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

[OptimismvsRealism]

Sure there are still some great people out there but most are awful stressful thick rude shovey mean argggg

Friends can still come to me but no outside

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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

They are seeing what they want to see.

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 know what you mean.
I'm not naturally sociable, though I can put up a good show at a short party or whatever. Realistically I'm a bit odd, a little awkward, an acquired taste. I've always been like this - though I do have some very long-term acquaintances I think it's fair to say that I no longer really have any close friends. I'm married and very close friends with my husband who is pretty similar to me. Sometimes I wonder how it will be when I, inevitably, live alone. I suspect that I'll be fine.

I know. It’s just post hoc justification from people who can’t deal with basic social interaction. It’s a huge social problem.

Mmmm tough no

I don't have any despite to spend time with people who get on my tits (which is most people)

Yes. I do wonder if it’s something that is particularly inflated as a trend on Mn because of the type of people who post on here. Presumably the reason I don’t encounter them in the world is because they’re festering at home, pausing only to glower out the window at the world they so much dislike.

If ‘most people’, get on your tits, it’s far more likely to be an issue with you. As pps have pointed out.

No one’s denying assholes exist and antisocial behaviour exists, but if ‘most people’ you encounter annoy you so much, it probably isn’t the other people.

@OptimismvsRealism

I don't have any despite to spend time with people who get on my tits (which is most people)

I think you mean “desire” not “despite”? Again that’s totally fine and that’s very much your right. I don’t want to do that either?

But can you not see there’s a big difference between privately wanting not to hang out with people who annoy you (which everyone does) and publicly splashing your bile for almost every other member of the human race (apart from your select tribe) all over the internet?

It's all very much interlinked, mental, physical, social, and spiritual health. I don't think some people realise it's not good for you try and just be comfortable all the time because all you do is set a lower bar in tolerance levels for yourself. Next this person will be gorging in junk food and watching TV all day because that's the next level down in tolerance for things. No point in doing anything strenuous because there will be a long list of reasons why getting of the sofa is pointless, just like the reasons they are making as to why people are pointless.

@TheTidyBear

it's not good for you try and just be comfortable all the time because all you do is set a lower bar in tolerance levels for yourself

This is spot on and the analogy with exercise is very interesting. You need a bit of tension and challenge to stay fit and the push yourself manageably past your comfort zone. The longer you stay outside that challenge zone the harder it is to get back into it.

That principle applies with a lot of elements of life: work, study, dating, socialising. After a while it becomes so daunting to tackle it again that you just can’t face it so you hunker down into the familiar. And you stop trying and the bar comes down so low it’s pretty much on the ground.

But if you behave like this you are just condemning your brain and body to atrophy. Western life unfortunately encourages this sort of lifestyle and COVID turbo charged it with this “militant introvert manifesto”.

Its self indulgent and petulant and pathetic. And a sign of a decadent and unhealthy society.

Nah.

Oh gosh yes you got me right in the typo 🥲

Its self indulgent and petulant and pathetic. And a sign of a decadent and unhealthy society.

As I said before you’re not really coming across as all that that tolerant and nice. Your name calling as much as the OP 🤷‍♀️

The problem is bossy baggages like yourself.

@pointswinprizes

As I said before you’re not really coming across as all that that tolerant and nice. Your name calling as much as the OP 🤷‍♀️

Probably fair. Look: I feel really passionately about this.

I’m not name calling individuals though, except the OP who has been personally unpleasant to six or seven posters on here and I am not going to apologise for that. She gives as good as she gets.

In general I’m calling out a social phenomenon which I see as very negative and harmful.

I also think if you approach this from the starting point that you are shouting from the rooftops that most people are assholes and your life mission is to avoid them you’re not in a great place to be demanding tolerance. Why should the internet equivalent of shouting at strangers in a pub invite tolerance?

And I have never claimed to be “nice”.

100% agreed. It's far too peopley out there.