Do you find people interesting?

People are absolutely fascinating as long as they're not anywhere near me.

Some people are interesting and others not so much. Avoid the boring ones, engage with the interesting ones, you can't generalise all people like that.

whirlpool wrote: »

Phobic? Suffer? Disorder? Fault?

It's nonsense like this which makes me less and less interested in what random people sh*te on about.

If you're not interested in people, why did you post a question on a message board... seeking answers... from people?

Or did you just want everyone to agree with you?

Oh yeah, people, I hate those guys... right... right? Anyone?

And then the tumbleweed rolls by.

I think almost every isolated person began their path that way through fear. They may have learned and accepted and feel happy now in their isolation but they know it is not right. Social validation is a big seratonin-releaser (I'm not sure comparitively but it is substantial I'd imagine).

The big stumbling block for me is early stages of relationships and getting past the necessary 'socialising' to get to where both people know each other well enough to know what makes them really laugh. I find it hard to make people laugh when I don't know a bit about them and they me. I am uncomfortable with the, not fake laugh, but social lubrication in the beginning. In my case, trust plays a huge role, trusting that someone might enjoy my company, that they are not always waiting for me to fall down.

I'd imagine that early point is where a lot of people can give up and think they just don't like people, and are genuinely happier on their own. They never really connect with people and are just a dancing shadow of themselves in social exchanges. I see it in some business people, careerists, who have worked the Good Job in Business their whole adult life. From that they learned to be a person in the context of business relations, a very shallow, hollow, right-choice-making version of themselves that they are ultimately no part of, their brain can switch off all day and still 'get on great' with people, but it's illusory and delusional. It rightly leaves them feeling pretty empty and negative towards people on a deeper level I'd say.

Im not particularly interested in people and their extended lives- kids, new house, hobbies etc. Now I am getting better at pretending to care by forcing some small talk about what you did for the weekend and other such insignificant chat. I think it stems from the fact that I was very badly bullied in school by one gang who took an instant dislike to me- I kind of stopped trusting and started fearing people for many years after that, seeing my bullies in the faces of everyone I met. This led to a lot of social isolation and depression but in my lowest moments I knew I had to put myself out there to break the cycle so I went to college, got a job etc but my distrust of people remained and to this stay its still there.

Funnily enough, if someone were to say something nasty about me I would get very upset so although I project an air of "dont care about anyone but myself" i actually are very thin skinned to criticism or gossip. Funny thing, us humans. Wow, didnt mean for this to be so long..

TL;DR: I could have been a normal and trusting person who is interested in others but people hurt me and em Im still kind of scared of them.

I like people as a thing, find them very interesting. It's when you have to deal with a single specimen that I loose interest, takes too damn long for anything interesting to happen, unless they are nutjobs.