UUrbanblues
|
|
Score:1387
Posts:703
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 2:01 AM)
Jock, you know the way you tell us about the embarrassing ways in which attention is drawn to you, like when one of your crutches falls and clatters in the cinema; or someone offers you an unsolicited hand in the snow, you fall they fall and the whole thing descends into a kind of slapstick scene reminiscent of a silent movie comedy. While I sympathise with you I've also stated that people have short memories; and incidents like those you've described are things that come and go from people's minds; as quickly as they happen they're forgotten. Most times when I eat I end up having a choking fit. By this I mean the one where the person begins to cough on something caught in the throat and ends up purple in face and making that death-like sucking in of air, as though straining a gulp of air through syrup. But that isn't the worse of it, no. These 'fits' often creep up on me when I've a mouthful of food or drink, and if I don't get my serviette to my mouth in time anyone within a few feet spraying radius get splattered with whatever half chewed food or drink I'm sampling at the time when my throat turns bandit. While clattering crutches and unwanted attentions can be embarrassing; I'd contend giving someone an earful of gloop and chewed over slop will probably leave a longer lasting impression. (Message edited by UUrbanblues On 08/11/2011 2:02 AM)
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 2:11 AM)
Got to admit Uurban that I've never done that. Sounds horrifying....I did nearly vomit in Tesco last week, then a few minutes later had to ask to use the staff toilet. For a pee, not a puke.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
myrtlemaid
|
|
Score:341
Posts:175
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 3:33 AM)
I can be a tad contrary about the " being with other people " thing. Sometimes I do feel pretty lonely and want to be with people but often when I am I find the noise and need to be a part of the group and whats going on too much of a strain and want to run away home to my safe quiet home where the only expectations come from me. Its not an easy place to "live " because I feel in the "wrong " place a lot. Im pretty good in my own company most of the time and do have a good friend, ( tho he lives miles away ), but Id like to feel more comfortable with people around me. Sadly going places alone beyond the local shops is very difficult because of my sight probrlms because I do increasingly need a guide in strange surroundings.I would like to dare to go places I dont know alone but at the moment its not really feasible.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
oldtone27
|
|
Score:387
Posts:194
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 3:54 AM)
I can get what you say, Jokice, exactly. I am quite happy with my own company. I am not a recluse but only need a low level of human contact. I am quite happy to be with others but not the centre of attention and fortunately I don't have a disability to draw attention to myself. I know from speaking to the VI folk I meet that this can be most unwelcome. I have a very small circle of people I would call friends but quite a wide circle of acquaintances. That's how I like it. This is probably why I have no interest in sites like Facebook or Twitter. I find boards like this much more comfortable and sufficient for my needs.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:14 AM)
I'm on Facebook. I like Facebook. I have 666 'friends' many of whom I've never met and never will. I was at a wedding not long ago at which two separate guests introduced themselves to me in the space of about a minute. I thought: "I already know who you are. We've been Facebook friends for at least a year."
However, I've never twitted or whatever they call it.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
KizzyKazaer 
|
|
Score:1820
Posts:912
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:29 AM)
I've never twitted or whatever they call it.'Twitted' being the right word, judging by the inconsequential nonsense I've read on it  I'm definitely on the 'loner' side; being an only child, I quickly learnt to amuse myself, so I don't need others to 'entertain' me - I'm quite self-sufficient in that direction. I like being with people as well, but only for short bursts as I get very tired 'processing' all the conversation and having to stay alert. This is why Internet message boards are such a boon for me; I can 'talk' when I want and just quietly 'listen' to others when I don't feel like talking. So I'm with Myrtle and OldTone, really. I think it's a great asset, the ability to be happy in your own company...
usertype:1 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:50 AM)
Some people just don't listen anyway. I can remember having a phone conversation with my dad over some personal crisis years ago - a crisis that was so inconsequential that I can't even remember what it was about. It went:
Me: "I'll be okay. I just want to be left alone at the moment."
Him: "Well I'll come round if you don't want to be alone."
Me: "I do though."
Him: "Or come round here if you don't want to be alone."
Me: "I've already said I do want to be alone."
Him: "I can understand you not wanting to be on your own."
Me: "I do. Really. I just want more than anything else to be on my own.
Him: "So do you want me to come round, or are you coming here, as you don't want to be alone?"
