# loner



## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

Sometimes when I meet new friends I kind of blow them off, because I feel like I'll lose my freedom. Is that strange? Like, for instance, my brother has tons of friends. Always has. And I don't know how he stands it. His phone is constantly ringing, with people needing this or that. I just don't want random people showing up at my house wanting to hang out, and calling me all day. I was reading about my enneagram type once, a type five, and what stood out the most to me that was so like me, was that I'm greedy, especially with my time. I was always like this to a degree, but now that I have all these anxiety issues, coupled with all I do is work and go to grad school, so I have about an hour to myself a day, its worse.

It's like, half of me is like this because of my panic attacks, and I don't want to be around people because who knows when I'm gonna have a panic attack. And the other half of me is how I've always been which is I need my space. So how do I form relationships without feeling smothered? My therapist (I know) said that its not like high school anymore where people randomly show up at your house and call all hours of the night. And I guess I can hang out when I want to, and people that are really my friends will get how I am. Like my best friend and family know when I'm at home and just not answering their calls. Which is a lot harder to do now that cell phones exist. They don't think any less of me, they just laugh it off or get annoyed with me.

Is anyone else like this, and how do you deal with working this around having a social life but having your space also?


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2006)

enngirl,I hear you 

it's positive that you see a therapist and are trying to work on your social life.

Perhaps you are an introvert by nature.I'm pretty sure I am.
This could be one reason you are different from your brother.No point trying to be like somebody else.
Still I understand you'd like to be more social and not be concerned about feeling smothered.
Yes,so little time and you have to look after your own needs,one of which is alone time.I can understand this too.

I've got a few answers but are loath to suggest them because I'd be a bit full of it if I did.
I'm guilty,I don't do the things I know I should.
I often isolate way too much.I can be a slack friend.
I don't even get it together to ring people,let alone vsit.

At present my daughter lives with me.We hang out together a lot.
It makes me lazy to reach out.

I'm sure others will have some good tips.

Cheers Shelly


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

I live with my mom and we are pretty much best friends and spend all our time together too.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2006)

Maybe this is holding us back?besides I know I'm lazy socially.

My kids are fantastic,they are so good at keeping in touch with their friends.
I often wonder where they got it from?they are so much better with friendships than I am.

I have three older sisters.
Two of them I was very close with when I was young.

What used to happpen was their freinds and mine would all come over to my grandmothers house to hang out(we lived with Nana).
I never had to extend myself.There was always somebody there to chat with.

One important thing to do is follow up.This is where I fall short.
People like to know that you are interested in them.It requires effort.
When I hang out here,I get worse.
Cyber friends are easier to find and I don't have to make a time or drive anywhere LOL


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

I'm the same way Shelly. 99% of the time I'm completely happy hanging out at home or shopping with my mom. But society tells us we should be social. And it can be a pain for us introverts of the world. And I'm lazy too about the whole thing.


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## Brainsilence02 (Jan 29, 2005)

Maybe you don't seek other friends because your best friend is your mother.

Ummm... How would you define freedom?


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2006)

enngirl5 said:


> I'm the same way Shelly. 99% of the time I'm completely happy hanging out at home or shopping with my mom. But society tells us we should be social. And it can be a pain for us introverts of the world. And I'm lazy too about the whole thing.


Yes and who made up these rules? If everyone's happy and healthy, who's to say who your companions should be?
I think that belief is human fear of being isolated from our kind - in hunter/gatherer cultures and maybe all cultures, we couldn't do well without our fellow humans, and I've observed people for many years now and notice that not a single person is without social anxiety. I think that social anxiety is maybe the most powerful force we contend with. So we all have this belief hanging over our heads that the more 'friends' we have the more power we have and the less likely we are to be alienated, therefore perish.

I don't think I'm a loner by nature, based on how I was before I got dp and how I am when it abates, but with dp I am a loner. Though inside I always long for a comfortable cluster of friends, I know I can't handle the pressure of it.


