I am probably that guy to a lot of people.

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.

Dude, if you love your friends and family, why are you referring to their attempts to stay in touch as 'drivel'? That's a really negative, condescending word.

Take him at his word; he can love them and their interruptions can still be drivel. Most normal peoples’ routine text messages are.

Yes and the word drivel is a patronizing word betraying a self-importance that can lead to neediness/abasement in people that admire you, and a disgust in people that don't. Putting yourself on a pedastel is a bad practice in my opinion.

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

If someone is disgusted or offended that I am not going to treat every interaction with equal importance, they really don't have to associate with me. That's plain and simple. Am I an asshole? Well, ask different people and you'll get varying responses; I know this because when I was becoming more aware of who I am, I wanted to find out how I was perceived. Sure, a lot of people will always be nice and not say an unkind word, but I also don't think some of those people would voluntarily befriend me on an extracurricular basis if they were that disgusted by me.

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.

I'm guessing based on his reference to the public school system treating his way of thinking like a disease that he's probably somewhere mild on the autism spectrum, so thinking about social nuances isn't his strong suit.

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.

While I'm sure your intentions are good, I'd be careful to make unprofessional psychological diagnoses over the internet. People should find that more offensive than my relatively benign choice of words. I'm not offended by what you have to say, but it's not exactly correct.

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.

I understand and I agree. People, especially on internet, as you can see in the comments above, are so quick to put their conditioning of words and feelings onto others, in a way where the words you say is not really coming to them in regard of your own true meaning but rather by their own meaning, their own codification of language and thinking. They become angry and come to criticism rather than listening and understanding who you are, as you are.

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.

That line to me is repulsive in the most literal sense. I don't want to hang out with him when I hear it. Rudeness is repulsive

I'll take that into consideration, and my choice of words wasn't very good in that regard. Often, what they interrupt me with is not drivel to them. I still stand by the notion that not every interruption is worth my timely attention, as I would not expect any of these same people to care about anything I do or say, but what you said has been duly noted.

This is me exactly - and interestingly enough, the parent post sounds like a lot of my friends.

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.

> 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.

Cool, I’m not special validation. I like the focus on quality while present. That’s what I sell.

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.

You could be missing out on a valuable life-term relationship if you aren't willing to accommodate other people's needs for some assurance.

Or he could be dodging bullets. He's probably not looking for such a relationship. If he's not willing to accommodate, than not accommodating filters out the people who need accommodating... I'd say that is pretty much working as intended.

I don't know about him, but that describes me pretty well. As I've gotten older, I've been getting much more satisfaction out of doing things other than pursuing relationships. At this point, I just don't even care anymore. Well, okay, there's always going to be a shred of me that will think "what if" with some women that come in to my life, but I realize just how uncompromising I am and how that I will never change, and that trait really isn't fair to a partner in a relationship. If someone can accommodate me while I'm able to accommodate for them, then sure.

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.

My wife and kids are constantly pushing me to call my friends and arrange hangouts with them. It is not that I am anti-social or particularly introverted.

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.

I have friends since university that I would have completely lost if it wasn't from the effort on my side, for us to get together. At some extreme point I had one friend complaining that I was not calling her enough while she never actually did it herself.

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.

My Dad once complained that my sister never called him. She pointed out that "The phone lines go both ways you know."

This. Relationships are two way streets. Humbling yourself to this fact while having compassion for where others are at and what they have going on in their life can give you the courage you may need to pick up the phone and call while alleviating the fear that they are not reaching out because they don’t appreciate or like you.

Sounds like he has some sort of social anxiety to be honest. You’ve basically just described me.

I have the same problem. I get extremely anxious whenever I am in charge of planning a social event but if one of my friends plans something I always have a great time when I attend.

As a slight variation on the same theme - just the anticipation of a social event can make me quite anxious and edgy regardless of whether I've been part of the planning.

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

As someone who is like that: Is it possible they’re just constantly overcommitted and stretched thin?

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.

As someone with children and limited social engagement with other adults (other than spouse) I hold my last interaction with any adult in perpetuity. The quantity and frequency of interaction takes a back seat to quality.

Some people wait for an external trigger. If you're having a good time, meet them from time to time. Don't stress it. It's good.

One thing to consider is that social networks are naturally unequal. They have hubs and connectors and edges. Which one are you? Which one is he? I think a hub will tend to have more shallow relationships because he has so many connections and there's only so much time in the day. Someone with few connections may be much more invested in each one.

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.

No, it's just that other people have different ways to use technology. I'm very text-based, so writing a quick message fits me best. I have a friend, non-tech, very busy, very sociable, that you can only reach by calling him.

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.

A lot of people are chiming in on 'being that person' - it's me, as well.

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 have dealt with a few relationships exactly like this, my best friend for years was like this, and I had to just give up . Some people are socially awkward, or have weird hang ups, and you should afford more lenience in those cases maybe. But I have noticed that some seem to actually get satisfaction from the power of being wanted that way. Like pleasure from 'leaving you on read'. When I was younger in my late teens early twenties this was mostly experienced with new romantic interests acting cool or trying to make themselves a rare commodity, but when that happens in a plutonic relationship I wont even bother with the person..

I tend to let other people initiate. It isn't because I don't want attention. It's more complicated than that.

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 not a professional therapist, but he sounds like a person with anxiety, probably of the Anxious-Avoidant type.

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.

My wife is very socially anxious and its very hard for other people to get in touch with her out of the blue. But she loves them dearly. I wouldn't take it too personally if you enjoy your time together. It's probably not out of disrespect.