I feel much the same as you. I do not form attachments to others easily. I am happiest by myself. Alone does not mean lonely. I find that all the electronic doodads are very helpful. I can e-mail, IM and Facebook enough to form social attachments without much actual (and very stressfull) face to face.
You don’t have to answer to ‘the social police’ if you prefer relationships that seem distant to others. People you will be drawn to will understand and be happy to give you the space you need.
And that is why I am not a Buddhist, because “endure” and “experience” are one in the same to me. Saying I must experience my life sounds like the woo-wooiest thing from Woowooland.
When I posted this I missed that you were moving out of the building. That changes things. I agree that it wouldn’t be the end of the world to have coffee, since if you don’t like them you don’t have to run into them constantly.
You are moved out. You can’t catch up on a possible missed social relationship now. Where were they through all this time that you lived there? Just move on. You don’t own any explanation to anybody. If you do get trapped again in the parking lot you can say you are very busy moving. Avoid providing any private information.
Stop wasting time with us schlubs and go have water with the witches.
Well - then my vote is for eschewing all human interaction, since it’s an ordeal to be endured, for you. Tell the neighbor ladies you are not interested in human social interaction, and move on.
Why is this even a question? Either you are comfortable with being a loner, or you are not. You don’t think life is something to be experienced socially, so just don’t. It is not like there’s a multitude of choices here. Be friendly, or don’t be friendly. Done.
Apparently it’s the former, so fuck them and deny interaction and stay in your comfort zone. I don’t get the angst.
nm just +1. If you don’t want to be “friends” or friendly, then say no. If yes, then go for an hour or maybe two.
Don’t forget – they were being nice to you. That’s not exactly a social contract, but at least be nice when you see he/she/witch again. You never know if you three may have something in common – one of she may play tambourine and you might play mandolin – it could be good for everyone, but you’ll never know unless you try.
[/Fred Rogers]
If the thought of having an IRL friend fills you with dread, I’m kind of in the ‘It’s perfectly OK’ camp.
Seriously - people have friends because they like them, not because they have to.
As to your other ‘friend’ well, she wasn’t your friend, was she? She was someone using you as free labour. I mean, that’s fine if you want to volunteer at a farm, but I wouldn’t hold that up as an example of a friend you’ve had - that’s someone who was exploiting you for as much help as she could get.
If you’re worried about hurting people, I would say that you are less likely to hurt people’s feelings if you OCCASIONALLY accept their social invitations than you are if you reject them outright. You can be casual friends with someone - you don’t have to let it become some deep, close bond where you see each other every day or every week. I’m guessing that these ladies are just thinking something like, “Wow, a marine biologist? That sounds very unusual and interesting. I want to know more about this lady” and not thinking you’ll be lifelong friends based on this interaction.
I don’t think I am a Schizoid, but I am an introvert, so I can sympathize with someone who does not enjoy socializing. It does make life harder in some situations like this.
I have to admit that I don’t really want to interact with my neighbors either.
However, I have found that it makes dealing with people easier for me if I make an effort to attend enough social gatherings/parties/etc. that people feel like I’m at least trying to be friendly, rather than allowing myself to become known as “unfriendly” or having people try to figure out what they did “wrong” that I didn’t want to be around them.
Another thing is, it seems that for some people, someone who NEVER socializes becomes “mysterious” to them and makes them determined to try to understand what your deal is, whereas if you just occasionally hang out with them then they may be satisfied with that and not push for more.
It has also been my experience that socializing with people does become easier if you keep doing it. I will never be the kind of person who LOVES to make small talk with strangers (I once pretended to be asleep for the entirety of a flight so I wouldn’t have to talk to my seatmate) but over time I’ve found that there are some social situations where I don’t mind chit chat and I can tolerate it for the sake of the extroverts out there who crave such interactions.
If I were you, I might try hanging out with the people once just to placate them and see how it goes. Who knows, they might actually have something interesting to say.
I don’t want to be a loser.
People with no friends = loser
As much as I try to act above it all, a small part of me still wants to belong to humankind. Belonging means being like most people. Most people have friends and relationships beyond the family.
But I don’t want friends. I want to belong but I don’t want the thing that would make me feel like I belong.
It really isn’t that complicated. My angst, that is.
But I’m very glad for you that you don’t understand it.
I didn’t realize this was your situation – I don’t know you, obviously, but you always seemed smart and sensible to me.
Oh, shit, I got nothing – turn that frown upside-down? It’s OK – as you know – to just prefer chilling with yourself. Just be cool with others – a good high sign or just be chill and not like a crazy lady scurrying back and forth. You don’t seem like that sort, anyway, so you’re good, right?
There are some activities you enjoy doing, right? Crafty things? Go find a group that does the crafty thing you like. Do it with them. Chat while doing it.
Voila - you have some friends. I think you may be over estimating how much intimacy is involved in the average friendship - I mean I sit with a group of women and we knit and people gripe about stuff, and talk about a wedding they were at and what they’re doing for Thanksgiving. I consider these people my friends but I don’t share the nitty gritty details of my life with them - we talk about yarn.
If I may, it seems like you’re making this a bit more complicated than it actually is. Most relationships, outside of family, are pretty superficial. It’s nice to have one bosom friend but I think if you don’t you’re not a loser - you’re just someone who enjoys your own company.
