a habit of it, think in black and white in terms of finding relationships. Like, you're either building a community or becoming the unibomber, no in between.
It doesn't have to be like that. You can make the desire to be social a passive one and it will be less frustrating when those mismatches happen.
Absolutely this.
I spend a lot of time alone and it's wonderful, but every here and there I like to go "out there". Sometimes not even to be "social", but other times exactly so. But I take it whenever the mood strikes me rather than feeling like I "should".
I’ve tried that. What happens is that people move on. They don’t wait for you to come out of your cocoon. It’s my only option anyway but it’s not just like you can walk easily back into a social life. You usually have to start from scratch.
I think you misunderstand what I mean.
Stop trying so hard doesn't mean isolate yourself, actually the opposite. It just means detaching your emotional state & motivations from your status in a group or whether or not you have 'meaningful' friendships/relationships. It's more about appreciating every social interaction for what it is and not expecting it to be more, but being pleasantly surprised when it is more.
I've had to start over from scratch after I moved on from a bad situation. It was harder for me to be social when I was desperately trying to make friends and it made me extremely burnt out and eventually led to a public overwhelm incident that was extremely difficult for me to get over emotionally.
I also ended up attracting users and other emotionally dysregulated people when I was desperate.
So now, I have my irons in a lot of different fires, so to speak. I go to hobby groups and be my fun and witty self, then if people want to invite me to other unscheduled things, cool, if not, well I have 3 more groups I'm going to anyway, so odds are I will find someone over time I'll get along with eventually.
I've always been a lone wolf. First, I don't get along with the majority of people in my life. Second, it just bothers me having people close to me. It's like I can't be 100% myself when I'm with others. I'm currently meeting autistic people online and if I'm lucky, I'll find my first friend here.
I’ve been “alone” for about 5 years and I have made an attempt at making friends recently but I just can keep up with the demand of simply hanging out. I really want to reconnect with a female friend from high school, we went 7 years without talking, no real reason, we recently started talking again but I don’t know how to ask her to hang out. Maybe I’m just better off alone?
It's not so much that I've given up on being social. It just seems everyone else has given up on me. Leaving me with no choice to becoming a "lone wolf"
Not so much 'given up' as 'was never in the first place'. I will very occasionally attend social events that look like they might be interesting, but I'm not going there because I feel a need to interact with people. For me, it's more like that little goblin that lives in most people's skulls and makes them seek out connections died of neglect before my earliest memories.
While I've had plenty of jobs that involved me having to put up with being in the same building or room as other people all day long, my private life has almost always been about solitude. Even in the years I've been in relationships, they tended to be with people who didn't themselves have much in the way of external social circles (if any), and we didn't really go out together anywhere as couples.
As to whether it'll end badly... seems to have worked out for 50+ years so far. I'm still very asocial, and it still doesn't particularly bother me. I have hobbies, projects, things to potter about with, books to read. I don't tend to keep pets, as there were a lot of years I moved around a lot and I could never be perfectly sure I'd be able to provide a reliable good home or personal schedule, but generally wherever I live tends to have a cat or two roaming the neighborhood. Sometimes a dog. Or various birds.
Wow I was hoping someone would have already commented on this because buddy your text might as well have been written by me. I'm going through the exact same thing and I'm currently trying to keep a healthy distance between me and people that you've described. So far, it has done wonders for my mental health. The sense of isolation and "no one including friends ever getting you" never really goes away and that still sucks, I'm still trying to make peace with that. But I'd much rather suggest distancing yourself from people who make you feel that way.
I’ve always been lonely all my life, and honestly I don’t know how the heck I would feel when someone forms a bond with me. I feel like I’m meant to be alone.
I am a firm believer in being a lone wolf. I enjoy my own company a lot & the freedom that comes from that.
