I have a friend that is like this, he's very difficult to get a hold of through messaging/e-mail or text. When we're hanging out together, we have a great time (at least it seems like it from my point of view) but he rarely makes the effort to seek out things we could do together.

Is that an unhealthy relationship in the sense that I crave his attention/time more than he does mine? Are some people just more introverted and don't socialize as much?

For me, it has nothing to do with social anxiety, disrespect, etc. It's all about how I value my time differently from others. In my world, there's no such thing as recreation or relaxation, beyond the occasional Halo game. I do everything with objectives in mind. I constantly have several thoughts and ideas floating around in my head that I have to coalesce into coherence, because one of those ideas might be worth further investigation.

When someone texts me, messages me, emails me, etc., that's a relatively small interruption but can easily throw everything off in my head when I'm in the middle of a thread of thought. It's even worse if I am trying to focus on a specific task at hand. Yeah, I'm a serious person, but I enjoy the way my mind works and have been much happier by embracing it instead of treating it as a sickness (like the public school system).

So when I get those handful of messages coming at me every day, I ignore most of them and reply later, if ever.

I know this hurts people sometimes, and I try to help them understand. Buy I've given up explaining this over and over again. My ideas and questions around writing a line encoder are more important than your cat photos or going out for lunch, or favors for things one can easily take care of on their own.

It's not that I don't love my friends and family, but I can't have their drivel constantly loop around in my head.

His last line '...I can't have their drivel constantly loop around in my head' is repulsive.

Yes, my last line was undoubtedly harsh. That's certainly not how I always feel, and probably not most of the time. But it can sometimes be "drivel" because they'll know that I'm particularly engrossed with something, and they should know that I prefer solitude in those cases, yet they try to get me to spend my time on things I don't have any real interest in. Usually, I'll try to schedule a time to make them happy, but I still do not appreciate interruption when I'm busy, and I'm often going to take my time in replying to requests.

Besides, if you lived my life, you might see things this way.

Assuming that's correct, I don't think its fair to characterize his thinking as repulsive when its really just a coping mechanism for dealing with his personal limitations. Its rude, yes, but its not meant to be malicious or cruel.

To provide some background, I was referring to my being diagnosed with ADD back in school. I'm unsure whether I even have it since I was a fat loner kid back in school who was disinterested in being somewhere he was frequently being harassed. I don't think most grown adults would bother accomplishing much in an office where some dweeb was regularly sabotaging them. Grown ups found it easier to drug me than to discipline multiple bullies. I do think it's possible that I have ADD, but I don't think that's the underlying reason as to why I was being drugged rather than being put in an environment where I could thrive. The latter is much harder for an inefficient, dysfunctional system.

You're wrong in that I do actually think about social nuances a lot. My lightbulb is a little dim in that area, my second nature being more of a third nature with those things, but that doesn't mean I'm unaware of them at all. I acknowledge and understand why some people find me rude, and that's not evidence of autism.

As you say, I'm not a cruel person. I go out of my way to help friends when they are in need, to encourage others, to make amends when I know I've done wrong, etc. I think about other's feelings a lot because I have a lot of intense feelings myself. Sure, I'm rude, but not usually, and not to be cruel. I've never used words like "drivel" to someone's face, and usually do my best to honor people's communications or at least humor them when I'm not exactly thrilled with what they have to say. But I'm not ashamed to say that when someone texts me some viral video or whatnot, that it's an interruption not worthy of a timely response.

Some people ought to grow up, though. The fact that someone is disgusted because of a person's diction, or that the latter person thinks people say a lot of irrelevant things, shows a lack of empowerment. A person confident in themself shouldn't feel such distaste for the relatively minor shortcomings of others. I'm sure that most people find my interests to be drivel, and I'm not bothered by that in the slightest.

I do love people, for sure, but I don't require them to love me back, as would be suggested by me putting on a face and doing things to try keep their love. I think I require very little from people, and if a person can't handle me or my choice of words on Hacker News, they're free to move on.

They react, and think you are an asshole. That tells me they themselves are not willing to recognize their own cruelty and anger and pain. They are vulnerable. Rather than merely listening and saying that they are happy to know you know yourself they say things that make you seem so unknowable to yourself, since they themselves might, too, not aware of truly who they are.

I find text messaging and chats distracting from what I'm doing. But when I do hang out with my friends or family, they have my undivided attention and we have a great time.

I believe that's how I generally am when I've carved out time to be with people, but then again, assholes probably think that, too.

