Do most lonely isolated people have a place to go on Christmas Day? (adults, retired)
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I can't choose any of these options. While I don't go anywhere on December 25th or celebrate the other holidays, while I am single and have no family here, I do have some amazing and very close friends. And I don't go to their house on Dec 25th. I chose to enjoy a quiet day at home with a book or a movie, maybe a trail ride on my horse and some time reflecting on the past years events and lessons.
I don't celebrate Christmas. I do look at this time of year as a time of rest and of looking forward to the new year and the lengthening of days that means that spring is coming. I am not lonely. I have often been invited to go t peoples homes for their celebration. I just choose to do my own thing. I do sometimes give friends a small gift if I happen to have found some special thing that I think they would love. This year I am not giving out any gifts at all. And my friends won't take that as anything negative. They don't give me materiel gifts in the name of a holiday either and that's really okay.
It always irritates me that people look at me with some kind of pity when I say I am doing nothing for a holiday. As if there is something wrong with liking to take a day for yourself and enjoy a quiet reflective day rather than a raucous festive one.
Introverts can be social loners who are friendly and outgoing if they are with the right people who they enjoy and give them positive reinforcement. The family is not giving them the reinforcement so they avoid the interaction and ACT like they prefer to be alone on Christmas. How sad!
FYI: There would not be so many posters trying to justify that they don't want to be with friends and relatives if it was really true. They are just trying to spin a sad situation!
I'm an introvert who likes being 'alone'. Of course I'm alone only if company must be two legged. Family is mostly thankfully across the country. My sil is close but her mooching neighbors will be there and I personally cannot stand her neighbors.
We went shopping on Thanksgiving, way way way too many people and home with the furries was SO nice to come back to. And we may have a white christmas and I'm not doing that again. Went to a friends house in 09 and nearly didn't get home. My friend who's car could get the tires unfrozen couldn't stop to let me out so I hopped out while moving.
And I'm perfectly happy with my furry family to keep me entertained and the family distant. I'd end up sitting in the room just zoning them out anyway.
Some of us DO prefer being solitary and do NOT feel lonely or bored and when people are around the relief from all the business is the best part of visiting.
I'll privately celebrate solstice and probably talk to my son on the phone on christmas. And if we have snow, I'm going to be sitting happy and provisioned out and not taking chances on slippy sliddy. May have trouble getting the dogs out though last snow they were having a ball.
I should have been clearer that I was raising my points as possibilities, not as something which I had any way to know about. I did phrase them as questions ("Is it possible...?"), but obviously that was not enough. So the "negative vibes" that I mentioned were not actually an "accusation", and I certainly agree with you that never having met you, the comment was in the arena of speculation.
Your over-reaction to my post is rather instructive, I think. You posted yourself that you have spent a lifetime on the outside looking in, as far as human interactions go. Therefore, I retain my suspicion (note that word, please: "suspicion", not at all the same as certitude) that your own attitude contributes to it. What I am wondering is how the VAST majority of other humans which you have encountered in life can be such insensitive, superficial, and essentially hostile people. Yes, there are those insensitive, superficial, and essentially hostile people out there, no question about it. But I have not found them to be in the overwhelming majority. Why would that be?
I really regret that you felt attacked, and that I contributed to your hurt, perhaps by my own failure to word my post in a more nuanced way. That failure my be continuing right now, but my writing skills are what they are, i.e., not nearly Nobel Prize level.
Wow! "The smell of blood is in the air," you say! That is not at all how I conceive of this conversation.
Point is some of us simply do not *enjoy* going to someone's house and sit with people they don't want to be. It doesn't mean they are necessarily negative people, just that the person does not like sitting in a room full of people and doesn't want to join in the conversation and wishes the night would end soon after arriving but felt 'pushed' to go.
And if your an introvert and like your own space the gathering may not be enjoyable at all and maybe you've felt you 'had' to go before, but are finally tired of it. Even if I enjoyed moments of past holiday family gatherings, I was still enormously relieved to walk in my door and be the only two legged lifeform around.