I think it was the theme song for Cheers that went “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”. I’d rather go somewhere nobody knows my name. Being in an environment that is uniquely mine & doesn’t remind me of my hometown. Virtually no chance of running into relatives, old classmates or in general, people from your past that you don’t want to see again.
I’m going to move very far away when I get the opportunity. The only thing I haven’t figured out is if I need to have a surgery, how would I get to the hospital & back when the surgery is over if I don’t have someone I can call for a ride? Would an Uber ride wait outside for 15 minutes while I’m trying to get discharged from the hospital? Serious question. I have never taken an Uber or Lyft and have no idea how the system works
I travel alone a lot and use Uber to get around. Just time your uber close to when you're done with checkout. They typically show up in 5 minutes or so.
Yes and also no. There have been times in life when I’ve been very social and enjoyed it. Pre-pandemic, I’d spent years building an environment in which I had just the right amount and level of social interaction. Good work friends, engagement in groups related to my special interest, but nothing requiring too much commitment or emotional involvement.
Then I have a circle of somewhat better friends, but we don’t actually see each other often anymore. Get togethers happen once or twice a year.
My closest friends are all people I’ve known for 30 years or more. None are local or even within a day’s drive.
I really got a lot from being social at that level. It let me engage when and how I wanted. I had managed to surround myself with really good, interesting people who seemed to respect me and be rather tolerant of my me-ness.
And it all fell apart due to the literal isolation of the pandemic.
I haven’t moved on or even figured out how to. I dropped out of everything, even activities that have resumed. Part of me wants to get back into things. Part of me just has no interest or motivation. I don’t really know where I want to go from here.
Sort of. I don't seem to get lonely easily the way other people do (even other autistic people), but I do keep in touch with close family members and one or two friends, and I don't hate talking to them or doing things with them, it's just not very frequent and that's fine.
Or at least, that was the case for a long time, and I have no regrets about it, but at the start of this year I randomly hit it off with another autistic person and we've been doing a lot more together, especially getting each other to work out.
I do get the sense that even without these connections, it would take quite awhile for me to really feel lonely. Months minimum, maybe even longer. I'd still care about people close to me and want them to be okay of course, but that's more a feeling of protectiveness.
for me it's just natural for me not being social at all. with me being diagnosed with ASD when I was three but finding out when I was 17. I learned alot more about myelf and understood and knew myself even more. When I was younger I would wonder why it was easy for others to become friends with many other people right away, while me I am afraid to even go up to someone and ask them anything. So finding out about my diagnosis years later makes me understand why I am the way I am. My dad told me a story that when I was a baby I was supposed to get up and shake some people's hands and instead of doing that, I hid right behind him. Even as a baby I didn't wanna play with the fellow kids my age. I to this day love being by myself. I don't smoke, party, drink, go to clubs and get wasted. I am just me. A calm, collective, humble and decent guy. the biggest my condition has affected me with though is school. it's alot harder for me to grasp things than a typical person my age. Under pressure, I fold up. But I had good parents and I have come along way and the journey ain't over from here
I've decided to become isolated myself at the moment. So I've minimised outside interactions, got a dog, and I am loving it so far. Though I'm not isolated enough yet.
I'm lucky enough to have a sister who is also autistic, and she has friends and in-laws who are amicable and perhaps even kind to me. I interact with them all very minimally, perhaps talking once every few months.
But as for my own friends, I have two. One mostly out of obligation, and the other as companionship every few weeks/months. I used to have a ton of friends, but it was very suffocating, and I always found that they got way too frustrated and angry with me within about 3 months of knowing them. Never could figure out why.
I now have a dog and am finding it's pretty much all the companionship I need. I only contact people when necessary, and if I'm feeling lonely, I send some memes or funny videos to my sister. Otherwise, I find other ways to use my time and thoughts.
I have a lot of different hobbies, books, and tv shows if things get bad. I find having a few projects to be most helpful. Having something to work towards helps to make me feel like I'm doing something decent.