Above everything else though - quit beating yourself up about it! For Pete’s sake - you don’t have friends because you’re not into people. Lots of people don’t have friends because people aren’t into THEM.
Well I think you need to either shit or get off the pot, and quit getting all angsty, or just succumb to the angst and be pathetic.: it’s a choice you are making.
I get angst and all that, I truly do. But you are being silly about this: alternating between OMG ppl are scary OMG and, well, OMG ppl are scary.
Quit being a drama queen and over-thinking this for shit’s sake. You either want to take a risk and attempt being normal and friendly, or you don’t and being anti-social and lonesome is more your thing. Pick one, get comfortable with it, or don’t, but get over the OMG I am a speshul snowflake and ppl don’t understand me thing because seriously it’s quite silly.
This entire post has me smiling (inside) for some reason. Thank you!
Sometimes I actually do scurry back and forth…kind of like a blue crab! 
But most times I am cool with others and chill. I think I’ve got people IRL fooled that I’m not too eccentric. So it’s all good.
For what it’s worth, I don’t feel loneliness 99.5% of the time. Usually when it creeps in is when I am very depressed and I feel too inarticulate to speak. So in that way, alice_in_wonderland, I AM OK with who I am and I do not feel like a loser. I’ve come to accept a lot of the things I used to hate about myself. I have a respectable amount of self-confidence. You have to have it if you are me.
But when someone says, “Oh, it’s alright you don’t have any friends!” I can’t help but feel like they don’t really believe this since they are not in this situation themselves and most likely would be unhappy if they found themselves anywhere close to this situation. Even I don’t believe it.
OK, the hostility is making you look like a drama queen, not me. I haven’t blamed a single person for my behavior or my angst, excluding myself.
If you don’t know what a dilemma is, go find a dictionary. If you don’t know what schizoidism is, go read about it. That’s all I can tell you.
You certainly aren’t making me feel guilty or ashamed, if that is what you are trying to do. So go find another person to get exasperated with.
I don’t quite get the last paragraph – you bet your ass it’s OK you don’t have any friends. But real friends are not the kind you meet at the local PTA meeting or whatever you do for fun.
Straight talk here: you do need some friends locally to whom you can reach out.
I “need” a steady girlfriend, too (grrr like a hole in the head grrr). But it’s not worth the effort to me to even bother picking up some random chick from a bar. Maybe cost/benefit analysis is the way to go – I’m not disrespecting you for wanting some friends, by any means, but maybe a little hiking club or pubcrawl or whatever might make you feel a little better.
FWIW, I’ve only started regularly posting here in the past few years, but I’ve seen your posts and you seem like a solid sender. Maybe a doper hang in your neighborhood? (Says the man whose mother tried to set him up with a Syrian young woman from a very traditional family – what? I don’t even drink that much, but in the modern age, what’s wrong with grabbing a tea or some spirit or some good MENA coffee whatever as a “get to know you” type thing? not going to walk on egg-shells or shell for dinner! bonus, if we get some tea/mineral water/beer, I can play some piano at a few places and she can imagine what … never mind)
I know what a dilemma is and I know what schizoidism is.
Thanks, though.
My comments stand: you either want friends, or you want to stay insular; you want to be a loser, you don’t want to be a loser (these are your terms, not mine.) The choice of behaviour is up to you, you have the power - what, precisely, do you want people here to do for you that you cannot do for yourself? What question in your OP (“What do I do? What do I do?”) do you actually want answered, or do you simply want to express angst?
I appreciate the suggestions and the reaching out–I don’t want you to think I don’t. You’re always really nice to me, alice. Always so patient.
But I have tried this too. With both my music and ceramics. I stuck it out for a year, for both things, and then got plum tuckered out. There was no rhyme or reason for dropping out other than I wasn’t enjoying those activities anymore. Not in the presence of others. By myself, yes. But having others see my art in its nascent stages and having to articulate my vision to others…I just didn’t like it.
It may be that I need to come up with more situations where I don’t have to be sociable but I can still be around people and their energy. Yoga class, I just realized, is like this. I don’t connect with the other students but I have connected with the instructor, even if it’s just for the few seconds she spends correcting my poses. And although yoga isn’t my favorite thing, I do not think I will quit any time soon (though I haven’t been doing it a year yet, so we’ll see :)). Maybe I just need to keep finding activities like this to keep me from feeling completely alienated.
Alright, I was with you until this last sentence. How is it okay to not have friends but I do need some friends? Don’t those two contradict each other?
At the risk of drawing more of chiroptera’s ire, I don’t want some friends. I want to want some friends. And I do socialize (like at work). It’s not like I’m screaming and throwing cats at people and just being a giant unfriendly weirdo. It’s just that I lack the drive to befriend people and turn acquaintances into friends. I’m troubled by this and wish I was not this way.
But I am tired of talking about it because I feel like I have talked too much already. And I don’t know what advice people can give me other than stuff I have already tried.
Thanks very much for that, Jaledin.
There is nothing rational about friendship - except that if we need it, the lack of it can destroy our lives.
Unfortunately, not everyone who needs a friend can be a friend. Some of us actually have to fake it, and do so often and well, if we don’t want to end up alone.
That is, for some of us, a cold realization - that we need to be false to others before they will be themselves to us.