To want to just avoid people as much as I can until I die now

I was able to observe that despite my advanced age and greater experience (than I'd had earlier in life when I'd tried to socialise), people were still uncomfortable in my presence, regarded me with suspicion and basically did not like me. For no real reason. But that's fine. Nothing positive came from it except perhaps I satisfied my curiosity about whether I could cut it in company or not. Not.

I don't think the people haters understand what you are saying @Thepeopleversuswork

They are seeing what they want to see.

@OAPapparently

If strangers on the internet want to stay at home, why does it make you so angry? It doesn’t effect you.

Strangers on the internet wanting to stay at home doesn’t effect me at all. I have been very clear that I have no problem with people managing their social contact as they see fit. Knock yourselves out if you want to be a homebody. I am a bit of a homebody myself.

What makes me angry, and actually quite frightened, is threads saying things like “I don’t ever want to see another person until I die.” Or “I hate people.” Or “Hateful people who require me to nod courteously from time to time are destroying my mental health.” Or, as in a recent thread on here: my boss was being controlling and intrusive by inviting me to lunch.

Theres a vast difference between knowing you don’t do well in big groups and prefer a quiet night in and going out of your way to tell randoms on the internet that “all people stink” or that they are intrinsically bad or they are “part of the problem” because they don’t dislike others.

You may not feel this matters. It matters a lot to me because in an age where people are struggling with loneliness and living atomised lives and political parties leverage our sense of difference from one another I think it’s important to emphasise what people have in common.

And this fetishisation or misanthropy and isolation feeds into the worst and most cynical sides of society.

So much anger for what you deem to be the incorrect use of a word.
If strangers on the internet want to stay at home, why does it make you so angry? It doesn’t effect you.

Can I just say (and I’m honestly not trying to pick a fight here btw) you’re not really coming across as tolerant yourself if you’re genuinely angry some people don’t want to go to the Christmas party.

Exactly. I have heard genuine introverts start to call it out (on here and elsewhere), which is great but this narrative is still very hard to shift, as this depressing thread shows.

Well said again @Thepeopleversuswork
People using "being an introvert" to excuse misanthropic behaviour does genuine introverts no favours.

I totally agree and I find it disturbing that people can’t tell the difference.

This whole narrative about “introversion” has become unbelievably twisted. True introversion has nothing to do with hating people or fury about having to go to the work Christmas party and wanting to be a hermit. The vast majority of people using it on here are using it incorrectly and moreover are perverting the meaning of the word as a fig leaf for their resentment, spite and social anxiety.

It actually makes me quite upset and angry.

Making space for yourself and being able to decompress is one thing. Most people need to do that. Hating the entire population is quite another. The OP is just spitting venom and I can't even bring myself to feel sad about it. I'm just thankful I don't know anyone like that.

However I don't think cutting off from people is the answer. As others have said, it is a shortcut to a different type of misery often. Nothing wrong with introversion, solitude etc but I think balance is very important in all things. I'm quite introverted but I do make the effort to go to friends birthdays and meet up. It's important.

I really treasure the good people in my life. But you definitely have to protect against a great many bad traits in many other people! The one that winds me up the most currently...flakiness!

I used to always say hello to everyone I passed. But for many years now I have been met with blank stares or shudders or incomprehension, so I am no longer saying hello.

Now I am part of the general rude horde, it seems.

Makes me sad

I would find it hard to tell him to go and get knotted when he actually appears at him door. (If he does let me know that he wants to come I often manage to be unavailable though).

That sounds exhausting. I'd be much less available for him to have a moan.

I only want to see people when I'm in the mood. And I want them to go when I've had enough of them. I'm very English and have never learned how to say this.
I have my GC for breakfast during the week until I take them to school. Some days that is more than enough!!
My DS drops in three times a week or so during the day and moans about his life. He can't get the idea that it is his life and it is him who needs to do something about it.

@Petitchat

How or why is it a shortcut to old age?

Limiting your social circle this radically definitively ages people.

I have a friend who I have known for 30+ years who has chosen to live like this and sees no one other than her husband and sisters (and me once or twice a year). She was very sociable when younger but once she got married she went down this route of “social pruning”.

She is incredibly aged by it: she’s agoraphobic and seldom leaves the house, she is morbidly obese and has lots of chronic health issues. She is desperate to retire (aged 52) in order, by her own admission, to watch TV all day undisturbed and says she has nothing to look forward to. She isn’t aware of any news or current affairs post about 1995 and hasn’t listened to any music post then.

I still love her to bits but I find it heartbreaking tbh. I am six months older than her and it feels as if she is a generation older than me and it seems so unnecessarily self limiting.

Nothing like a bit of ageism on a thread to make it full house.

How or why is it a shortcut to old age?

My sister did this a few years ago. Decided she only wanted Christmas and most other social occasions her and her boys who were in their early teens then. We were in a bad place at the time after serious illness, at which time the few friends we had, just about all abandoned us thanks to illness. Also lost career job thanks to illness and other half lost job due to offshoring. On account of this, especially sisters attitude, we returned to the UK as we had nothing left to live for in Australia. Fast forward a few years and my sisters "boys" have grown up, moved 1000s of miles away and not interested in visiting mother, not even at Christmas. The meaning in this to anyone thinking of cutting themselves off is that you might abandon the people who need you and one day, you might need them. Also, living like that is a short cut to old age.

It's easier than ever before to not interwct with hundreds of people. OP would not have got her 100% WFH home job even a few years ago

Also rubbish. Many people have worked remotely successfully for decades. It's become far more widespread since Covid but it by no means was a new thing at that point.

Population still growing and birthrates declining aren't mutually exclusive. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Maths?

What a sad post

What happened to make you regret it & did anything positive at all come from the experiences? 💐

Yes , sounds nice but no mobile phones, Netflix or Google?! Xx was nice but not nice x