I’m what you might call a hard-core loner. I’m 38 and haven’t had a single friend since elementary school. I’ve had one or two acquaintances who’ve let me hang out with them from time to time (always women; I feel much more comfortable around women than men) but invariably, within a few months, they drift away and stop responding to emails. Occasionally I do get lonely; sometimes I envy the folks who seem to have hundreds of people who care about them. I realize, though, that I wouldn’t be able to deal with that: I’ve found that if I interact with people more than about 2 hours a week, I start to feel weary and drained. Not to mention the fact that I can’t really think of any good qualities I have that would make people want to spend time with me. Since I’ve never had friends, I’ve never learned how to be a friend, and when I do get into a conversation, I can never think of anything to say that wouldn’t be completely banal or stupid.
I’ve always relied on temporary agencies to find jobs for me because I just can’t do the whole networking thing
As a former loner, I defend PinkShoes’s right to find her own comfort level with society. You socialites and party animals may have no conception of the richness of experience awaiting within one’s own self. It’s just a different sort of richness… more monochrome, perhaps, but of unparallelled depth for those who appreciate depth.
My life has transformed radically and rapidly over the past year; as part of coming out and accepting how deeply, truly strange I am, I went from having essentially no friends to having more friends than I could ever find time for. So being a loner is not necessarily permanent. I just reject the assumption that there’s anything wrong with it.
I have plenty of friends and family around, but I don’t mind being by myself much of the time, and I don’t mind traveling alone, eating alone, going to the movies alone, etc. Sometimes I even prefer it that way. I don’t see a thing wrong with it. It just happens to work for me.
You may notice that there is a minor gap in the fabric of reality in this thread. We had a “sock puppet” who had posted several times, and who has had several different identities on our boards. We have therefore caused his posts to disappear.
This is our standard practice with trolls and sock puppets. If they see that their efforts vanish into smoke, we hope that they will go away and stop pestering us.
Unfortunately, this causes a bit of a hiccough in the logic of the thread. That seems a small price to pay, but sorry about it anyway.