[wemysh]

This title speaks to me, because lonely and creative are two of my main traits. I created so many projects, mostly startups, that people often can hardly believe it. Some of these have been successful, so I am leading an financial independent life. People constantly say that my work is based on unbelievable creativity. Yet, I am completely isolated.

With people, it just does not work. In no setting. Love, friends, business, family - you name it. I do not have a single person I am close with. The strange thing is - even though I consider myself very smart - I never was able to figure out why. People just disappear. Do not have time for me. Do not call me back. When I ask them straight away "is it because I am a somehow unpleasant person?" they say stuff like "No, I was just busy. And I am still busy. Bye.". I wonder if I will ever find out, what the underlying cause is.

[meric]

I emphasise your situation - being alone and creative can exacerbate being alone and creative. Being with a social group makes us worry we'll lose our individuality. I'll offer some tips.

People relate to those they perceive as similar. When you meet someone, there's two stages to making friends. 1. Attraction, demonstrating you are valuable, which is easy for you thanks to your business success, and 2. Rapport, where you must show the other person you're similar and am OK with making yourself vulnerable to them, and in trusting them, you earn their trust. I think you're OK with 1, not OK with 2. Tell stories, being completely emotionally honest, and in ways where you show, at times, you're just like they are. In the rapport stage where you're trading stories, use the word "we", avoid "you". "We" can make someone think you're already together, "I" can be used as an attempt to bring others to emphasise your situation, while "you" makes the other person compare differences with yourself. "You" can be useful for the attraction stage, but I don't find it useful for the "Rapport" stage. And make sure to listen, and synchronise your emotions with them - if they're happy be happy, if they're upset about something, be concerned.

If you're looking to find a romantic partner there's one more stage but I'll leave that up to you.

[wemysh]

Your assessment is right. Triggering attraction is easy for me. And creating rapport is hard. Unbelievably hard. I read about it many times. And I understand it on a logical level. But my brain always snaps back into the loop "1: Demonstrate Value 2: Goto 1".

Lately I try to simply keep quiet more. Because usually I talk a lot. I always have so much ideas to talk about. It helps a bit. But not to the extend that people and I become friends.

Will try to use "we" and see if that helps.

[jrbapna]

You need to make yourself more vulnerable. You're not relateable to most people because 1) they're slightly intimidated by you: you've accomplished something that they've only ever dreamt of. And 2) you're not on their radar: they don't see you at work during the day, happy hour after work, or the football game on the weekends. Why? Well because you're working obviously.

Share your challenges and be completely open and transparent. Use social media to stay relevant and on people's radar. Show people you're just as human as they are.

I'm on the same boat. Achieved financial independence in college. Experienced the highs of having a ton of friends in university and my first job to the lows of not being able to make any good friends as an independent worker.

This seems to be working for me.

[wemysh]

Thanks, this is probably good advice. People have an image of me that I am living a perfect life. With no problems at all. Little do they now, that I endure a situation they would consider hell.

I have a strong tendency to paint myself as bigger and better then I am. And to hide my problems.

Another problem is that I always think everybody should worship me and my big ideas. And forget about those boring little things they do themselves. This I find particularly hard to tackle. Because I really find it unbearable boring what most people do and think.

[mercer]

It feels strange to say this here, and apologies if it's not etiquette, but if you're interested in discussing this and exchanging perspectives, don't hesitate to shoot me an email.

I've dedicated a significant part of my post-teens to trying to crack this nut and become more socially active and 'adjusted', at the expense of the solitary and creative endeavors that characterized my younger, lonelier years.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't, as my 'creative output' suffered and at my current age I sometimes wonder if it was worth it. I am also doing well financially, but I know I could've achieved much more in terms of projects if I had not focused on the 'social world' as much.

I'd very much like to exchange perspectives with someone who took the path I didn't take, so to speak. And maybe we can even be of help to each other.

[way_seriously]

practice a sport with an active community, anything from skydiving to Wednesday evening tennis club. If you are that successful, look for a club with a long or better yet, closed joining list. Make that your goal, you’ll have to work your contacts to get in, once in, keep showing up.

no lack of people wanting to connect with a successful mentor. Design your own mentorship in a way that it won’t consume more than an hour/week of your time but will consistently bring interesting new blood to you, run an open office, say from 5-6pm, make it accessible for anyone to book an hour with you and most importantly, to book again if they like the advice, and if they do, you must accept them, even if their idea sucks, keep seeing them until the idea doesn’t suck anymore or they give up, learn to be so pleasant that the ratio of people giving up is falling.

volunteer at your homeless shelter as a ‘socialiser’ (they need people to just come in and talk to folks) and to ‘sleepover’, they need someone awake at all times, this can give you a new perspective.

as others have pointed out, see a psychiatrist.

spend less time on the internet and more time talking to people face to face, anyone, from cashiers to hairdressers to the guy seating next to you, ask questions only about them, if they ask you a question, meld your answer into another question about them.

stop looking for friends and asking people why they disappeared, if you actually ask them "is it because I am a somehow unpleasant person?" don’t. Work on becoming pleasant. How well do you take criticism? How often do you positively criticise? Halt all criticism, even the extemely positive ones.

