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It's official! - BBC news 'solitude as an aspirational lifestyle'

Marianne72

At last, it appears we're becoming mainstream Thinking ! Read this BBC news article. 'Solitude as an aspirational lifestyle: 'We are not lonely.''

I admit that at first I felt miffed [strangely], as if 'normal' people had encroached on my chosen solitary space, turning it into 'a thing'. For years, before discovering I was autistic, being solitary was a lifestyle I felt I'd created - something special. I'd endured the usual remarks - 'everyone needs someone' 'what about when you get old?' - constantly reading in the media trite remarks like the greatly over-used, 'billy no-mates.' But perhaps it will prove to be a good thing. Those with psycho-pathologies that lead them to commit crime to, 'get noticed' might at last feel understood; their state becoming 'socially acceptable', instead of a cause for taunting. Others who feel lonely and for whom the lifestyle is not an actual choice, might feel relieved that they are, 'normal'. 

Is this revelation a good or bad thing as far as you're concerned? 

Parents

  • I expect this will probably help to stigmatise those of us who hate loneliness and used to cry ourselves to sleep over it. Its bad enough that people think because I'm labelled with Aspergers syndrome that I'm not only /supposed/ to be lonely, but I should also damn well enjoy it.

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  • I expect this will probably help to stigmatise those of us who hate loneliness and used to cry ourselves to sleep over it. Its bad enough that people think because I'm labelled with Aspergers syndrome that I'm not only /supposed/ to be lonely, but I should also damn well enjoy it.

Children
  • in reply to mp500

    I don't think choosing solitude will ever be a mainstream thing. Most of the stuff I see is how to overcome the loneliness many people feel. It sounds to me as though what you've encountered is non-autistic misunderstanding about autism, rather than mainstream social attitudes towards women who choose to live solitary lives. There's a lot of social prejudice about how women behave and I was once part of a group who were reviled by certain sections of the British press for choosing not to have children, so I see this article as part of that social control (hence the 'reassurance' in the article that these women also look forward to a 'normal' social life). It's good that there is some awareness that it's OK to have diversity.