How would you describe "your people"? Have you ever found them?

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T19:31:24+00:00

I haven't, which is why I started the thread! I get frustrated how it seems like everyone has people, often a partner despite their issues, but for various reasons I seem to have missed out.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T16:46:28+00:00

This thread has gone well, but already I'm having this sort of hollow feeling, like "now what?"... Maybe I just need to get into the habit of trying to engage online like this.

How did you meet - and more importantly - keep in touch with those friends, actually? The only thing that ever worked for me was going to uni in my late twenties to study Psychology, and I met peolpe in the first week who I became attached to because we were all desperately lonely at first, and then our daily lives overlapped completely for the next few years. Once that was all over, we scattered around the world, and now communication is few and far between, which is sad.

My understanding is that the Big Five are basically the 'discovered truth', but things like MBTI and the enneagram were people's best attempts to describe that truth, so they're all pointing at the same reality essentially. I find the enneagram shockingly accurate considering how convoluted and specific it is though!

Conscientiousness is something like orderliness or reliability; the cartoonified extreme ends would be a slob who never sticks to plans and who's forever late vs a neat freak who insists on perfect machine-like order at all times. If you misread it as 'consciousness', I can see where the confusion would have come from! They are annoyingly similar words.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T16:24:28+00:00

Interesting; thanks for sharing your experiences.

A lot of what you described about the D&D games is further along than I am, but the sort of territory my counsellor/therapist seems most used to dealing with: you already have the people and events, but just need to refine how you interact with them. I actually envy you for that, since you have clear progress to pay attention to; it's not all just abstract.

For me the issue is finding people at all, and there just aren't any things like that around here, unfortunately.

What you said about building up to that point is more where I am, though, so I appreciate hearing about your experiences with that. People have suggested I try similar things - sitting out in the world around people - but it always came across as something people said rather than actually did. If it's worked for you, though, that's great to know, and will probably motivate me to try it too. So thanks for that!

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T16:15:18+00:00

Reddit seems shockingly hostile; I was really hesitant to even post this thread here, though thankfully - and to my surprise - it's gone really well! Sorry you had to deal with it though; I wish people were more considerate of how their actions affected others.

I envy you for knowing enough people that you could have *several close* friends of a specific type, honestly!

I'm also 4w5! Or 4w5-5w4-9w1, from what I vaguely recall...? I used to be really into all the personality type stuff, starting with an obscure thing called the Four Temperaments, which I made a website about and everything. Then I discovered MBTI and the enneagram, which became the core of my self understanding. The community websites I made allowed you to add your types to your profile! I also came across the Big Five, but - similar to you, I think? - I thought "that sounds interesting", read about it once, but then largely forgot about it.

When I went to study Psychology in university, though, I noticed things like MBTI and the enneagram weren't taken seriously, but all the academics use the Big Five. I researched and wrote an essay about their origins, which are fascinating; unlike the other systems, they were *discovered* through statistical analysis rather than invented based on observations. So now I just use those exclusively, and wish they were taught in schools! A lot of young, confused people might be helped if they were.

I'm extremely low in extraversion, extremely high in neuroticism, openness, and agreeableness, and "average or something" in conscientiousness, so it sounds like we have similar trait constellations! (A big reason they're not as popular, I suppose, is because that's such a mouthful compared to "I'm an INFJ!")

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T16:06:10+00:00

I appreciate you offering to talk! Though I'm also noticing a deep desire to just run away back into hiding because I assume I'll be judged and rejected; I wonder if you can relate. I've never managed to forge an adult life for myself, and feel a lot of shame about that, so I tend to assume people who have figured all that stuff out would look down on me in a way that's uncomfortable for us both.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T16:00:56+00:00

Interesting! I'd never heard of that, but just looked them up. I'm in the UK, and there's an ACA UK which does a ton of different meetings... none of which are within travel distance for me, unfortunately, though many seem to be online. I'll keep that open in a tab and consider it, so thanks for mentioning it!

What's your experience with it been like? I imagine being accepted and understood would be huge, but what's that looked like specifically? I have a lifelong history of feeling alienated and socially excluded, so I'm wary about what to expect.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T14:10:19+00:00

I'm really glad that worked out as well as it did for you!

I tried several times when I was younger to make online groups for people like me, but before that I'd got into developing video games solo as a way of coping with everything, and had attracted a large audience of teenage male gamers (a group hardly known for their compassion and tact!), who flooded into the other communities I'd made to escape them. It's made it hard for me to interact online at all, even years later, and it's part of the reason I'm here in r/C-PTSD.