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## Guest (Jan 22, 2006)

Brain some people find it odd that others have a close friendship with one of their parents.
It's actually very common.Many times I've heard a women say that her mother is her best friend.

Enngirl you will no doubt meet a man who you will form a new social network with.It tends to go this way.

It's so true that any adversity be it emotional or physical can cause us to isolate.


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

My therapist (I know :wink: ) asked me what my ideal situation would be regarding friends. And I said I would like to have this tight cluster, where we are all like best friends. I have a best friend besides my mom who's my age and when we were teenagers we had a few guy friends that we were really close with and we always had so much fun. Those times were probably the best time of my life. We would get together and do the craziest stuff to entertain ourselves, and this was before we drank or smoked pot or anything. We would just take off and go to the beach on a whim, or go out to haunted places, or go have paintball wars. I miss that so much now, and my best friend does too, but people change, and grow up and that's how it is. But I think everyone would probably love to have a tight group of friends that care about you and you care about and you can have fun with.


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## sleepingbeauty (Aug 18, 2004)

my best friend lives in portland. so its not like we can hang out much. both my mom and my dad say that i am their best friend. they even tell their friends that. its wierd. i live with my mom as well. technicly i have my own apartment, but her apartment is right next to mine, and we spend most of our free time together, have just started a business together, usually eat together(this works well since we are both vegans). i talk to my mom about all kinds of stuff, but there are MANY things about myself that i keep private from my mom. you guys know a whole side to me that i NEVER show to her, i guess in a cheezed out sort of way, you could call it my 'cool' side. like the movies i like, the music i listen to, stuff like that seem to freak her out, and i dont know why but it really matters to me what they my parents think. i know it shouldnt. and part of my new years resolution is to start just being myself all the time. to stop hiding it and living in my shell. the problem is i have a pretty big family on both sides, and unfortunately they are very judgemental. everything i do, is considered wierd to them, unacceptable. one side wants me to be as professional and successful and NORMAL as i can, the other wants me to be unintelligent, average, and 'just like them' which is hard in itself to describe to someone who has never lived in contemporary hawaii. i have always been the opposite of all that. my mom is very supportive of me, she at least TRIES to understand but i know that she wouldnt be able to handle full blown MALIA in her face. it would really trip her out, and her side of the family. they are the side that want things as 'local' as possible and if youre not youre just 'wiahd' (wierd). my dad on the other hand, if i showed him my true colors he would rant and rave and threaten (as would his side of the family) that im doing it to rebel and shunt my responsibilities and i better 'get real' and 'wise up' and 'get over myself'. so really, what the hell??? how can these people look at me as their 'best friend'?? honestly these people barely know me. they have no friken clue who i am. then again, even though my best friend knows my 'cool' side to a T, we are too much alike in that way and i know that if we lived together (which she keeps begging me to move up there) we would literally kill each other.

sorry to hijack your thread kate, i just had to vent that.


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

Don't worry about hijacking malia. Brainsilence, I would define freedom as being able to do what I want to do, without any restraints or without feeling trapped.


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2006)

sleepingbeauty said:


> the other wants me to be unintelligent, average, and 'just like them' i


I didn't realize there were more of these people. My family is like that. And they're very jealous of anything above average, so they pretend it's bad or ignore it, never appreciate it. They miss out on the richness of life.


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2006)

hey Sleepy what my kids don't tell me I hear about from their friends LOL

Really, sometimes I don't want to know everything.
I don't tell my kids everything about me either as I'm pretty certain they don't want to know.

My poor son hates it when we talk about female stuff.I keep telling him he's not a boy and to get over it.

As for our taste in music well that's not a biggie.Naturally we don't all like the same stuff.I like their taste more than my bf's.
My daughter and I compile pop music cd's for our biz together.


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## Brainsilence02 (Jan 29, 2005)

Shelly said:


> Brain some people find it odd that others have a close friendship with one of their parents.
> It's actually very common.Many times I've heard a women say that her mother is her best friend.


