Topic: Not Missing People

I never miss people. Of course, I can't say this, as it often offends them. So yeh, not just you.

I hadn't noticed the part about still feeling the same about a friendship after many years. It is also true of me, I had just assumed it was true to everyone.

I always get this too. I don't 'miss' people and years after seeing an old friend I'd get confused if they didn't respond the same way we last spoke. Nothing's really changed.

I don't think time apart should change a relationship but I also can't really tell who I am close to. Apart from immediate family but that's because I know I am meant to be close. I can't really distinguish that either.

I have noticed this quite alot but don't mention it to others as they don't understand. I don't know if others feel this but even though my nan is dead I don't miss her like my family do. Like Cyril I also don't know who I am close to even with immediate family.

I do not miss people as well. I only feel a sort of obligation to meet them again because they say they are missing me. I am still not sure if it is not because I am extremely selfish or self-centered. I have always struggled to ask people the question "how are you", when seeing them after long time, because I simply do not care. If they are not well and if there is something I can do in order to change it, they will tell me anyhow, without me asking them. So what's the point of asking this question?

I learned over the time to ask the question because people want to hear it and if they have troubles, they want to talk about them. I learned to listen and analyze. And often they appreciate it. But probably the most important thing I had to learn was that they actually do not want me to act, they are fine if I listen. Some years ago, I always tried to find my role in the problem and tried to change the situation. I used to thing that this was the purpose of the dialogue. However, its rarely the case. And I actually spoiled a lot of things when trying to change circumstances.

Still, I cannot say I am really interested on how people are. Sorry. Its to much information for me to process. And I know that my parents are sad about it. I wish they could just accept it.

I'm still quite young so i am not really sure whether i am definitely alexithymic (is that the word?) or not but i did receive a pretty high score on the test. I have come to realise that i have never missed someone, ever. I go to a boarding school halfway across the world from my parents and siblings but i only ever speak to them when absolutely necessary, if i had nothing to say i would imagine i could go on for months to years without speaking to them. When i meet someone again from an old school i would think we would act the same towards each other but that doesn't seem to be the case. I suppose my sister, father and i are quite similar in this way because all of us show almost no sign of emotion (my sister is more emotional than i am, she even say that i am cold and unresponsive) however, on the other hand, my mother and brother are very emotional and can not even stand the thought of being alone or being apart members of our family. I know this is a little bit unrelated but do normal people also have times when they are void of emotions/blank or do they constantly feel emotions.

I don't miss people. I miss animals. I cried and cried when I lost my beloved cat last summer. But I did not cry at my father's funeral years ago. Ok, I faked crying when my siblings got mad at me for not crying....

[/quote do they constantly feel emotions.]


I don't think so? I mean is that even possible? Like, how would you feel emotions when nothing is happening. Maybe if they're thinking of something specifically and not just all the time?

I have lived away from my family for 25 years, and I never miss them. I can honestly say I care for them and enjoy talking to them when I call, or they call, or we visit. But I don't feel the anxiety of missing them or wishing they would come back etc.,

But really, what does missing someone mean? As I see it, it is mostly a negative emotion. It means you need that person physically close to you to be happy. Well, what's so wrong with having them in your life, caring for them, but not needing to b be physically close to them. Maybe we are able to emotionally connect without physical touch, or eye contact.

I don't think there is anything wrong with Alexi's, we are just different. Maybe we have highly developed coping mechanisms.

I always felt weird that I didn't miss people at all. Especially when my Gran died and I didn't miss her like everyone else did. I could quite easily lose contact with everyone I know and not miss them.

I feel the exact same. This is what is happening with me and my friend since she switched schools.

but the same applies to the dead. Some of my family members have died and while everyone else was sad and crying, i felt nothing.

I don't think I ever missed anyone until my friends died. With pets or older/sick relatives, I typically feel nothing; it's the natural order of things. But after my friends died, I found myself constantly thinking about the fact that they were gone and how they went. I don't notice any physical sensations accompanying this, but it's like my brain gets stuck on the subject and I become intensely preoccupied with the fact that they're gone for good and I'm leaving them behind. I think that's what missing someone is like.

I thought it was normal to pick up where we left off. in my life friends come and go in cycles and if I do noot see them or talk to them for years yes I can pick up where we left off.
I am the same as all of you describe.

I have zero friends in real life because I just can't keep up with them. I don't care about people's children or their major life events. They don't excite me or stir any kind of emotion in me (except maybe anxiety, because I know I'm supposed to be excited and happy, and UGH!) I don't miss people at all... unless they've passed away suddenly. A friend I had let drift away killed himself and I missed it by 2 or 3 months. I felt like someone had scooped something out from inside of me. I recognized this as grief later.

I liked reading through these I seeing that other people were like me. My mom died when I was young, and I hardly cared and still don't. My brother still has emotional problems today and I always felt like I should have them too, until I saw this. It's nice to know that I'm not abnormal.

When my bird died, I was a little child and I cried too much, and when my grandfather died, I was a child too but I was feeling nothing. I think, this is because of the reliability. Basically, because of some reason, we do not trust any one, so we do not expect anything from them, since we do not feel the lack of them, we do not miss them. When I was in high school, I concluded that there cannot be a real close friend who is a human. I wish I had a dog.

"I don't miss people. I miss animals."

Pathetic. You are a little b*tch. :)
And surprise.. We all are animals.

But in an age of technology you can communicate and keep up to date either way, and besides. I don't think time should matter. You have a bond, you have a bond, if you don't... Then you don't.

....

you put into words exactly what I feel about relationships. I had begun to think I was the only person who "got" this. I get sick and tired of feeling obliged to keep in contact with people when I have nothing new to say to them, and knowing that if I don't "make the effort", it will be perceived by the other person as me having fallen out with them. I mean, what is that about? How can I have fallen out with someone if I haven't spoken to them in however long it might be? If things were ok between us last time we spoke then it seems logical to me that the relationship between us must still be ok X amount of time later.

For example, if I meet someone I was friends with 15 years ago, I still feel exactly the same bond I did with them back then, and find it confusing when they don't share the same. Nothing's changed between us, so why should their reaction to me be any different?

I am exactly this way. I have a really hard time with casual friendships (I'm either totally in or totally out), and have about 5 people I've truly bonded with over the years (I'm 52) that I thought would be my friends always. It's been very difficult to realize that people move on and change, and what your relationship was then is not what it is now. I've learned this the hard way on more than one occasion.

Social media has really underlined how socially detached I am. I often engage in people's posts about intellectual/creative things but it's usually a real effort for me to wish people happy birthday, happy anniversary, etc., and it IS partially because I really don't care (I've actually never said that to anyone and society might well say this admission makes me a terrible person). But, I don't advertise my own personal milestones and rarely do anything to celebrate them, so that's just me, someone on the spectrum. I've never understood why people make a big deal about birthdays, or even why it's worth the hassle to put up a million decorations for a holiday when you just turn around and take them down/discard them a week later. I do, however, realize that others find this stuff important so I go through phases of making the effort to acknowledge events if only to please others, but it's exhausting.

I also don't miss people that much, and like others here I do miss my pets -- living (when I'm away from them) and deceased. Weirdly (perhaps because I'm disposed to magical thinking) I sometimes feel the presence of people I've cared for who have passed away ... not in a haunting, creepy way ... but as if they're just on the other side of a curtain, and my thinking about them makes them as real as someone on the other end of a FB post. Does that make sense?