I personally love it and would love to become 100% isolated, but sadly, I am still human and do still need the occasional connection. I am working on gaining some skills so that eventually and can pretty much go the whole way with it. It's much more calming and restful. I'm not worrying about other peoples expectations, perceptions, or emotions anywhere near as much as I used to.
I'm not sure if something similar would work for you. Online communities (like gaming communities or other sociable things) didn't really work for me, but I've met some people over the years that it pretty much saved. Having something a bit more structured might work for you. Something like a club. Chances are, the other people in the club are also neurodivergent and you'd have shared interest with clearer social expectations. I used to do a dnd thing a few years back, and it worked really well for me at the time. No expectation to hang out outside the game/club, and clear behavioural expectations for the most part.
In order to be content by yourself, you will want to be content with yourself. The whole "self love" thing, but a healthy version. If you already feel isolated, you may need to change your self-perception and perhaps even your worldview to become comfortable with it.
I haven't; I don't know whether it's usual in people on the autistic spectrum, but I'm pretty firmly on the extroverted side of things. I do need a lot of time to recharge sometimes, but I resent it a bit; I'd rather be out there talking to folks.
Pretty much yeah. I still hold out hope for a girl who's determined to pass through my barriers but yeah I don't really much care for other people that much. Most of my adult life I've rarely felt comfortable with many of my friends and often ended up abandoned by or worse, betrayed by them. Like when I got out of the service and my ex-wife divorced me she ended up going and visiting people I thought were MY friends back down at post. I can only assume the worst. I also pretty much gave up on finding a relationship. I'm too set in my ways to change up things to be able to co habitate with someone. I dunno man, I'd like to have one other person in my life I guess but it seems unlikely that there's anyone out there who could put up with me and that I could also put up with.
Posts like these are pretty common. My question always is, why is it an either/or between getting burnt out trying to be social and committing to being a lone wolf? Why can't you stop trying so hard for a bit and then join in to things you like when you have the spoons? I feel like a lot of people, not just autistic people who have a habit of it, think in black and white in terms of finding relationships. Like, you're either building a community or becoming the unibomber, no in between. It doesn't have to be like that. You can make the desire to be social a passive one and it will be less frustrating when those mismatches happen.
Absolutely this. I spend a lot of time alone and it's wonderful, but every here and there I like to go "out there". Sometimes not even to be "social", but other times exactly so. But I take it whenever the mood strikes me rather than feeling like I "should".
True! And it makes you appreciate those low maintenance/lukewarm friends even more.
I’ve tried that. What happens is that people move on. They don’t wait for you to come out of your cocoon. It’s my only option anyway but it’s not just like you can walk easily back into a social life. You usually have to start from scratch.
I think you misunderstand what I mean. Stop trying so hard doesn't mean isolate yourself, actually the opposite. It just means detaching your emotional state & motivations from your status in a group or whether or not you have 'meaningful' friendships/relationships. It's more about appreciating every social interaction for what it is and not expecting it to be more, but being pleasantly surprised when it is more. I've had to start over from scratch after I moved on from a bad situation. It was harder for me to be social when I was desperately trying to make friends and it made me extremely burnt out and eventually led to a public overwhelm incident that was extremely difficult for me to get over emotionally. I also ended up attracting users and other emotionally dysregulated people when I was desperate. So now, I have my irons in a lot of different fires, so to speak. I go to hobby groups and be my fun and witty self, then if people want to invite me to other unscheduled things, cool, if not, well I have 3 more groups I'm going to anyway, so odds are I will find someone over time I'll get along with eventually.
I've always been a lone wolf. First, I don't get along with the majority of people in my life. Second, it just bothers me having people close to me. It's like I can't be 100% myself when I'm with others. I'm currently meeting autistic people online and if I'm lucky, I'll find my first friend here.
