to be perfectly happy in my own company?

[Stinklebell]

because apparently it's "weird"

I'm not madly extrovert, not a hermit either, but I am perfectly happy pottering around by myself.

I work part time from home, and I've just had a very nice couple of hours with Sky+ and my ironing pile

DH is the opposite, loves company, always organising get togethers and nights out - even stuff like a Saturday night takeaway turns into a mad social gathering and sometimes I just find it a bit too much.

My DH went away with our kids a couple of weeks ago, and a friend was all "oh, you can't stay home on your own, I'll be over Friday with some wine, we'll go shopping Saturday then we'll go out Saturday night". It was lovely of her, but she didn't quite get that actually, I am just fine tootling around alone. I like mooching around the shops on my own, I like chilling out with a film or something on my own. I don't want to stand outside the school gates for an hour every morning chatting, or go somewhere for coffee or meet up for lunch every day

I don't mind friends over, I don't mind meeting friends for a coffee, I just don't want to do it all the time. I like my own space, I like my own company, I'm not bored or lonely, I just don't want to be surrounded by people all the time.

It's not unreasonable, right?

I'm very happy in my own company too.
DH was quite put out when he told me he was away for a few days on a conference and I couldn't quite hide my glee! By coincidence I was child free those days too. It was lovely.
Love DH, love DC/DSC, love being with them and wouldn't change a thing, but when I do get time to myself it's precious... And the peace and quiet... Bliss... :)

I have been known to hole myself up at home for three days without going out at all and I loved it. It's almost impossible to do this now that I have a dd and I find the pressures to socialise and organise play dates and the nightmare of kids' birthday parties all too much. I plan on one day moving to a desert island .
I must admit I was wondering whether it was just me being an oddball amongst all the chatty social butterflies buzzing around me so It's really great to know there are so many of us that feel the same.

Oh this is exactly how I feel. So good to find like-mided souls.

I hate it when people say 'oh you can't be on your own, I'll come over and we can do XYZ'

Seriously, I want to eat Malteasers, watch The Good Wife and drink wine. On my own. I'm not depressed, it isn't 'sad!' It's my recharging time so I can deal with the loud/verbally incontinent and demanding people I am usually surrounded by!

bleedingheart i can identify with that..........although i can feel lonely, i think i am definitely an introverted person that dosent want a lot of company, but some would be nice..........mainly on my terms, and not what the other person wants me to do.........that's when anybody actually does want me to do anything with them.........which isnt often!, but whenit happens it has to be on their terms. and what's that all about come christmas when they come out of the woodwork and insist you cant be alone on christmas day when they dont bother with you 364 days of the year!!...........pity invitations i can do without!!. i am invited to an all day wedding in may..........i really dont want to go, but feel i have to, although the young lady involved barely bothers with me anymore, if i get in touch with her, she never responds, so why am i invited?.........really cant be bothered, i used to go out with her father, but we split some time ago..........is it just she wants another gift?, am i becoming cynical, bitter and twisted! perhaps but its the truth!

I am on ML, DD is in daycare. DH is at work. I am alone and have been spending the days alone and it is bliss. I only go out to fetch my DD. People were saying now that i was home then i had time to visit, other mums with small kids, me, nope. My last days as a mum of one and i spend them commuting from one place to another just to be around other women with kids? And not stay in bed for as long as i want, watch crappy TV and snack my way through the day? Again no thanks.

I love my own company and i am getting all the rest i need before DC2 comes. It will be years before i can do what i am doing now. Not depressed just enjoys my peace so no we are not crazy at all. Very normal all of us.

I recently had six weeks off following surgery. Kind friends threatened promised to drop in and "keep me company". An hour with them was lovely, but I could see they were really worried about me being all by myself, and if they could, they would have made sure I was never alone.

It was wonderful. I haven't had that much time to myself- well, ever, probably. I can't wait for retirement now. DH will have to find something to do all day, I'm not having someone under my feet all day long.

Completely agree - YANBU ...I love quiet me time - DP usually goes to bed early (works early shifts) and the best part of the day is when the DCs are in bed too and I get to sit on the sofa and watch junk tv - all on my own...
I dream about going to stay in a hotel - or a remote cottage - for a few days on my own...
I can be social but do find it draining after a couple of hours...really exhausting.

Half term DC & I went to visit my parents (absolutely no quiet time), then last week as DCs back to school, DP started a weeks holiday (with his days off tagged on either end - 11 days!) ...and he has been constantly around, a bit bored and ....I'm desperate for him to go back to work, get from under my feet and so I can get back into my normal routine ..have some peace and get things done!
Lost track of when he due back (and can't ask him again - he already is feeling unwanted!) - think it might be tomorrow -otherwise it will be Sat - when the Dcs aren't at school - no peace till Mon

Another one here!!! I would be in my own 95 per cent of the time!