The funny thing is I feel as if most people like to spread out interactions into smaller bits, whereas I like to have an occasional quality hangout with someone. I think a lot of what I'm saying, including that, comes down to how I don't really "need" other people, and that doesn't mean I don't depend on my friends for some things, but it means that I don't need to spend time around people in order to feel like they are my friends. The passage of time, for me, has very little effect on how I perceive friendships; my best friend is always going to be my best friend, even if months or years pass and we haven't spoken a word.

If I forget to tell a new partner, now... we gave a great date and then she wants to start texting intensely, and feels I’m blowing her off and has resulted in anger over being led on/brushed off.

No loss on my part, but I always forget on my first few dates after some time off and it results in disappointment or worse on their part, seemingly needlessly.

Careful out there, fellow focus junkies.

But until that happens, I'm really just fine being who I am and not being fraudulent by acting nice to keep the favor of family and friends.

I genuinely love my friends and love it when I hang out with them - however I just always seem to be busy doing stuff and never really realise that I haven't called any of them for many weeks. It is just not in my nature to reach out randomly to see if someone wants to hang out.

I think a lot of it is to do with how I was raised - I think it was ingrained in my psyche that it was 'rude' to call upon people and better to wait until they called you. To reach out was seeing a impolite or possibly interrupting their important work, I think. Funny how those little beliefs/lessons when you are a kid tends to follow you into adulthood.

We have a great time when we're together and I know that these friendships are very important for me and for them. At some point I just started assuming that it is part of my role in life... to be the one that makes the phone call.

The thing that fixes it for me is going to events with a clear group activity other than "generic socializing".

I enjoy hanging out with my friends, but whenever I do it feels like I have to take great pains to carve the time out of my schedule, reshuffle a bunch of priorities, and try to somehow keep my head above water despite the reduced time in the day. What do them is a “Lets grab a quick drink” is to me a “What am I not getting done this week and how far behind will that put me?”

Hence I never reach out proactively. Any spare time goes to keeping the SO relationshio strong.

I'm not making any value judgments here I am just describing the terrain.

On the other hand, maybe he just doesn't like to be glued to a screen chatting with people all day. I freakin' hate it and have made great efforts to cut down.

I stopped wasting time pondering those questions, just accepted the fact the way people communicate can vary vastly, and if someone is difficult to get hold of then that's how it is. Better spend my time making more contacts.

I find text awkward, shallow, and ultimately I spin my wheels trying to decode and write messages - the kind of enegry I specifically need for things I'm working on.

Not to mention I prefer to just wait until the next time I see somebody in person so that the interaction will actually be meaningful.

A lot of people don't consider the world of difference between in-person communication and making a small electronic object beep-and-buzz near the recipient on their behalf.

About your question: The problem of deciding if a relationship is 'unhealthy' is very open-ended and rough. I can never arrive at a binary answer, and the topic does make me sad. Attention is hard to gauge and manage. You have some great specific questions though, like Does he crave attention in the same way, Why doesn't he like messaging, etc. You two should find a way to talk about it. That's what I'd do.

All I know for sure is that relying on electronic communication can have weird and annoying effects on friendships where neither person quite realises there's a problem.

I will suggest that instead of guessing or asking internet strangers to guess, you would be better off just asking your friend a few questions.

Some people are just busy. Some people just don't do text messages or don't check their email regularly. Some people have social anxiety.

Etc. Etc.

There can be lots of obstacles to making a connection that have nothing to do with the other person just not liking you. Only you can decide if you are getting enough out of it to keep at it.

I am optimistic that once there is a basic understanding and respect of each person's needs and bounds, almost every relationship can be made to work.

I just think some people are surly, miserly, cheerless, grouches and that is just their way in life. If you respond by shutting them out because it's inconvenient for your short-term feelings, you might miss out on an amazing person who just happens to live life differently.

Once I started to see miserly behavior as "just another way of life" that some people like and some people don't, it really opened my eyes to many more people around me.

In this sense, I think it's very shallow to ask "do they make my life better" (which will almost surely be biased by whatever short term comforts or simple, manageable friendship you want) or "do they make me happy" (sometimes the best thing for us is something that shocks our system, upsets our worldview, challenges us in a non-trivial way, and we might have to endure receiving that in thorny, grumpy packaging).

Obviously there is a limit. With my friend, I know that grumpiness is his way of life. He doesn't mean gruff or callous things to be taken as insults, even though most shallow social interaction he has with people, especially if they don't know him, might come off that way. If I thought he sincerely was putting me down or insulting me purely for the sake of inflicting pain or something, then yeah, I would not want that in my life.

