Why do we self-isolate?

[Joturbo]

Social anxiety mainly , family responsibilities , general laziness ,alcohol dependency I have many excuses but I'm trying to change now accepting who I am and making the effort before it's too late. 

 

[LostintheBardo]

Fear of failure.

 

[Jessicat]

Fear

 

[IncolaVacui]

Typically, a person's motives are either unclear or hidden. My favorite game to play is What's The Catch...it's when something seems too good to be true because it probably is and so before I go making a costly stupid decision socially or romantically I first ask myself: "...But what's the catch?..." And I wait for a while, patiently, impatiently, and eventually, eventually it reveals itself to me.

About the only people I trust are my immediate family...and even then, that's on rocky grounds as well. It just happens to be the lesser of two evils. There's a difference between ignorance and arrogance. Ignorance is not knowing, arrogance is knowing, and choosing not to care.

I find a certain personal strength in the insanity of the endless sea of information. It's what gives me my drive when I don't have one otherwise.

I suppose to some extent I also isolate myself out of a factor of self-management. It's easier to manage my life if I'm not having to spend extra energy trying to keep up with people socially. I'm not waking up hung over from bars and staying up too late, I'm not burning myself out to try to get along with other people who want me to be more like them and less of myself, I don't do that ********. I'm too old for it, and I have neither the energy nor the resources to fall into clique mentality.

I isolate myself because I'm honestly more interested in what historical or astronomical documentary I can find to watch on youtube or on netflix. I don't care about American Horror Story too much, or whatever the crap is the socially popular thing to talk about and do or play and have like with game consoles or with going to some event or convention. ...I'd rather be found learning about ancient world history and ancient civilizations, or black hole singularity theories and quasars, or something of a deeper level of substance and meaning. I like depth, and thinking. I'm a tinkerer and a thinker, and I've pretty much mostly always been a loner anyhow so I'm pretty well used to it as an adult.

I'm not completely anti-social, I'm just largely anti-social. I don't mind talking to people online on forums and skype and the like. But, you know, I'll be damned if I run into someone downtown who tells me that in a few weeks they'd like for us to take a trip to the amusement park in the next town over together, kind of a thing. While I actually really like rollercoasters and amusement parks, I DON'T like spontaneity, it irritates the crap out of me and gets in my way and messes my life up more often times than it does me any actual good. Even if it's enjoyable at the time, I always end up thinking about how I could've just kept to my schedule later. I actually even schedule my downtime/free time and tie those into my budget, so that most of the time even that is within a controlled boundary.

I do have a bit of social anxiety, but that's honestly mainly from meeting one too many ****** people.

 

[Naizo]

Because, honestly, hell is other people.

Like for example. I'd love to get laid, but having to deal with someone elses ******** and life to get there just isn't worth the effort for the outcome. It'd have to be someone extremely worth spending time with whatsoever. It would have to be someone cool with being alone, in the same room as someone else. I just generally don't have any interest in the life of some vapid woman.

I'd love to share music that I enjoy, but people always hate what I'm listening to and turn on something else mid way through the song. Even when taking turns picking music. So **** them.

My reasoning might be a bit selfish, but it really comes down to, why spend time doing what others enjoy when I can do what I enjoy by myself?

 

[yme]

For those of us who actually isolate ourselves by not attending things, or just dropping out of touch and not maintaining relationships with people, I'm curious to know why others do it?

For me, it often comes down to the fact that after 35 years of living, there are just not a ton of people left who I feel uplifted around or supported by.  Also, if the social gathering in question involves lots of people, I find it to be really difficult to have the kind of interactions with people I find valuable.  You see a lot of people, but don't get time to really connect with them, because there's a lot of "mingling" happening and so the conversation is just relegated to small talk, which I am not a fan on.  I have one BFF who is an amazing human being.  We GET each other, I think is what it really is.  She is also a "lone wolf" who wants to be "alone together."  Same with my husband.  I have a couple more people who live far away from me, but we are close and if we got together one-on-one it would be meaningful.  I like interesting, detailed conversations.  So I know in my intro post I lamented that I haven't been invited to the "townie reunion" which is a bunch of my high school friends getting together for dinner and drinks around the holidays.  Well, I probably don't get invited anymore because eventually I stopped going.  Which is totally my fault for isolating myself. 

So, why do other self-isolators isolate themselves?

Hello!

I think that I am the same way. I usually have a few choice friends to begin with and when that goes sour, I am left with the general public, which isn't keen on having in depth conversations - meaningful conversations, that is. Yes, I have to admit that I too am the cause of my loneliness and depression.

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For me it's the fact that whenever I've tried to amend my social situation by attempting to make friends, it always resulted in pain, frustration and disappointment.  When I focus on accepting myself as a loner I actually start to feel better about myself.

Hello!

