The Psychological Effects Of Being 'Forever Alone'

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No, unlike you, i totally understand the forever alone - because I remained chronically single till 30 .... so I know very well. And if I lose this relationship I may remain single for another decade as well (against my will) since I know I am not that universally attractive.

It’s not like you people who always got boyfriends since they were teens- big difference.

Btw I wanna announce a personal opinion, ok? don’t be offended... in my opinion, you and Sweetleaf are the voice....well, at least to me, illogical. Your posts really stress my brain.

I just don't buy anyone is born with a 'forever alone' stamp on their head and never even had a chance to begin with at all. If you are universally unattractive what have you done to change that?

Some people need to learn what self full-filling prophecy is. Because I figure a lot of 'forever aloners' are likely more stuck in self fullfilling prophecies than actually have no chance whatsoever regardless of what improvements they might make to them-self.

Dwelling on not having sex or a relationship and beating yourself up over rejections is not 'putting effort' into getting a relationship. Sure if someone spends all their time and energy dwelling on it it will feel like that is where all their effort is going...but maybe they aren't showering, maybe they aren't bothering to change into clean clothes when going out, maybe they're acting bitter. Basically neglecting other parts of their life and then not comprehending that, that might be a large part of their failure.

How can you understand? You've never been forever alone. Because you're life is still going and you did find someone. Therefore if you did have the belief that you would be forever alone, it was shattered. (At least I presume you don't still hold the belief. If you do that's a different issue.)

Just as nobody posting here is forever alone (yet). They can only feel or believe that they will be. And just like you were, they might be wrong.

I personally have never met anyone who I was convinced could never find anybody.

... for the most part the problem is the inability to get a relationship which then leads to negative and pessimistic thought processes.

I think you're taking the 'forever alone' phrase too literally. It means somebody who has never experienced intimacy or romance despite the desire, as opposed to literally staying alone until the end of time. If Boo didn't get a relationship until 30 despite his desires and efforts, then he would have been considered 'forever alone' up until that point.

And IMO that is the moment that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not before.

E.g. Past experience shows that you tend to be unsuccessful at getting a date. So you develop pessimistic thought processes. Which likely decrease your chances even further due the knock on effects these beliefs have on your future behaviours.

Trying to explain this to people who don't experience it is fruitless. They'll always find a way to turn us into bad guys, simply because we were never able to be attractive. "Self-fulfilling" prophecy... where's your proof? You don't know anything about us IRL. Stop making these assumptions that we act like monsters.

I just don't buy anyone is born with a 'forever alone' stamp on their head and never even had a chance to begin with at all. If you are universally unattractive what have you done to change that?

Some people need to learn what self full-filling prophecy is. Because I figure a lot of 'forever aloners' are likely more stuck in self fullfilling prophecies than actually have no chance whatsoever regardless of what improvements they might make to them-self.

Dwelling on not having sex or a relationship and beating yourself up over rejections is not 'putting effort' into getting a relationship. Sure if someone spends all their time and energy dwelling on it it will feel like that is where all their effort is going...but maybe they aren't showering, maybe they aren't bothering to change into clean clothes when going out, maybe they're acting bitter. Basically neglecting other parts of their life and then not comprehending that, that might be a large part of their failure.

Can you please show me where someone has turned you into a "bad guy" or assumed you are a "monster"? I haven't seen anything like that in this thread. Or are you speaking about elsewhere?

You and Sweetleaf both. You're just leaning on the stereotypes of lonely people, making implications with no knowledge. It's the same insulting clichés spouted with no knowledge of the actual person that we've all heard a hundred times over. You know the whole not taking a shower thing is a meme, right? To have someone unironically suggest it is extremely patronizing.

Putting "maybe" in front of stuff doesn't hide your intentions. If I responded to your comment with "maybe you're a moron" would you honestly not take offense to that? Of course you'd be insulted, because it's an insulting remark. The "maybe" part is far less important than what comes after it. Same with "maybe you don't shower, maybe you're bitter". Also a "self-fulfilling prophesy" is loaded with implications, typically the same clichés as always.

So yeah, regardless of your intentions, the message you got across was one of contempt. You're not being constructive, you're just kicking people while they're down. If you truly consider somebody taking offense to being passively mocked as being "disrespectful" then I don't know what there could possibly be left to say to you.