Overall I guess I am just saying I think it's much more complicated than the heuristic you describe. If I followed that heuristic, it would be a lot like indulging confirmation bias and surrounding myself only with people who reinforce the stuff I already think or do. I might miss out on great relationship where a healthy antagonism is a first-order component of the interaction, and it stretches my boundaries.

My whole comment was about how outwardly miserly behavior can still manifest from someone who really is a good, interesting, worthwhile person. So I don’t understand your “asshole” comment. That seems like you’re jumping straight for the nuclear option instead of allowing the possibility that among the population of generally good people, some are nice and warm, some are crabby and prefer to skip social pleasantries or otherwise come off as cold.

Maybe if you unpack the connection between your first sentence and your conclusion more it would help me understand.

The power of positive thinking can be destructive if it has been automated. Negative thinking can be the same way - it can be automated, although from my experience, my negative thinking usually helps me see flaws in my own reasoning to such excess that I don't feel I'm at risk for it being automated without being able to reason myself out of whatever is automatic.

I'm glad you are thoughtful enough (and that's not meant as a back handed compliment, abstractly positive thinking and negative thinking function the same way, they just interact with different components of self-social systems) to see things in less simplified ways. I have one friend who is like you, and it's constantly a struggle to override my belief system that they are sick of me. But that's the automatic thinking spiral I get stuck in. And I would think most people who are cynical like that think similarly, because that's what we are used to. Emotional vampires, black holes, draining. All those pejoratives affect our self perspective.

We don't know how people will judge us. It's nice that people are willing to speak from another perspective. Positive thinking, from when I've experienced it, can feel very group think, like, everything will fall apart if you stop thinking that way. That is such a suppressive ideology to me, it feels dangerous, and I'm not comfortable simply allowing myself to be one directionally convinced into thinking that way. It doesn't take my perspective into account.

So in the end, I find, the people who can handle interacting with me and staying positive have very strong minds, both intellectually and emotionally. And they demonstrate that there is a brighter side to life that doesn't imply we're all going to jump off a cliff because it's fun, and not see the ground coming. Sometimes bad things happen in life. It can't all be controlled by attitude. There are real things that happen in life that affect emotions. Forcing oneself to pretend everything is fine is suicidal.

I'm not used to being happy. It makes me uncomfortable often. That doesn't mean I fear it. It just means I have to be very careful in experiencing the emotion. Sadness too. Sadness over things that make you sad shouldn't be suppressed, nor should it be attached to people like 'those people made me sad'. That's just going to hurt a person in the long run, because sadness is an awareness. You need sadness to know happiness. Suppressing emotions leads to convoluted reasoning, missed connections, insight and clarity into one's own circumstances, real things.

I feel neutral talking to you, but I feel better in general knowing most of humanity isn't on a collision course to remove half of it's emotional reasoning away.

There are few things worse than people who are surrounded with a thick layer of "positive thinkers", who never deliver bad news or critical thinking. It's a fast track to delusion.

Thankfully, I took time to question my conclusions, and I received some good advice from a good friends. I took some big steps forward in understanding my self and my relationship, changed jobs (no more 3rd shift), and the level of communication shot through the roof. Some years later, I wouldn't say we have a perfect relationship, but it's more perfect than I thought possible. There are still outside stresses, but we're steadying forces in each other's lives.

Definitely don't stick around people who make you feel terrible - or any kind of net negative, but many times when we're making these calculations, we're not in our most centered states, so be careful to make sure that the friend in question is the source of displeasure, rather than yourself/external factors.

You’re conception overlooks the value in systematic considerations that build-in humility and compassion independent of judgement and measurements of interpersonal compatibility. I’m talking about the basis for some of the most critical elements of a functional society, like morals and other insistutions which defend and bring dignity to people who may be disabled, ugly, foreign, poor, uneducated, etc.

Humility and compassion can and must extend beyond your doorstep. This does not require you to be forced with disgust, discomfort, offense or anything of the like. But maybe it requires a basic concern for people as a whole and an appreciation for the deep complexities that bring your experiences to life, and for some people a walk in others shoes seems to be one of the only paths.

The idea is “humility and compassion” optimized on a systemic level, and not subject to the whims and follies of individual judgement and interpersonal emotion. This is the justification for morals. Be careful to not mistake morals for fairness, for fairness is subject to the aforementioned weaknesses.

I can tell from your comments in this thread that you are exactly the opposite of a mean/cruel person, so this is a good example of what you said yourself: that even trying to be nice with others you might still come across like all the opposite.

Of course your point is still equally or more important, as it becomes harder to help others when you can't even make a good life for yourself. But giving can be many times life changing for others.