parents - I just dont really enjoy spending time with them

[peaceout]

and yet they just carry on inviting themselves over to see me.

I'm a very quiet unsociable person, I choose to spend nearly all my time alone, but they seem to feel entitled to my time and energy and I resent it.

I'm not looking for a solution, just offloading and wondering if I'm alone in feeling like this?
(I know I'll be flamed for being unkind/ungrateful etc )

I understand how you feel Peaceout. All the emotional blackmail type posts of 'what will you do when they are old and need you' is SO wrong. If and when my parents need care, it won't be down to me, it's not my responsibility and if that makes me cold and uncaring, then so be it basically.
'Be grateful you have them'...well i'm not especially grateful to have parents who were in turn either absent, emotionally and physically abusive, who put their own needs before mine at all times and subjected me to a childhood that was unstable and pretty shit.
I don't speak to my mother, and my life is far happier for it. I'm also an introvert and I hate having anyone in my house for more than 30 mins.

I'm also an introvert and I hate having anyone in my house for more than 30 mins
I find it so hard to admit this, how do you convey it without causing offense?

I don't like it either. I am not an introvert though, I just do not like people in the house making it chaotic.

I really appreciate a quiet peaceful home and can understand feeling resentful if someone was forcing themselves into that space.

OP, I'm sorry if this has been asked previously but did your parents treat you well when you were a DC?

All the emotional blackmail type posts of 'what will you do when they are old

Its reality not emotional blackmail unless your heart is as cold as ice.

My upbringing weren't rosy I had a fucked up confusing upbringing. I will never be like my parents my heart is warm theirs isn't. If they need me I will be there its in my nature. I am not selfish where as they are they have not yet met my 2 year old son. I love them because they gave birth to me but that is as far as it goes. Do I respect them well that is another conversation. Would I leave them in their hour of need no I wouldn't its not in my nature I am an emotional person I don't like to see people suffer.

At the end of the day its your children who will judge you on wether you are reasonable not mn. If your parents are coming to see you and you are acting strange its your children who will judge your peculiar behaviour. You don't even want to know what I think of my mother search me and you'll see.

I am very much like you (introvert) and I spent ages feeling the way you do about your parents, not wanting to see them. I have issues with them from childhood. Sometimes they would turn up unannounced, or phone and TELL me they were coming (not ask). I felt under siege a lot of the time, or that there was something wrong with me. I put a lot of the blame on myself.

Then I read about narcissist personality disorder, the penny dropped and I realised that it was my strategy to avoid them, I spent my whole life including my teenage years in my room avoiding the drama. I don't know how much of my true self is an introvert and how much is something that I have learned in order to avoid world war three. I suspect I am a lot more outgoing than I think, but people and all their crap are offputting, it is rare to find anyone these days who you can have a to-and-fro conversation with, with questions coming from both sides. Most people, I find, see my introvertedness as a good opportunity to offload on to me and there is little in return. I don't think there is much wrong with you OP. People who have good parents tend to react with horror when they see posts like yours and then you have the added bonus of being blamed for what may be an entirely natural defence mechanism. Once a year was one visit too many from my crew in the end.

I'm going to share one memory of my childhood. I was 15, I had two older siblings over 18 who were a couple of nasty bullies when it suited them to be, and nice as pie when they wanted something from me, their nutty boyfriends who would sometimes live with us and were physically abusive to me on occasion, a narcissistic mother going through divorce and menopause and who was working her way through all of my father's circle of friends and a father who fucked off who knows where with the OW, who was to become my stepmother, the most joyless human being you could ever wish to meet.

So far so groovy eh?

The night before my first GCSE exam there was a party raging downstairs and I was asleep in bed, and the party crashed my room because obviously I am really antisocial, what a party pooper. The whole thing is captured on video camera. I am dragged from my bed and on to the floor like in some mad SAS interrogation video, while all the guests including a fair few younger children are laughing madly.

So yeah, I guess you could say I have my reasons for being estranged and not wanting much contact with just about anybody. Still, I am to blame for this situation according to many people. Hur hur. Yeah, good one.

I think really I'm just a loner, don't enjoy being with people and as I get older I'm increasingly unwilling to tolerate things that I dislike, I resent other people making demands on me

Most people, I find, see my introvertedness as a good opportunity to offload on to me
It never even occurred to me Judee that that was the reason people tended to confide in me

Haha, they wrongly assume that I am silent because I am good listener. They are wrong, it is because I truly couldn't give a crap and would rather be reading a book than listen to them whinge on without reference to me or my life. They feel better, I don't. I have learned to shut that crap down without many words now, mostly by just walking off if I can. I am not a sponge for that crap now.

I can recommend this lady too, for strategies in how to deal with being introverted and sensitive/vulnerable to the emotions and drama of other people. there is nothing wrong with protecting your living space from people, not at all, you get to be who you want to be. I have five people in my life who make it through my threshold and one of them is a dog.
thehappysensitive.com/

Judee That is appalling. I wonder if they wonder why they aren't in your life 'cause they're faaaaamily and apparently that is allowable.

Have they ever apologized? Somehow I doubt they have.

Remember, your family is an accident of genetics - yes there are similarities of personality but it is not a given that you will be friends with them. Ultimately your true family are the people who love you and whom you love. It seems that you have a family and can keep yourself save from those who don't.

I work with someone who is an introvert. She makes it very clear that she doesn't like people, and is quite hostile. She has recently been promoted to a team leader and TBH, could be better at it as she struggles to communicate with the people who work for her. She is very good at her job otherwise, but is not a people person at all.
People don't confide in her because she is so unapproachable.

I guess a great advantage of being so introverted is that you don't feel lonely because you are happy with your own company all the time.

Its reality not emotional blackmail unless your heart is as cold as ice#

it absolutely IS emotional blackmail to use 'if they need you why wouldn't you help them?' against people in a situation you were not a part of. luckily for me, i'm over being beaten around the head with 'obligation' toward people who were not around when I needed to be looked after. I had years of therapy to be able to say that I don't care, and I don't care if others see that as me being 'cold' either because those who know me know that isn't the case.

If they need me I will be there its in my nature. I am not selfish where as they are they have not yet met my 2 year old son. I love them because they gave birth to me but that is as far as it goes. Do I respect them well that is another conversation. Would I leave them in their hour of need no I wouldn't its not in my nature I am an emotional person I don't like to see people suffer

And that is entirely your choice, but someone making a different choice for themselves doesn't make them wrong, or that they like to see people suffer. I will and do help out complete strangers, but what i won't do is sacrifice my own mental health and wellbeing for people who don't care about me.

OP I just don't have people in my house often, and if there are coming here I always make sure its at a time when i need to be leaving relatively soon after so i can make my excuses and they leave. My ex-inlaws stayed with us for 4 days once.....never again, it was hell on earth.

What is stopping you going no contact with them OP? You feel how you feel. You are very unlikely to feel any different about this situation. Maybe it would be fairer all round just to say no more visits or that if you want to see them you'll visit them?

It's hard to know from what you've said if you've had an abusive childhood and in that case it would be very easy to see why you were not wanting them feeling they had the right to visit you whenever they wished. If it's more to do with your personality then basically I don't think our personality changes that much, so honestly, I'd just call it quits.

Not all introverts are hostile. I'm one and I do like my colleagues and I have chaired and arranged many a meeting as well as present. But the thing is interacting with people is exhausting, particularly if that's all you are doing and you aren't doing anything else -i.e. hanging around someone's house rather than going out anywhere.

The worst thing for me would be to be seen as a show pony or a performing monkey, but providing I have enough solitary time I am generally personable.