I'm actually quite glad the family is way far away. I used to go to a movie by myself after my own family moved apart. And I've given myself *permission* to feel happy by myself, and won't be made to feel I 'should' be social on such occasions. Do all of us a favor and allow yourself to understand that just because someone is 'alone' its not automatically because they are 'sad', but maybe because they want to be and quit judging. Actually I don't care what anyone thinks, I know how I do.
I'm not an introvert by any stretch of the imagination BUT I like myself well enough that I don't mind spending time...a LOT of time...in my own company. I can't remember the last time I was bored, lonely or unhappy. Long long time ago for sure.
Well said. I think this is a better way to say it than for just introverts. I am comfortable with being by myself too.
Last year was the last time my family wanted to celebrate christmas (I have very small family, most are elderly/dead and the rest uninterested.) I'm now in my 30's, have no friends and never had a girlfriend so my options are pretty limited. I have worked the same $9 an hour job for 15 years so I don't have much money to throw around either. I live in a small town where the only place open is a convenience store where drunks/druggies hang out and the nearest city is 2 hours away on a suicidal highway.
For X-Mas and New Years I will probably just order takeout pizza and listen to late night talk radio.
I see lots of social losers at various holiday celebrations but no one will talk to them. They are around people but totally isolated. It's like being a nerd sitting in a frat party.
you first ask for insight, then you are a condescending turd...
you lose any credibility when you use a phrase like social loser-
we've all been in awkward situations before- this is how we learn,,
maybe this is whats troubling you,, a person so critical of others, is also critical of yourself,,,
settle your own demons, before casting shadows on others..
forgive my negative tone....it just hits a nerve when people look down upon others - i despise arrogance
I find it interesting how few of the people responding to the poll spend Christmas Day with extended family. The media and common wisdom says that nearly everyone is with a large extended family group engaged in joyful conversation on Christmas Day.
I noticed the isolation of an ever increasing number of Americans when my wife and I went to a movie last Christmas and the local theatre that is usually dead, even on a Saturday evening, was busting at the seams full of people. Every show was sold out. I also saw a large number of people sitting alone.
Here is what I pictured was going through the minds of these isolated people as they sit all alone in a movie on Christmas Day:
"God, let this day be over soon so I can go back to my regular routine! Look at all these people, why aren't they opening presents at Grandmas house? They can go to a movie any day, what are they doing here today? They have someone! I am jealous of these people! Why wasn't I born into their family? They seem to be so happy being together. I COULD HAVE been with someone on Christmas instead of sitting in a movie theatre ALL ALONE seeing a show I am not really interested in. But I just don't like my cousins and Aunt. But why didn't they invite me this year, maybe it was an oversight. They don't seem to like me. I would rather just be alone than being with those people!"
I find it interesting how few of the people responding to the poll spend Christmas Day with extended family. The media and common wisdom says that nearly everyone is with a large extended family group engaged in joyful conversation on Christmas Day.
I noticed the isolation of an ever increasing number of Americans when my wife and I went to a movie last Christmas and the local theatre that is usually dead, even on a Saturday evening, was busting at the seams full of people. Every show was sold out. I also saw a large number of people sitting alone.
Here is what I pictured was going through the minds of these isolated people as they sit all alone in a movie on Christmas Day:
"God, let this day be over soon so I can go back to my regular routine! Look at all these people, why aren't they opening presents at Grandmas house? They can go to a movie any day, what are they doing here today? They have someone! I am jealous of these people! Why wasn't I born into their family? They seem to be so happy being together. I COULD HAVE been with someone on Christmas instead of sitting in a movie theatre ALL ALONE seeing a show I am not really interested in. But I just don't like my cousins and Aunt. But why didn't they invite me this year, maybe it was an oversight. They don't seem to like me. I would rather just be alone than being with those people!"
Wow. Just, wow.
You have a weird way of projecting* the most sad and negative thoughts onto what for other people may be a perfectly comfortable situation. And this from someone who apparently has a tenuous connection with his own family and gets teased relentlessly by them for not owning a smart phone (your other thread.)
For the record, I've never spent a Christmas alone and won't this year. I have spent a few Thanksgivings alone and was perfectly happy with it.
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