Would you say you are a loner by choice or not?

[Jamastiene]

Poll question: Would you say you are a loner by choice or not?

Would you say that you prefer to be alone or that for some reason or the other, you are alone and do not really want to be alone?

For me:
No, I do not choose to be alone. I would prefer to be with certain people, but for reasons I cannot specify, I am alone.

[Deja Q]

1. Both?

For me, both...

[AngryOldDem]

3. First time posting here, and it's the same with me.

If truth be told, I would prefer to be by myself. However, I find it hard (always found it hard) to "fit in" and make friends -- as I get older I'm concluding that it just isn't worth the effort anymore. I can't figure out the game, and that's OK.

[liberaldem4ever]

2. I really do like being alone

I love my husband and kids, but I really like being by myself. All of my hobbies are really things you do by yourself and things like most sports that involve being in groups I have no interest in. I kind of consider myself a nonconformist.

[raccoon]

4. I'm OK being alone, but I do wish I had more connections to people.

I'm getting older myself, and now that my parents are gone and I'm single I feel the need for connection.

[Darth_Kitten]

5. Being a loner is not really a choice, or a lifestyle, it's an orientation......

it's how we are wired. I NEED my time alone every day. EVERY day.

[LWolf]

6. Other:

I am a loner by nature. I am MORE of a loner than I would probably choose to be due to a variety of personal events that left me socially scarred.

[DainBramaged]

7. Been alone 10 years, I hate it

hate waking up alone, hate going anywhere alone, hate experiencing new things alone. Getting old and my days are spent working. Don't want to die alone.

[LWolf]

8. Edited to add detail, since this thread is still hanging around.

Yes, I prefer to be alone. There are times that would like to be a little LESS alone, but more often than not, I'm craving more distance than I get.

I have to work really hard at not alienating my friends. I can go months at a time without a phone call, an email, or a word, and be content. I care about them, I enjoy their company in small doses, I wish them well, but I don't want to sacrifice enough of my time to them to have frequent contact.

I was married twice; once for 10 years and once for 12. I've been on my own for 7 years now, and I'm content. If I ever choose to engage in another relationship, it will be with a loner who won't need excessive attention. Perhaps that's why I don't envision another relationship, lol.

I was more social when I got to live alone. I still craved solitude. Most of my friends were married and had families to take care of. Divorced, with my kids grown, I didn't have the same demands. I thrived on spending weekends home from work without ever seeing or speaking to another human. Still, I did things with other people. We met to socialize for a few hours at a time.

Now that I have people living in my house, I constantly crave time alone, and I rarely get it. The three years I've lived like this, I've been alone in my own home no more than 10 times, for an hour or two at the most. My idea of a great day off work is to saddle my horse, ride out onto the public land at my southern fence, and get lost for several hours. No people, no voices, no phones, no electronics, no traffic sounds. If I want to talk, I talk to the dog, who goes with us. If I'm restless, we trot out for several miles, climb ridges, tiptoe through rocks and over downed trees. If I'm relaxed, I am almost meditating in the saddle, plodding along mile after mile.

Interestingly enough, that's when I'm most likely to call a friend; when I get back, and feel grounded by sufficient time alone.

[mak3cats]

9. The more contact I have with the human race...

...the more I prefer the company of my cats.

[Louisiana1976]

18. Awww! The more I prefer the company of my cat, too!

[Fox Mulder]

10. I prefer to be alone most of the time, but sometimes I'd love to have an SO.

[enigmatic]

11. Choice

I prefer solitude.

[Why Syzygy]

12. Yes.

But, I think it's due to my personality type, AND personal experiences.

Due to reflection about some threads I've been recently been involved on, and the ones where I just lurk, I've been thinking about one of the scenarios in a computer game I play sometimes.

In this plot, one of the characters is found guilty of an act that requires the tribe either cast him out via shunning, or throw him into a pen of wolves.

The game is set up so that every time, he begs to be thrown into the wolves pen so he can be torn to shreds. Never mind that if he wandered too far from the village, he would likely be eaten by wild animals anyway, unless he fought them off and hid, or otherwise ensured his own survival.

I am quite the opposite. In one way or another, I've always had to survive without tribal acceptance, even in my family of origin. I may have missed a genetic code? :shrug: I'm usually on no one's team and everyone's team consecutively. That assures that no team is going to be on mine.

My survival in the wilderness relies only on myself.
Cue Johnny Cash.

[rrneck]

13. Usually when I'm around a group of

people it's not long before I am wishing I'm alone. It just take too much out of me.

[Nay]

14. I'm a loner by choice, but growing up years certainly made me even

more of a loner than I already was. I was a shy child and an introvert, and then, as now, no one liked shy children -- I can't count the number of times in my childhood that people (both adult and child) treated me with impatience and brusqueness just because I didn't push myself forward like everyone else. In order to avoid being bullied at workplaces, I have developed an 'extroverted' persona to display there. The minute I hit the door at 5 PM, I revert to my reclusive self. I haven't considered myself shy since I was in my thirties, but I am still a strong introvert. I can readily identify with the ppl who say "the more I meet ppl, the more I like my cats." I think huge numbers of people are concerned with unbelievably unimportant junk like TV, sports, handbags, sex, and celebrities, and I couldn't care less. Most also seem totally uninterested and unaffected by logical reasoning of any type and are buffeted this way and that by Fox News, their preachers, what the mailman said, etc. In a very real way, mixing with other people is like being a mouse and walking around a herd of elephants -- you may not be alone, but damn, you are sure likely to get squashed.

The best day in the world will be the day I walk out of my workplace as a retiree. Freedom at last! I will dumpster dive before I ever go back to a workplace.

[Moondog]

15. Yes. Absolutely.

I went into the wrong profession - one that required a lot of personal interaction, and a great deal of conflict. I absolutely hated it. And yet I had, by all accounts, a real gift for it. Fortunately, I did well, and was able to retire at a ridiculously young age. On the day I retired I thought it was absolutely the best day of my life. But I was wrong. The days that followed have been much better. I've rediscovered loner activities - reading, photography, hanging out online, fooling around with the menagerie with which I share my home.

[LiberalAndProud]

16. I can't tell if this is choice.

I prefer it, I think. But I know that I am lonely.

And I miss Jamastiene terribly.
Terribly.

Jamastiene, you have been eloquent. You have been able to make me understand what was beyond my scope of understanding.

I miss you.

[Louisiana1976]

17. I'd say it's by choice--I like being online or reading in my apartment

and even when I go places it's by myself.

[david13]

19. I don't know if I understand the definition, or the rules. To me, a loner

by definition must be a single person, with no kids, with no one living in the house.
How can you be a loner with a spouse and kids? The definition, family person, to me is in direct contradiction to the term loner.
You can have an so, a spouse, people living in your house, and everybody, everybody including the most pack rat of a pack rat, must have time alone. To sleep, use the terlet, whatever.
So just spending time alone, in the other room from the spouse and the kids is not a loner. That's just mom or dad's personal time.
I don't know that any of us ever chose what we have. In most cases we just end up there. Due to our circumstances, and all that, we end up where we are. We might not like it, we might adore it, or something in between, and we chose some of the things that caused us to end up where we are, but, go back originally. Did any, any one of us ever ask to be born, choose to be born? Of course not, I sure didn't.
dc