I had a similar conversation with a psychologist/economist friend who left Goldman Sachs to lead a more fulfilling life, she deals with over achievers in business and sometimes life, that find themselves struggling for a deeper meaning, her answer was, if you only have one or two close friends, it’s perfectly normal, if you don’t have a single person close to you, then you should act on it.

I’m going for a walk.

[ignorabilis]

What struck me the most in your comment is the fact that people just disappear. It's the same with me. If I don't call the other person won't either. If I call he/she is busy, on vacation, doing something else. If we meet we can stay up all night, chat, laugh, have a nice time. Then we both go on our separate ways.

I really didn't understand how this works. I know that now I work a lot. But I wasn't like that when I was younger. Nevertheless it was always me that had to keep a relationship going. If I didn't do anything things faded away pretty quickly. If I did the relationship agonized for a while before ceasing.

I know that I am not unpleasant - people don't talk with someone for hours just to be polite. And only one person has ever told me that she always hated me because of how annoyingly smart I was. But then again I went to university where one of my fears was that someone is smarter than I am (and probably a lot of folks actually were).

When not at work most people relax with a game of cards, small talk about repairing the car, the new update for the phone, etc. What I do for fun when I am not programming is read about consciousness studies, biology and nutrition, philosophy, physics. If the person is up for it we can talk for hours on such a topic. But most people most of the time are not. I have two kids and I like talking about them - kids are fascinating and incredibly funny at the same time. However people who don't have kids don't have a clue what I am talking about (I was the same when I didn't have kids). People who have kids usually just want a beer. I like running, hiking, riding a bike - good topics for a conversation. Until I say that it's fun to ride a bike at night, while it's raining.

So I was at lunch with my colleagues one day and it suddenly hit me - the problem is not that I am smarter or a genius or the like. It would be nice, but actually most of my colleagues are as smart as I am and some of them are smarter. The problem is that I cope with pain and hurdles differently. When people stop to rest I usually push some more. When they seek a shelter from the rain I want to ride more. When they need to chat with someone I need to read a book. I am a hyperactive introvert with a strange set of interests. I am a little different and because of that it's much harder for me to make friends.

You say that you have started so many projects. To me this means that you have a lot of energy and it's quite possible that people just don't want to play catch up with you – it’s tiring for them and they may actually prefer to just relax.

[kemist]

> The problem is that I cope with pain and hurdles differently. When people stop to rest I usually push some more. When they seek a shelter from the rain I want to ride more. When they need to chat with someone I need to read a book. I am a hyperactive introvert with a strange set of interests. I am a little different and because of that it's much harder for me to make friends.

Shared suffering & growth is how you form the strongest bonds.

If you're biking w/ people and they stop to rest (or b/c of rain). Time to make a choice. You can keep going, or stop with them.

If you keep going, you'll grow, your legs will get stronger.

If you stop, they'll grow, their legs will get stronger. But you have to keep stopping to see it happen. In time they'll stop less often. You'll love watching them get stronger, and they'll love that you were there to witness their growth. You're sharing in their suffering, even if you're not winded or uncomfortable yourself.

Fast forward to the future, now you're struggling with something physically or emotionally, and one of them may stop to be by your side. They could've pushed past you but they want to be there for you. You were there for them.

[jqm]

This thread is hitting on a lot of things I've been feeling for awhile.

[nascentmind]

I too find myself in the same conundrum. People and contacts just disappear if I don't put effort in it. It is always me who have to follow up for some reason. How did you get over this?

[onislandtime]

You are not alone in feeling lonely. I suggest you try talking to a psychotherapist to help you answer those questions.

[wemysh]

I did that a couple of times. It helped me to understand myself and others a bit better.

[nudpiedo]

Could it be that at time to socialize with other you are very focused on many interesting things and hardly other people follows you? (or even if they follow the topic, that means for them a very small part of their life?).

Do not worry much, focus on people from your interest, and remember that socialize is also waste your time unworried and speak about general things without take things actually serious.

From my personal experience I can tell you that being to much focused in very concrete topics is sometimes not the best way to find people to spend the time with. And it is nothing wrong; you just may need some common areas to share with others, where you can be just a bit unworried and comfortable (more to enjoy a while with good companions than develop an activity by itself).

[sasas]

In this context, it's not what you say that matters. Communicating your accomplishments do not matter - It's the way you make people feel. Do people feel 'good' after interacting with you?

[fit2rule]

Maybe you're just too brilliant, and when people are around you the light shines brightly in their eyes, so they hide to shield themselves from it ..

[tekacs]

In a perverse way this is a succinct restatement of what others have said in sibling comments about the GP needing to make themselves more vulnerable (and less intimidating, when they are seeing successes most people never see).

Whether or not the sibling commenters are right, I won't opine on. :)

[TrevorJ]

Do you go through long periods of productivity where you stop reaching out to or respond to friends as much/at all?

[wemysh]

Its not periods. It is always like that. I almost never reach out to anybody. I just work on my projects. Its common for me to not speak to anybody for one or several weeks.