Etc etc. I ended up hanging up on him otherwise it could have gone on for the rest of our lives.
Mind you, my mum was worse. She translated the words 'leave me alone' when said by me as 'please try to find out every detail about my life.'
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Yvettea
|
|
Score:933
Posts:501
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:51 AM)
I'm with you all on this too. I'm a very friendly, gregarious and social person but I *need* lots of time on my own. I really cannot cope with too much time with other people as it wears me out. I think it might be because I really listen when I am with another person and that is tiring. I also like my own company and doing what I like to do without having to answer to anyone else. Although I would really like to be in a relationship, I would not like to live with a partner. I am also commitment phobic and the thought of marriage horrifies me. What a nightmare! 
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
DeusExMacintosh
|
|
Score:187
Posts:94
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 8:07 AM)
I find "go away or I shall disembowel you" is pretty effective at acquiring some isolation, Jockice.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Dark_Divinity
|
|
Score:408
Posts:213
|
Reply To DeusExMacintosh
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 8:41 AM)
Reply to DeusExMacintosh (08/11/2011 8:07 AM)
I find "go away or I shall disembowel you" is pretty effective at acquiring some isolation, Jockice. Or if you are not feeling very talkative, a nice feral growl with be equally effective.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
SirCumference
|
|
Score:759
Posts:397
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 9:03 AM)
"I can get what you say, Jokice, exactly. I am quite happy with my own
company. I am not a recluse but only need a low level of human contact."
Old Tone and most people here, me too. I like Jockice's conversation with his Dad. I have similar ones, but the other person often responds by saying "Are you sure?"
Yes, I'm sure. Quite sure.
Are you sure?
I find myself thinking of Mrs Doyle in Father Ted.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
devineDeb
|
|
Score:613
Posts:310
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 1:12 PM)
Hi folks
what you're all talking about is called Introversion - it's the opposite of Extraversion and it is (as you have been saying) independent of sociability. Basically us introverts need time alone in order to re-charge our mental batteries, whereas extraverts tend to get their re-charge from being with other people.
Either of these personality traits is fine - not good or bad - just different.
Personally I spend up to 18 hours per day alone and it's not unusual for me to spend an entire weekend alone - I love it!
regards, Deb
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Monic15
|
|
Score:139
Posts:72
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 2:01 PM)
Jockice
I,m like you - I prefer to be on my own, ok I'm well enough to work and that is where I see people, my work colleagues get really annoyed when I go on annual leave & thay ask what am I doing - I reply sleeping, when on holiday from work I only say please & thank you to the lady selling me my papers and don't see anyone till I go back to work. I like it like that but am classed as weird. Now the Christmas lunch season is coming up and I need to negotiate the "are you coming to the night out" palaver again, I can't drink so watching others get drunk & being stupid gets boring after a while. I go to church on Sunday & get criticisim for not asking for help there - now if I think I can do it myself why should I ask for help???? I just don't get it! Give my my books, my radio & a CD player & I'm happy why do I need other bodies there?
Monic
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
standardCindy
|
|
Score:82
Posts:45
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 2:38 PM)
I know exactly what you mean Jockice,
When we go visiting to family we have to be collected now. So we sit all ready because we don't want to keep anyone waiting. It will be a very nice outing but after a while I look across to OH and mouth the words (coming home) and he smiles and indicates yes.
When they all come to us it's very nice and usually very noisy and we have a good time. But..........I am glad when they have all gone.
I couldn't tell anyone else about how we feel, only on here!!
xx
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Mabelcat
|
|
Score:340
Posts:176
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 2:41 PM)
I do get very lonely at times and lack close friends nearby but, that said, I also need a lot of time on my own. I find that my 'being with people' quotient gets used up very quickly, especially when I have been at work dealing with difficult situations and troubled people. Loneliness can actually be much harder to cope with when you are in a crowd but don't feel you belong within it.
I love Jockice's converstion with his father, I have had similar with colleagues, cpns and others. One CPN I saw kept saying I would be better off not living alone but, when callenged, was unable to suggest where I find the perfect housemate/companion. It's the old scenario of people projecting their own needs on others and trying to tell those other what's 'good for them'.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Mabelcat
|
|
Score:340
Posts:176
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 2:42 PM)
Forgot to say I'm happy to be one of the 666!