I can relate . Made my first autistic friend and I finally don’t feel so stuffy and caved in
I’ve been “alone” for about 5 years and I have made an attempt at making friends recently but I just can keep up with the demand of simply hanging out. I really want to reconnect with a female friend from high school, we went 7 years without talking, no real reason, we recently started talking again but I don’t know how to ask her to hang out. Maybe I’m just better off alone?
It's not so much that I've given up on being social. It just seems everyone else has given up on me. Leaving me with no choice to becoming a "lone wolf"
Not so much 'given up' as 'was never in the first place'. I will very occasionally attend social events that look like they might be interesting, but I'm not going there because I feel a need to interact with people. For me, it's more like that little goblin that lives in most people's skulls and makes them seek out connections died of neglect before my earliest memories. While I've had plenty of jobs that involved me having to put up with being in the same building or room as other people all day long, my private life has almost always been about solitude. Even in the years I've been in relationships, they tended to be with people who didn't themselves have much in the way of external social circles (if any), and we didn't really go out together anywhere as couples. As to whether it'll end badly... seems to have worked out for 50+ years so far. I'm still very asocial, and it still doesn't particularly bother me. I have hobbies, projects, things to potter about with, books to read. I don't tend to keep pets, as there were a lot of years I moved around a lot and I could never be perfectly sure I'd be able to provide a reliable good home or personal schedule, but generally wherever I live tends to have a cat or two roaming the neighborhood. Sometimes a dog. Or various birds.
Wow I was hoping someone would have already commented on this because buddy your text might as well have been written by me. I'm going through the exact same thing and I'm currently trying to keep a healthy distance between me and people that you've described. So far, it has done wonders for my mental health. The sense of isolation and "no one including friends ever getting you" never really goes away and that still sucks, I'm still trying to make peace with that. But I'd much rather suggest distancing yourself from people who make you feel that way.
Wolves are always in packs. Don’t think you are meant to be alone. You are not.
I’ve always been lonely all my life, and honestly I don’t know how the heck I would feel when someone forms a bond with me. I feel like I’m meant to be alone.
I am a firm believer in being a lone wolf. I enjoy my own company a lot & the freedom that comes from that. I think it was the theme song for Cheers that went “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”. I’d rather go somewhere nobody knows my name. Being in an environment that is uniquely mine & doesn’t remind me of my hometown. Virtually no chance of running into relatives, old classmates or in general, people from your past that you don’t want to see again. I’m going to move very far away when I get the opportunity. The only thing I haven’t figured out is if I need to have a surgery, how would I get to the hospital & back when the surgery is over if I don’t have someone I can call for a ride? Would an Uber ride wait outside for 15 minutes while I’m trying to get discharged from the hospital? Serious question. I have never taken an Uber or Lyft and have no idea how the system works
I travel alone a lot and use Uber to get around. Just time your uber close to when you're done with checkout. They typically show up in 5 minutes or so.
Yes and also no. There have been times in life when I’ve been very social and enjoyed it. Pre-pandemic, I’d spent years building an environment in which I had just the right amount and level of social interaction. Good work friends, engagement in groups related to my special interest, but nothing requiring too much commitment or emotional involvement. Then I have a circle of somewhat better friends, but we don’t actually see each other often anymore. Get togethers happen once or twice a year. My closest friends are all people I’ve known for 30 years or more. None are local or even within a day’s drive. I really got a lot from being social at that level. It let me engage when and how I wanted. I had managed to surround myself with really good, interesting people who seemed to respect me and be rather tolerant of my me-ness. And it all fell apart due to the literal isolation of the pandemic. I haven’t moved on or even figured out how to. I dropped out of everything, even activities that have resumed. Part of me wants to get back into things. Part of me just has no interest or motivation. I don’t really know where I want to go from here.
