The thread in CS about Thomas Pynchon being on The Simpsons got me thinking about this question.
What are the requirements? Do you have to destroy all the pictures of yoursefl? I imagine you’d want to stay out of the media and the public eye in general. Could you talk to anyone? Would you have to live in a state with a small population? As the Unabomber showed us, you don’t necessarily need to have any money to be a recluse, but if I was going to do such a thing I’d certainly want to be comfortable.
Do you have to grow/raise your own food or can you go shopping? Do you have people go shopping for you? Do you see the shopping intermediaries? How do you avoid people looking for you? (Buy a gun?) Are you allowed to be polite to people? Can you make periodic trips into the public?
For anyone to really care whether or not you’re a recluse, you’d probably need to be famous. How does the living situation work out? Do you need to pull a Saddam and move every three hours, or can you just be the scary resident that doesn’t shave (male or female) and lives in the dark house in the woods until you die?
I remember someone that had a relationship with Salinger sold some love letters (?) a couple years ago. Would celibacy be a requirement as well to avoid situations like that? If you can have friends, how do you keep them to keep their traps shut? How do you keep the locals from bothering you?
Would a recluse be able to post to the SDMB, assuming they had net access? Would they want to, or is any human contact anti-reclusive behavior?
I’m mostly asking out of curiousity. This certainly isn’t something that I am presently considering, it might apply to the future though. When I’m famous I’m not going to want to be around the unwashed masses and I want to know how to avoid them.
Shoot! I’m very, very sorry. I was sure I was in IMHO, but apparently not. Would a gracious mod (whom I will forever be indebted to) please move this for me?
Well, I suppose it would depend how reclusive you wanted to be.
Are you a famous person who wants to disappear? Or just an average joe who wants to disappear? I’m an average joe who posts on the SDMB, has friends, and doesn’t live in dark house far out from town…and not too many people know of my existence…
Actually this may seem like a subject from which you can get a couple of laughs, but it isn’t. A dentist friend of mine, once asked if I wanted to watch some slides he was showing to a HS student who wanted to be a dentist. Some of the pictures were of what he called “night people”. These people were suffering from advanced mouth cancer. That is something I’m glad I saw, but was not a pleasant experience. I have never heard of them before or since, but they exist. They come out to get groceries, etc. when other people are generally asleep. We should have nothing but compassion for people like this and not make fun of how they have to live. I’m not coming down on you for this, just telling you about something that is not generally known.
kniz, thanks for the information. I really didn’t have any idea about night people either, and can’t imagine being in that situation. I am genuinely interested in what someone like Salinger or Pynchon (or someone that doesn’t “have” to stay in) does to be reclusive.
I guess I’m a recluse. Obviously I have to go to work so I can eat and pay rent, but on my days off I don’t leave my house at all. I prefer to run my errands at night like shopping, jogging or going to the mailbox because I don’t want people to see me on the street. I don’t have a car, and while I really don’t need one, I’d like one so I don’t have to walk and have people look at me. People in my neighborhood recognize me when I walk to work and wave and smile, so I take different routes so I don’t have to reciprocate.
I have a lot of friends (I think it’s a lot) but I don’t ever call them - they call me. I don’t answer my phone when it rings and I take forever to return calls. (I’m surprised I still have friends, but I guess most of them know I’m weird and like me anyway).
When I go to the library, I use the automatic machine to check out my books rather than see a librarian.
I prefer email to the telephone and the telephone to face-to-face encounters.
I don’t really know why I’m like this. People who know me like me; I’m good looking and intelligent. People often try to get to know me better, but I"m pretty closed-up.
Is there a difference between being reclusive and just being lonely?
I’d venture to guess that a big part of being a true recluse is that you have to cause a lot of people to wonder what you’re actually doing. In other words, people have to WANT to know about you if you’re going to be truly reclusive. I mean, if you’re just sitting home alone every night but nobody really cares about you…what’s the point?
As Michael Douglas said in ‘The Game:’ “If you don’t KNOW about society you can’t have the satisfaction of avoiding it…” Or something like that.
I used to date an agoraphobic artist. We met over the internet and talked on the phone for two weeks before meeting. He would drive to my house, but wouldn’t go anywhere else. Like someone else said, he would run any errands at night. In fact, he would not go out at all during the day.
He didn’t work a traditional job, but sold his art over the internet. We never went on one date, and he only met two of my friends (who happened to come to my house).
Once an art gallery in downtown Indy called him about showing his work. He tried to drive there three times before giving up. The idea of being on the road driving or going to consult someone about business made him have panic attacks. He said the first few times he drove to my house he nearly had to turn back.
He was also very depressed. But I loved him a lot and it broke my heart when we ended things. It was just too hard to be with someone like that.
As the great author Terry Pratchet wrote: “There is no point in being a hermit [or recluse] if young, good looking women don’t wander by every now and then looking for you.” (I’m not sure about the details, bu that gets the basic point.)
Stephe96, I think that the difference between being a recluse and being lonely is the stste of mind. If you’re lonely, you’re also sad and probably baord. It’s also because you basically have no friends. If you’re a recluse it’s because you want to be.