Can you please post a quote of mine where you feel I'm hiding the intention of insulting you, kicking you while you are down, or putting across a message of contempt towards you? I would like to understand specifically what sentences are triggering these reactions. Thanks.

And IMO that is the moment that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not before.

E.g. Past experience shows that you tend to be unsuccessful at getting a date. So you develop pessimistic thought processes. Which likely decrease your chances even further due the knock on effects these beliefs have on your future behaviours.

Fair enough then. I always take things too literally. It's almost as though I'm autistic

It's a pretty toxic term then. Even if the person who feels that way knows it doesn't mean literally "forever alone", language is powerful. I think labelling oneself thus has the potential to feed into the whole self-fulfilling prophecy stuff.

I might be too literal-minded, but I feel that plenty here are not literal-minded enough for keeping discussions rational and sensical. Sweetleaf has put an opinion out there, and provided all the phrasing to indicate that it's just her opinion, that she doesn't have 100% confidence in being correct, and that her ideas don't necessarily apply universally. I've bolded them. If someone ignores these words, I can see how they might come to dramatic and incorrect assumptions about what she's saying. But it's somewhat disrespectful, I think, to not really read the words she is saying.

Sure, disagree with people's ideas. But don't claim people are saying things that they are not, and base your argument on that. It derails into them having to spend time defending what they are saying rather than having constructive, interesting arguments.

I don't think some people understand the extent to which going through all or most of your life with limited or no success in dating despite your efforts impacts on your thought processes and attitude towards dating in general.

I've talked to enough people who seem to not understand the crux of the problem I and probably many other 'forever aloners' face. I explain to someone that I've never had a relationship, and they might say something along the lines of "Are you sure you want a relationship? They're a lot of work", "Think of the people in abusive/bad relationships", "You'll get one, you just have to be patient", etc. Now whilst some may just be offering meaningless platitudes under the guise of encouragement or advice, I'd imagine others are trying to help but failing to grasp the real problem.

Now maybe I'm preaching to the choir here but I've had recent interactions that have spurred me to create this post in order to zoom in on the actual issue of chronic singledom and the effects it can have on the way people process interactions and view themselves.

Nobody would view being single forever as a good thing for someone who wants a relationship, and I think it's pretty universally acknowledged that having never had a relationship and being single is worse than having had a few decent relationships and being single. Someone who hasn't had any relationships or other experience at all has not only lacked the opportunity to affirm their worth as a romantic/sexual being to themselves, but has tried to do so and failed, likely multiple times. After some time, this sets people up to believe they're going to fail before they even try. If you had tried to bake a cake on several occasions but you found that without exception you ended up with an inedible mess instead, you would come to expect that whenever you try to bake a cake, it's not going to turn out so well. Same principle here.

I would posit that the main problem with people who are 'forever alone' isn't that they don't have a relationship right now. It's not even that they've never had a relationship (though this doesn't help). The real problem for the 'forever aloners' is that their experience thus far on this planet has indicated to them that they are incapable of getting a relationship, despite their efforts and desires, and so they have no reason to be confident or secure in their ability to attract a partner, and no reason to believe their romantic/sexual drought will come to an end without something changing drastically that will boost their chances of being able to attract a partner.

I can only speak for myself, but if I was confident in my ability to get a relationship and that sort of thing, and I had reason to be, the effect that would have on my confidence would be immensely positive, even if I wasn't in a relationship at this exact moment As opposed to "well, I haven't been able to get female attention over the 10 years I've been trying to, so why should anything change?" Experiences breed expectations.

So to conclude, my belief is that the main problem for us who are forever alone and in similar positions is the lacking ability to generate confidence in our capacity to attract a romantic/sexual partner more so than the lack of relationship experience itself. If I woke up tomorrow with plausible reasons to believe that I had the ability to attract a suitable partner, it would alter my confidence a great deal in this arena and would have a flow-on effect to other areas of my life.

Some people, those of us on the spectrum it would seem, are born less equipped to get a relationship. It's not impossible but some definitely do have it a lot harder than others from the get-go.

Personally though, my issue is that I'm just too different and my match probabilities are very low because of that. While it can be very upsetting at times, I think I weather this better than many here because I don't externalize my relationship obstacles. That is, I don't blame society for not being compatible with me, or those who I would like to date, and who do not want to date me, for not wanting to date me. I accept that I'm different due to having an ASD and that this is the primary source of my dating woes.