Connection

I have noticed a pattern in myself. Sometimes I strongly desire to be around and with others. Other times I need to be alone.

Does anyone else w/Bipolar experience this?

Yep. I think this is just part of being human, though. As long as we are intending positive actions in both situations, it's all good.

This has a lot to do with personality type.
Mood can also have an effect.

I tend to be introspective and truly need alone time in order to maintain my balance.


WC

Humans are naturally social creatures and need to be around others in order to survive so that's probably what the strong feeling is. Loneliness is our body encouraging us to socialize in order to preserve itself. A person could die if isolated for too long. Did you know that? It's pretty cool that we have these neat subconscious abilities programmed into ourselves in order to maintain life.

Explain hermits then. They live by themselves because of other people

I feel like this is more of a human thing than a bipolar thing. Some (very few) people like to be around people 24/7 and some people are total loners (again, very few), but most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

I have the longing to have friends and a significant other but I cant seem to connect with people and prefer a homebody type relationship rather than deal with the overwhelming anxiety and hurt from people not liking me.

Its because somewhere in history we ****ed up our genetics and now we all have issues and are not how we are supposed to be.

Genetics? I think actions. People are generally awful to one another.

Indeed. We are warlike creatures constantly fighting for dominance over one another. Always feeling threatened and reacting defensively.

I just want control of me and acceptance of everything.
Other people make me miserable, but I want to be around some anyway. The ones I want don't want me. The ones that want me have been awful.
The sickness is society as a whole, in my opinion.
Maybe being alone doesn't need to be lonely.

You also don't need to be alone to feel lonely.

True. Felt lonely almost every night I slept next to my ex, then wife. The rest I was fooling myself.

It probably is a human trait but those of us with bipolar may express it a little differently. I neeeeeeed my alone time to function but there are definitely times in my life when I feel lonely.

I rarely have felt lonely. When I do, I go to the local Dennys as a regular to meet other regulars there and talk to the staff who I know very well.

I've almost always felt lonely with others in the room. I feel alien most of the time, truly.

I had a lot of hang-ups about this for years, but as I grew older I found a balance between people and alone time. Being bipolar didn't really affect that, but being MANIC sure did.

Boy, when that mania hit, I was the hit of the party, the most charismatic and the belle of the ball. People just naturally flocked to me. But, as nice as that was, it always led to a spiral totally out control and directly to the hospital.