Aaron is pretty young and acts it. He often comes out with incredibly naive posts, especially on topics like the economy, or politics. But the counterpoint is that his reading (especially re history) sometimes means he comes out with counter-intuitive or enlightening stuff.

Speaking for myself, I find other people a real energy drain. I don't live alone, but I feel delight and a deep sense of relaxation when I get the opportunity to have the house to myself for a few days. Company can be good, but in moderation.

Some people have that draining effect on me, which is usually why I try to cut those people out of my life. Many people I know are fun and energizing, because they take life and themselves easy. However many of my ex-friends have been the self-centred and self-absorbed kinds that just make your dealings with them laborious.

I don't mean to be harsh or cold, but it's not my job to deal with someone elses problems day in day out. I purposely chose not to go into the psychology fields for that reason. I have my own problems, I have my own stresses, the reason I get together with friends is to forget the problems and relax.

I think it's a good guide in life to route out the sources of problems and stress in your social circles and remove them. I'm an introvert, perhaps not so much as others but I'm certainly not an extrovert by any measure, but with the right groups I can be going out almost nightly and I don't feel the usual drain.

Although I have to say, I will likely always look forward to two days alone.

As Paul Graham wrote:

Hanging out with friends is like chocolate cake. You enjoy it more if you eat it occasionally than if you eat nothing but chocolate cake for every meal. No matter how much you like chocolate cake, you'll be pretty queasy after the third meal of it.

http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

I don't think it's sad; I think it is a matter of having motivations so disjointed that each side can't make sense of the other's enough to even begin a discussion toward understanding.

I don't think that, even for people who actively sacrifice human contact to read, that it is an end to itself. It is possible that they are also building toward a better life, but that their concept of a better life does not include being in the presence of others whenever possible with something to share. Their better life might be one where they can spend time in quiet contemplation, and reading is the fuel for that contemplation.

Some people are just not that gregarious. And some who are gregarious find that it is a tendency that interferes with their goals.

The pressure for people to be gregarious is intense, though, and it is harder for those who aren't natural social butterflies. The natural tendency might be for someone to soak up an enormous amount of time reading. Because of the pressure to constantly be socially on-call, they have to make the choice seem much more deliberate. As a result come off as someone with an anti-social disorder. The result would be the same, but because we brand the end as less than desirable, they get cursed for their means. Either way, they get patronized, which simply isn't conducive to anything but antagonism.

This may not be the thought pattern aaronsw is following; I don't know. He might be actively fighting a natural extroversion because his goals don't align with his extroverted nature. I'm rather strongly introverted as a natural tendency. He may make a deliberate choice, while I drift, but am forced to make it seem at times a deliberate choice. Same ends, different means.

Nevertheless, the net you cast to catch him caught me as well. I suspect I have much more to understand about the naturally gregarious frame of mind, and would enjoy a discussion toward understanding. I'd also enjoy a discussion toward others understanding the less gregarious amongst us. I don't think casting an unusual or confusing behavior as 'sad' is going to help at all in understanding; it indicates a mind already made up. I'd rather be misunderstood or confusing than sad; then I'm not forced to apologize just for the opportunity to explain.

Spot on! Sometimes it is hard to pull yourself from work, study, etc. Just today I thought - I am working, while my son is happily playing with his trains; someday he will be all grown. So I dropped my work at the moment and joined him for a some father-son train time.

Why is that sad? It reminds me of that extrovert vs introvert thing: some people prefer to spend time alone. Also, not all topics and hobbies are mainstream enough that you can easily share without people's eyes glazing over.

I thought he was being sarcastic.

I suspect more deliberately exaggerated than sarcastic.

Many people tend to see deliberately introversion and aloneness as deliberate alienation. It's a cognitive leap that still confuses me; people assume a behavior that isolates the individual is out of spite for the social collective, even if the person carefully explains that they aren't doing this out of scorn but out of personal need or desire.

My suspicion is that aaronsw is just describing his relationship to those around him the same way they would describe it, but in more matter-of-fact terms. That he seems to have offended people so makes me think he touched a nerve, even if it did it tongue-in-cheek. My first reaction to this is to start reflecting on the social biases we have which would cause us to recoil in such disgust to the suggestion; are we being unreasonable in our expectations of the people around us?

From the comments:

"I don’t watch TV, I have no social life"

He's quoting someone else there. He's presenting that quote as a "shorter and better" account of his situation, but I don't know if every extreme should be taken literally.

It's a fair point. Lots of people over extend themselves socially and they suffer intellectually because of it. I know far too many people who just have a causal interest in different topics but have no substance. They can repeat things they read on a blog but they have no original ideas because they don't spend the time to do the reading. I think being a smarter person with original ideas has a lot of social value so it's not completely incompatible. Quality over quantity.

I'm sensitive enough to criticism and guilt that I actively avoid people a lot of the time. I didn't blink reading that. It makes sense to me.

I am really surprised he is really suggesting that!