I find too, when I try to attend group sessions of any kind that I walk away with a feeling of awkwardness frustration because what I came there to get has left me leaving empty handed and disappointed. Mainly, my disappointment came from my usual high expectations.

 

[yme]

I just figured out another reason I self isolate (speaking more about friends than family).  It's to protect me from rejection and hurt.  I have experienced social rejection quite a bit for most of my life, despite going through a bit of a social phase during high school and college (mostly because of the extracurricular activities I was in - the other misfits in those would gravitate towards one another).  I misread people and am terrible at performing social rituals.  So many friendships I thought were going to grow turned out to be superficial, transient ones.  Why emotionally invest if people are just going to forget about me?  Emotionally investing myself in another person is something that's very laborious and exhausting for me, so I only want to do it for very exceptional people who are going to be my real friend.  I'm very sensitive to the rejection because the emotional investment eats up a lot of my bandwidth, so it's quite difficult for me to just "brush it off."  As I get older, I find I want to take that risk less and less.  I understand the importance of community and having a support network, but I'm finding that I lack the energy to put myself through the trail and error of it all.  

There's another aspect to my aversion in terms of making new friends: the fact that highly emotionally dysfunctional people tend to be attracted to me as a friend candidate.  I had to end a rather long friendship (which went back to middle school) in my 20's.  The long and short of it was what started off as a bond between two misfits ended in me having to completely go no contact because she demanded my time and emotional energy at all times, including late into the night, and would essentially stalk me if I was unavailable at any given time.  Her methods of getting attention and sympathy from people escalated over the years.  It was an entirely one-sided relationship with her taking and me giving.  It was a difficult and painful decision to make, and she made sure to punish me for it.  It was the right decision, and now my hackles are raised in terms of fending off that personality type.  I may even be hypersensitive and sense red flags that aren't even there, perhaps, but I can't go through another nightmare like that with a friendship ever again.

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I don't isolate myself anymore. I did it in my teenage years, primarily cause I felt unwelcomed pretty much everywhere. I tryed to come to the latino American dance class party, cause I wanted desperately to try and socialize. It was awful, one of the worst experiences of my life.

Now I'm isolated cause people don't really invite me anymore. So I decided to be the one who organise things. So far I have organized 3 dinners, which had a good success and I'm looking to built a good social circle. Somehow D:

It's a process!    I hope you are able to build some solid friendships!

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Hello!

I agree that for most of the part, I lack interest too in going through the preliminaries of friendships. If not all, most of my so called friendships consist of them taking and me doing all the giving too. I am suppose to play the role of listener and they do all the talking so my needs aren't met in these kinds of scenarios. Therefore, I find myself alone. I just can't take all the listening and me doing no talking or interrupting. I am not a psychiatrist and that is what some of them need. Nor do I want to be the one doing all the talking and them just listening. I seek balance, a conversation.

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I isolate because a lot of people are dicks and/or a waste of time. Honestly, it's done me more good than harm. Got my family and the few friends I really want. The rest, well...good luck in your future endeavours lol.

Hello!

At least, you have your family.

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Hi Amy

I get what you're saying about attaching. I think I've invested a lot of time into it in the past only to be let down. I've always felt like my relationships have been one sided with me doing all the giving and it's exhausting 

Hello!

Indeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[yme]

I think for me it came about largely because I retreated to a bed following a heart attack and chronic depression and generalised anxiety. The fatigue is now terrible, just doing basic tasks takes everything I’ve got.

But I think say 5 years before that I probably lost faith in people, I had a good career and some good times (money) up until I was say 40 years old. But when the bad times roled, I don’t think people were interested or there for me.

But at a top level, I don’t think people like me, I’ve never really had friends and often the relationship with my family has been strained. I just don’t think I’m a likeable person. At best ‘marmite’.

Hello!

Having bad health puts a tremendous strain on relationships. Since my increased condition of lower lumbar, degenerated knee cartilage and, hip pain along with depression, has caused me to isolate. My family relationship has always been messed up and I have refused for years to surrender to it. That's another reason for my loneliness. Like many others, I have lacked energy in the start up of relationships than I had years ago. Plus, me are more dangerous than they had been years ago too.

I don't know how likeable I am to others but I know that I have never been the most popular either. I am too real, I guess.

 

[Lonewolf33]

For a plethora of reasons I just ruin most relationships before they even begin. I don’t know why that is but whenever anyone gets remotely close to me I end up doing something that pushes them away. Normal people can meet someone get along with them great and grow to be in a relationship or being good friends I can’t seem to do either.

 

[yme]

For a plethora of reasons I just ruin most relationships before they even begin. I don’t know why that is but whenever anyone gets remotely close to me I end up doing something that pushes them away. Normal people can meet someone get along with them great and grow to be in a relationship or being good friends I can’t seem to do either.

How is it that you figure you can do that? Let's talk.