I love be I g alone at home especially. Pottering cleaning, listening to the radio, reading, having a bath,

Wine is my best friend

Along with Meredith doc shepherd and Christina from greys anatomy

From a very large family one of 9

Count me in too! always have been like this. I am an only child and have always been happy in my own company, never get bored. It is so nice to know I am not alone -I could have written the op.

I used to make excuses to avoid coffee mornings as I could not stand to witter on with people I really don't have a lot in common with other than DC's school, when I could be at home doing whatever I like.

Radio 4, reading, pottering around generally. Love it!

Also 100% introvert.

I'm absolutely fine with it most of the time - I was lucky in that at school/uni it gained me a positive reputation of being very grown up and mysterious (I had a good group of friends, but would sometimes just go to cafes, or shopping, or cinema on my own, which everyone else said they would rather die than do).

My parents are both introverts, as is DH, so I'm used to it being the norm. It's actually been later in life that I've felt more acutely the sense of being unusual, and of people seeing it negatively. Partly, I think, the world has got increasingly skewed towards the extrovert ideal of behaviour.

I often find myself making up fake excuses if I want to be alone, rather than just being honest. I hate that I do that - I obviously feel ashamed or embarassed, and I shouldn't have to. But the thought of saying to a work colleague 'I'm sorry, I would come for drinks but I'd rather be alone' is too horrifying. They'd either take offence, or think I was depressed/had trouble at home etc.

Turning down a lot of social invitations, combined with social anxiety in large groups and being terrible at small talk has already gained me, over and over again in my life, a reputation for being stand offish and snooty.

It also really irritates me that more often than not if I mention to someone that I'm an introvert, they laugh disbelievingly. I can be quite loud and outgoing, opinionated etc when I'm in the mood, and a lot of people seem to think that the only people who are introverts are quietly spoken meek stereotypes.

I think this is also the reason I tend to be seen as snooty for often keeping myself to myself. If I was more obviously, stereotypically 'shy', I think people would 'get' me and accept the way I am a lot more.

YY to the energy thing - extroverts get their energy from being around other people, while introverts get their energy from alone time. When I read this a year or so ago (I think in the Quiet book mentioned above), everything clicked into place. I find it very useful as a way of explaining to extroverts what introversion is all about.

I would feel as miserable and stressed going to more social events than I can handle, and not having enough down time, than my extrovert friends would if they were unable to socialise.

L'enfer, c'est les autres. As Sartre once said. Introvert here.
Dreading having to be naice during DDs play date here tomorrow.

YANBU.

I have been known to moan at the lack of social invites or invite people round only to immediately regret it!

I love having a week off work when the boys are at school and doing nothing but stay at home and watch tv and chill.

OP. I am so with you. DH was aghast when I asked if I could go away for a couple of nights (to catch up on some sleep) without him. It was not the without him he was bothered about, it was that I didn't want to go with anyone, no friends for a weekend away. I actually wanted to go and spend two lovely nights and a whole day (possibly two!) on my own. Just being. He was so surprised. He really doesn't like being on his own at all. I don't get that!

Like you, I love my friends, I love seeing them when I do, but I enjoy leaving again. I love my own company, don't get bored that easily and when I do, I go see someone. I sometimes feel when invited to dinner, as I was looking forward to being on my own! And I realise as I am growing that many of my hobbies are those with are/can be/better being done in isolation - swimming, kayaking, bodyboarding, gym with music on. I mean, yes I can swim and natter, prefer to get my head down and steam ahead. I can go for a paddle with friends, but love paddling out to sea and watching the land from afar. I can go bodyboarding with friends, and with others about, but enjoy going off and catching my own waves. And the gym, well, I can't do exercise and talking

I notice it even more with having children as the time I have to myself is limited and so even more precious than ever before.

I am on my own most of the time - sahm with school age kids and don't work due to health reasons. DH has been away since Monday so I've only had a few hours with the dc in the house and it's been bliss DH is back in an hour or so's time and tomorrow my DP's turn up for the weekend... not so bliss..... Lol! I'm looking forward to DH being home, he's an introvert like me and we can happily coexist in silence but visitors for more than three hours is hell.... roll on monday(!)