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:18 PM)
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
devineDeb
|
|
Score:613
Posts:310
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:32 PM)
Hi
the Myers-Briggs can be fun - I like that approach they have that no type is better or worse, each has it's strengths and weaknesses - they are just different from one another.
Like you jockice I'm a rare type - I'm INTJ whcih is very unusual in a woman.
regards, Deb
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:37 PM)
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:39 PM)
Deb, you're even rarer than me. Not allowed. Stop it now.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Offworld
|
|
Score:627
Posts:324
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 4:40 PM)
I may have a problem; cannot regard the listed "dichotomies" as being such at all, unless perhaps for "thought" and feeling" but that would depend on what was meant by "feeling" (ie. is it a detachedly objective, or non-detached subjective, mode that's meant). 
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
devineDeb
|
|
Score:613
Posts:310
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 5:04 PM)
there must be a joke in there somewhere Jockice, but my beleaguered brain is not up to it tonight ....
Offworld - they aren't dichotomies, they are dimensions - extravert one end shading into introvert the other, most people can do some of both but most also have a preference for one or the other trait, very few people are absolutely in the middle.
A bit like being right or left handed - it doesn't prevent you using the non-dominant hand, but the non-dom is clumsier, less automatic does not work so easily. Likewise, most of us have a preference for one of the two traits in each of the four pairs identified in the Myers-Briggs model.
The thinking-feeling dimension is about whether you tend to prefer to let your head rule your heart (thinking type) or whether generally you prefer to let your heart rule your head (feeling type). Thinking types tend to make decisions in a very rational way - all about the facts and figures and logic; feeling types are more emotional, they tend to go with their gut feeling.
For info the other dimensions are:
Sensing / iNtuition - this is about how we deal with information. Sensing types tend to like facts and figures, reluctant to make a decision until they have all of the possible details. Intuitives are big picture kind of people, less concerned with details, they are more future oriented and tend to feel they can make a decision once they have the basic facts and don't need to wait for all of the details.
Perceiving / Judging - this is NOT about being judgemental - the labels are not very helpful. Perceiving types are the kind of people who don't like to plan, prefer to be spontaneous, they can turn into heavy duty deadline-junkies (never doing anything til the very last second). Whereas the "Judging" types are the natural born planners, organisation and scheduling is second nature, spontaneous seems rather scary - but the risk is that we judging types can be rather rigid and inflexible - I guess in some people it might even develop into a rather obsessive personality.
(I talked about the introvert-Extravert earlier)
regards, Deb
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Offworld
|
|
Score:627
Posts:324
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:08/11/2011 5:31 PM)
>>>
Offworld - they aren't dichotomies, they are dimensions - extravert one
end shading into introvert the other, most people can do some of both
but most also have a preference for one or the other trait, very few
people are absolutely in the middle.
<<<
You refer to them as if they were linear, or opposites, or perhaps only slightly overlapping separates....
But why -- what if they're multi-dimensional, occupy the same location at the same time?
For instance: intuition, judgement, sensing, percieving -- would the optimal system not be for there to be a synergetic arrangement whereby data from all these vectors will interact simultaneously?
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Sasha_Q
|
|
Score:252
Posts:127
|
Reply To Jockice
(Date Posted:09/11/2011 5:24 PM)
Reply to Jockice (08/11/2011 10:39 PM)
Deb, you're even rarer than me. Not allowed. Stop it now. For once, I'm not you, Jockice - I'm an INTJ as well...
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Sasha_Q
|
|
Score:252
Posts:127
|
Reply To Mabelcat
(Date Posted:09/11/2011 5:31 PM)
Reply to Mabelcat (08/11/2011 8:41 PM)
Loneliness can actually be much harder to cope with when you are in a crowd but don't feel you belong within it.