I know, I know, it doesn't seem weird to me. I said that this may be the reason that she doesn't want other friends.

enngirl5, I have seized myself saying "more freedom" several times a week. I am at the other side of the line: I am not in a good relation with my family. I don't like how the system works. And given that I spend most of my days inside the house, I don't have any choise.

And actually not any friends (not as I would want them). We grew up and our lives changed in a manner that they put other things beafore me. It is of course their right. The only problem is that I haven't found any new.

Veeeent!


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## agentcooper (Mar 10, 2005)

hey enngirl  ...i think it would be nice for you to have a tight group of friends but it takes years to build those friendships...so i suppose you should start trying right now. there was an article in the local newspaper here in slc about how friends are becoming more and more like family to people in their 20s and 30s. it used to be that people lived with their families until they got married and started a family of their own...now, people are waiting longer and longer to get married and have children so they develop extremely strong bonds with their friends. i am lucky to have a very tight group of best friends (there are about 7 of us) and i enjoy having them. i truly do feel very lucky. they are such a great support to me when i'm going through hard/bad times and we have so much fun together. i absolutely know they would do anything for me and i would do anything for them. they have taken me to the hospital, supported me through abusive relationships, helped me through a horrible drug addiction, and much more. i wish everyone had a group of friends like that...i think you should try to put yourself out there, even though it will be hard and time consuming....the benefits far out weigh the cons.

good luck...


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## Depersonalized (Feb 11, 2005)

friends are overrated


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## agentcooper (Mar 10, 2005)

Depersonalized said:


> friends are overrated


no way! i disagree.


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## Brainsilence02 (Jan 29, 2005)

Depersonalized said:


> friends are overrated


No. Man is a social animal.


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

> friends are overrated


lmao


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## enngirl5 (Aug 10, 2004)

Well depersonalized, maybe me and you can get a hut somewhere in the mountains and not talk to anyone and retire as hermits. My best friend always wanted to do this too so she might have to come with us. But would three people living together still constitute being anti social. Yeah, I guess so.


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## Guest (Jan 23, 2006)

Brain sorry to hear things aren't good with your family.
With my own family,my siblings,we are not the Waltons.
In fact we are a typical dysfunctional mob.

It's not much fun to be spend too much time at home.Sorry to hear about your friend situation.

Agent I can see where the article was coming from I'd say it makes sense.
The other thing today is that people move about a lot more.
Personally I've found when people move a long distance it is more difficult to maintain a strong relationship over time.

You are most fortunate to have such a reliable network of friends.As you said it didn't happen over night.

I have two friends(not close)who I always think of as the two women I know who have the most friends.
Both of them put friendship and social contact as the number one priority in their lives(so it seems).
They ring people,follow up,visit,make dates.They show an interest.
They have friends that they don't appear to have a lot in common with.
In fact they have friends who I personally can't figure out what the attraction is but still they do.
One of them is married the other single.One is heavily involved with a guru group the other is not religious.One has good health the other experienced a near fatal illness.
My point being it's not so much their lifestyle as it is the actions they take to maintain their friendships.

So I pretty much know what I could be doing.I'm just not as keen as I'd like to be.
Groups are good for making new friends.Let's face it if we all lived in the same town(oooh scary)we'd all have extra friends


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## agentcooper (Mar 10, 2005)

enngirl5 said:


> Well depersonalized, maybe me and you can get a hut somewhere in the mountains and not talk to anyone and retire as hermits. My best friend always wanted to do this too so she might have to come with us. But would three people living together still constitute being anti social. Yeah, I guess so.


i don't think you should sell yourself short, enngirl. friends are very important. you obviously would like to have some close friendships in your life, and you seem like a person people would be lucky to have as a friend.

*sorry, had to edit...i'm a bit tipsy and my grammar is horrific right now.


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## Brainsilence02 (Jan 29, 2005)

Shelly said:


> Let's face it if we all lived in the same town(oooh scary)we'd all have extra friends


Yeah, I think we would


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