This

If You Love Being Alone, There's Nothing Wrong with You.

—Jessica Wildfire at OK Doomer

While I believe that I am neurotypical, except for poor coordination, y wife maintains that I am on the autism spectrum,  but I do have a deep appreciation of solitude.

Many people seem to think of being alone as some sort of punishment though.

Enjoying being alone is a difference, not a disability.

About half of adults would prefer electric shocks over spending fifteen minutes alone with their thoughts. That's what a team of psychologists at the University of Virginia found out ten years ago. They're the ones who want to hang out with you during a plague.

They didn't just consent to electric shocks. They did it to themselves. They were given a little button to push.

They pushed it.

………

Since those people make up a majority, they get to make the rules. They pass the laws. They decide the social conventions. They determine what's normal. They define the personality disorders. Yes, that's right. It's the people who prefer to shock themselves rather than spend 15 minutes inside their own heads. They run things. There's no personality disorder to describe their behavior, because there's so many of them.

………

So, there's nothing wrong with you. It's completely reasonable to prefer solitude or a small community than to participate in a society that's abandoning any pretense of kindness or even logic. You can interact with it as much as you want. Stop feeling guilty. You don't have to save the world, but it helps to understand it.

These days, being a hermit isn't a sign of mental illness.

I do understand the potential irony of blogging about this.

If I favor solitude, why am I shouting out into the world like this?

Given the number of readers that I have, I would argue that what I do is akin to yodeling at the edge of a cliff in a wilderness to appreciate the echo, and then the following stillness.