I know what you mean - I felt that recently, and other people were very confused about why I was uncomfortable in that situation, and even more confused when I suggested I just go somewhere else on my own. I've been doing a bit more socialising lately, which is great!, but still have plenty of time to myself to recharge my "being with people" batteries, as Mabelcat so well put it.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
auntieCtheM
|
|
Score:731
Posts:370
|
RE:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:09/11/2011 7:07 PM)
Jockice, honestly I do not think you are being singled out at all. There are just some people who have to be surrounded by people all the time. They can do nothing on their own. They need someone to go with them to the Dr, the hospital, to talk over what they are going to wear to that hospital appointment; and to go on holiday on your own - well how very peculiar. I come across this. I have a caravan and I load up the doggie and the cat and off we go. Most people on the caravan site just do not know how on earth I can cope on my own. But I love it. And if I can find a field where there is noone else, I absolutely adore that. But then someone comes onto the site and they cannot understand me being on my own. Even my step-mother and my step-sister-in-law do not understand. It is nothing to do with any disability - they just cannot conceive of someone not wanting company all the time.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:09/11/2011 11:23 PM)
Hi auntie. I didn't mean getting singled out specifically by people who wonder why I'm on my own, I mean getting singled out in general everyday life. I am very visible. I don't want to be but I am. I came to terms a long time ago with the fact that I get noticed, but it doesn't mean I want to or enjoy it.
It's not necessarily always a bad thing. Yesterday I had to take my car in for its MOT and as the place I go swimming is a few hundred metres from there and my back has been really bad in the last few days I decided to use my wheelchair rather than walking between them. Now a few people asked if I wanted any help, but I didn't really until on the way back to the garage, my chair got stuck in a piece of uneven pavement and I couldn't move it. A couple of people came to my aid, closely followed by a woman in uniform. Turned out she was a security officer from a firm based on that road and had been watching my progress on their CCTV cameras. I just thought: "Blimey."
When I'm using my crutches, which is most of the time, I arguably get watched and singled out more. I have to take things very carefully and often seem on the verge of falling, even when I'm not. I've been known to walk into places and have the entire room fall silent and everyone turn round and look at me. I'm definitely not just imagining this. I do get incredibly self-conscious but have to pretend not to be in public otherwise it makes things worse. That's a very big part of the reason I need a lot of time totally on my own.
But yes, I know people who actually can't bear being by themselves. It means they might have to think. But I still reckon it's very rare for a non-disabled person on their own to be asked if and why they're on their own. I can only think of once in my life it's happened - when a female friend of mine did it to a drunk and very obviously lonely woman who started talking to us in a pub one night. I couldn't believe it. I just thought: "Very subtle. Why don't you rub it in a bit more, so she'll feel that crucial little bit worse when she gets home later?"
PS, the car failed its MOT. Vandalised wing mirror. That's all.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Yvettea
|
|
Score:933
Posts:501
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:10/11/2011 4:18 AM)
I've been to Paris on my own.
To Cornwall twice on a caravan holiday on my own.
I back packed around Australia for two months on my own.
Admittedly, it was all before I became disabled and ill, but I loved it all. The freedom of going where I wanted and doing what I wanted was bliss.
Also, if you are on your own, you have the choice of talking to other people or not. And if I chose to talk to other people it could be very interesting. Whereas if you go places as a couple, some couples usually tend to stick together and don't mingle.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
Jockice
|
|
Score:576
Posts:296
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:10/11/2011 4:48 AM)
"Whereas if you go places as a couple, some couples usually tend to stick together and don't mingle. "
Not disability-related but I have a mate whose girlfriend is incredibly possessive, so much so that he is no longer allowed to have any contact with the relation of hers who he met her through, who he had been friends with for years.
It gets worse, at work he sits opposite someone who went to school with her. They were invited to this colleague's birthday party but the girlfriend has refused to go (even though they've never had any sort of fallout) and to let him go either. That's despite the fact that another schoolfriend of hers will be travelling from another part of the country, staying with them AND going to the party. I can't work that out at all.
For some reason she thinks I'm okay and she even lets him go to the pub with me sometimes, although about a third of the time he'll have to cancel at the last minute because she'll throw a strop.
And people wonder why I prefer to stay single.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
seegee
|
|
Score:103
Posts:54
|
Re:Going it alone...
(Date Posted:10/11/2011 10:02 AM)
I did one of those test questionnaires & it has come out INTJ... see, I told you I was odd.
At least if Debs' comment about it being very unusual for females is right, we both are!
As far as being alone goes, most of the time I am perfectly OK without company (though weird things happen when I am mentally ill & swing from wanting constant reassurance to wanting zero contact with anyone at all for weeks).
I have lived alone most of my adult life, been on several holidays both in UK & elsewhere in Europe by myself and rarely feel lonely.
usertype:3 tt= 0
|
|
|