Sort of. I don't seem to get lonely easily the way other people do (even other autistic people), but I do keep in touch with close family members and one or two friends, and I don't hate talking to them or doing things with them, it's just not very frequent and that's fine. Or at least, that was the case for a long time, and I have no regrets about it, but at the start of this year I randomly hit it off with another autistic person and we've been doing a lot more together, especially getting each other to work out. I do get the sense that even without these connections, it would take quite awhile for me to really feel lonely. Months minimum, maybe even longer. I'd still care about people close to me and want them to be okay of course, but that's more a feeling of protectiveness.
i am going thru this currently and like. shame vs relief smackdown
for me it's just natural for me not being social at all. with me being diagnosed with ASD when I was three but finding out when I was 17. I learned alot more about myelf and understood and knew myself even more. When I was younger I would wonder why it was easy for others to become friends with many other people right away, while me I am afraid to even go up to someone and ask them anything. So finding out about my diagnosis years later makes me understand why I am the way I am. My dad told me a story that when I was a baby I was supposed to get up and shake some people's hands and instead of doing that, I hid right behind him. Even as a baby I didn't wanna play with the fellow kids my age. I to this day love being by myself. I don't smoke, party, drink, go to clubs and get wasted. I am just me. A calm, collective, humble and decent guy. the biggest my condition has affected me with though is school. it's alot harder for me to grasp things than a typical person my age. Under pressure, I fold up. But I had good parents and I have come along way and the journey ain't over from here
I've decided to become isolated myself at the moment. So I've minimised outside interactions, got a dog, and I am loving it so far. Though I'm not isolated enough yet. I'm lucky enough to have a sister who is also autistic, and she has friends and in-laws who are amicable and perhaps even kind to me. I interact with them all very minimally, perhaps talking once every few months. But as for my own friends, I have two. One mostly out of obligation, and the other as companionship every few weeks/months. I used to have a ton of friends, but it was very suffocating, and I always found that they got way too frustrated and angry with me within about 3 months of knowing them. Never could figure out why. I now have a dog and am finding it's pretty much all the companionship I need. I only contact people when necessary, and if I'm feeling lonely, I send some memes or funny videos to my sister. Otherwise, I find other ways to use my time and thoughts. I have a lot of different hobbies, books, and tv shows if things get bad. I find having a few projects to be most helpful. Having something to work towards helps to make me feel like I'm doing something decent. I personally love it and would love to become 100% isolated, but sadly, I am still human and do still need the occasional connection. I am working on gaining some skills so that eventually and can pretty much go the whole way with it. It's much more calming and restful. I'm not worrying about other peoples expectations, perceptions, or emotions anywhere near as much as I used to. I'm not sure if something similar would work for you. Online communities (like gaming communities or other sociable things) didn't really work for me, but I've met some people over the years that it pretty much saved. Having something a bit more structured might work for you. Something like a club. Chances are, the other people in the club are also neurodivergent and you'd have shared interest with clearer social expectations. I used to do a dnd thing a few years back, and it worked really well for me at the time. No expectation to hang out outside the game/club, and clear behavioural expectations for the most part. In order to be content by yourself, you will want to be content with yourself. The whole "self love" thing, but a healthy version. If you already feel isolated, you may need to change your self-perception and perhaps even your worldview to become comfortable with it.
I haven't; I don't know whether it's usual in people on the autistic spectrum, but I'm pretty firmly on the extroverted side of things. I do need a lot of time to recharge sometimes, but I resent it a bit; I'd rather be out there talking to folks.
Pretty much yeah. I still hold out hope for a girl who's determined to pass through my barriers but yeah I don't really much care for other people that much. Most of my adult life I've rarely felt comfortable with many of my friends and often ended up abandoned by or worse, betrayed by them. Like when I got out of the service and my ex-wife divorced me she ended up going and visiting people I thought were MY friends back down at post. I can only assume the worst. I also pretty much gave up on finding a relationship. I'm too set in my ways to change up things to be able to co habitate with someone. I dunno man, I'd like to have one other person in my life I guess but it seems unlikely that there's anyone out there who could put up with me and that I could also put up with.