I'd consider myself an extrovert, but I'm an only child so I think I need alone time to recharge sometimes, especially since having my own children. Sometimes I lock myself in the toilet with my book and hide till someone realises I'm missing! (only when there's another adult in the house, obvs!). I am very sociable and love a party and a gossip but other times I want my own space and to watch my own telly progs etc without other people talking over them or making comments!

woozle that's me. People assume that as I prefer to eat my lunch in peace at work, that I am stand offish, because I am also quick to stand up for myself, I have a sense of humour, I laugh (what? laugh, when you don't like being with other people?!) and sometimes I do enjoy being part of a wider discussion. I join in with group discussions in meetings, I share ideas and engage in training. I just prefer not to sit for 30 mins chattering to other people (not that I even have a lunch break these days).

And, maybe already been said, people presume that I don't like people, just because I am not always up for socialising. I do like people fine. Just not all people, all of the time!

And when I want company, I have MN!

Someone said they have been known to stay in for 3 days. I have too. DH says things like 'you need to go out, you have been stuck for days'. Not stuck in!

I'm an introvert. Love my own company, just pottering about or watching something on tv. Even when I was a teenager there was nothing I liked more than staying in and watching Miss Marple on my own.

Has anyone else done the Myers Briggs test? I'm an INFP. The classic introvert. I found this quite helpful in understanding why I enjoyed being on my own so much, because, as you say, people do think its a bit odd. And also that I do enjoy socialising, but that I'm quite choosy when it comes to what I want to do and that I don't want to be out every night. I need to recharge on my own quite a bit! I love being 'in'. I'd love to work from home.

My first marriage was to an extrovert and quite honestly we really didn't get each other at all. DH is extroverted too, but in a different way, so we kind of compliment each other.

I'm an introvert. I really like being alone, I used to love doing the Radio units at college and uni because I'd programme two hours of music, turn off the in studio speakers and lock myself away knowing I wouldn't be bothered. I didn't even like my family being around too much and spent 75% of my childhood playing alone in my room through choice or reading.

I like other people and I socialise in 'social' situations and there are people I like, but I don't have firm friends who I see all the time. I just share DP's friends when it comes to parties etc. He loves going out and meeting up with people, but he understands me. He used to worry I was lonely and invite people back home but I would get stressed out by having others in my space when I'm not prepared to be a hostess and have them there. I'm quite bubbly and chatty when I'm feeling up to it, but I like me time the most.

I'm more like this now than ever because I work in a client facing job and the constant interaction uses up my daily quota of people time
I'm just a homebody, I love spending all his free time with DP and could have him around me 24/7 and when we have DC I'll be staying home with them which I know I will enjoy. I'll be taking them out for them to socialise and see the world outside our living room. Maybe I'll meet friends then who I want to spend time with more often. It just hasn't happened yet and I really don't mind! I'd be fairly alright if nobody ever spoke to me ever again. That DOES sound weird but I don't think I'd get lonely. When DP goes away for work for weeks at a time I miss HIM because I love him, I don't miss the company.

Ahhh so this is where I belong?

Love my own company, don't mind socialising with my very good friends but find being around anyone for too long I start to get a bit twitchy.

I need my own space to think and be calm, I have always been like it even as a child. Its probably one of the hardest things i have found about being a parent, the 'having someone else there all the time' issue!! I love my dd - don't get me wrong- but I do love to be by myself sometimes!!

It makes me wonder how I will ever manage in a proper, grown up, long term relationship though, the longest I have ever managed was 6 months before I started to feel claustrophobic!!

It's so lovely hearing that there are other people like this. I wasted so much time trying to be different. Much happier now I don't bother.

My friend said to me the other week that she thought I was getting grumpy and reclusive in my "old age"(!!) because I turned down a night on the town when ds was at his dad's. I had my evening planned; a long soak in the bath, nice walk to the next village with the dog to fetch a takeaway, which I was then planning to eat in my fleece onsie (put on under my coat and wellies before the walk - it's plain black and it was dark!!) in front of the tv, watching soaps and catching up on a few things I'd recorded, then an early night.

I like my own company; the older I'm getting, the more stressful I find making small talk when all I want to do is relax. A taxi from town costs £20, which I begrudge paying, my hearing is shockingly bad nowadays so pubs are a nightmare, and it don't drink anymore, so a night out in town is as dull as dishwater and I just don't want to do it anymore.

I relish my child free evenings, as the house is quiet and peaceful and no one is making demands on my time.

DP has gone away for a few days; I'm sat here happily surrounded by the furry ones with a nice glass of Chilean wine and having done some computer work. Currently debating going to bed and not worrying about stumbling about in the dark trying not to wake him up and enjoying not being harassed to hurry, cook, move things on demand etc etc...

if I said I was an introvert it'd be an understatement, I think the term 'loner' best describes me.

I have co habited but it was always a huge strain for me.
I currently live alone, work alone and spend all but a few hours a week alone.
I have a regular 'gentleman friend' but I find it hard to cope with too much togetherness