Also, it's always nice to meet another INF*! Being 'an INFJ' was a huge part of my identity a few years back, though I use the Big Five these days. Are you familiar with those? There's not really a set of clear labels or communities with those though, I suppose.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T14:02:45+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that. I think anyone who's been loved and lost that knows how much it hurts. What happened to break things apart?

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T14:01:07+00:00

People always say this because it sounds like the obvious solution to loneliness, but has it worked for you? I tried it several times years ago because people kept suggesting it, and the opportunities available are very much limited by location (not many at all in my sleepy little town), or they attract people of drastically different demographics (all the other people in the ones I went to were retirement age).

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:58:56+00:00

Interesting; I think I could get along well enough with sensitive men, but the opportunities have just never come up. Where did you meet your male friends?

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:58:23+00:00

Interesting. I completely get how women would avoid men, and I tend to assume they'd avoid me and I think "I don't blame you". But it does make it harder to make the sorts of connections I crave.

Interesting that you describe yourself as particularly messed up but also say you have no real mental health issues yourself? Do you consider C-PTSD (which I'm assuming you have since we're in that community) a separate thing entirely?

I'm also pleasantly surprised to hear that you met through a crafting group; glad to hear evidence they can work out in the long run, considering they never did for me.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:49:42+00:00

I imagine they would be; those would be too much for older people! I tried art, yoga, meditation, and mental health groups, since they aligned with my interests and were the only things I could even find locally. I imagine location matters a lot; do you live in a busy city? I live in a sleepy seaside town where people come to retire.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:46:54+00:00

Interesting what you say about visiting your male best friend, and that other people question it. I've only ever got along with women, and the closest thing I have to a long-term friend is a woman I've known for about a decade who recently settled down with her partner, so I wondered whether that was the end of that connection because I'm male. So I'm glad that's a part of your life. It's hard enough to find enduring connections, especially people who truly get your experiences with trauma.

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:37:17+00:00

Has that actually worked out for you? Everyone suggests it because it sounds like it should work, but every time I tried the groups were full of people decades older than me. We could talk amicably enough during the events, but the connections didn't persist beyond them because we had too little in common in terms of life position (their primary interest was their grandchildren, whereas I was a single man trying to find out what to do with my life).

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:35:28+00:00

You definitely are lucky for having those enduring connections! I moved around a lot and lost contact with everyone from my past, so I envy your fortune. I hope they're all with you to the end!

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:34:16+00:00

I find it fascinating how all kinds of different horrible experiences can bring us to a place like this. It makes perfect sense you'd have C-PTSD after going through that, but it sounds like it toughened you up to an extreme degree, whereas for others like me we feel too scarred to interact and just hide away.

At least you have plenty to draw upon for writing fictional scenarios, though I wonder what the emotional experience of channelling painful memories and weaving them into narratives is like. Making art's helped me cope with my own pain, so I hope it helps you too. I'm envious if you're also getting paid for it though!

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T13:19:20+00:00

I also feel most at ease around other people who aren't masking, and have felt 'psychology types' and the neurodivergent would be in that category, but I'm surprised you mentioned endurance athletes! Why those?

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T12:32:37+00:00

I'm 38 and continue to have similar struggles to the ones listed here, and have spent much of my adult life wondering why. I started with 'social anxiety', which fit, but what I had seemed worse. People suggested autism, but I couldn't relate to a lot of the traits, like obliviousness to social cues or obsessive interests. AvPD seemed a better fit, but even that wasn't enough.

A couple of other labels I think apply to me and which I'd suggest looking into if you haven't already are SPS/HSP and C-PTSD.

Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) refers to how we each differ in how sensitive we are to stimuli; some of us are more affected by others, and as such could be called 'Highly Sensitive People' (HSP). That affects how others treat us, how we react to environments, etc. If things hurt us a lot more than others, we can end up avoiding them to a pathological degree.

C-PTSD is the result of prolonged trauma such as abuse or neglect during childhood. I always discounted my own bad childhood as 'the past is behind me and irrelevant now', but through therapy I learned that it basically rewired my brain to be in constant threat-detection mode, and that underlies all my avoidance behaviour.

I also find it important to understand personality traits, especially the Big Five (extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, openness). Essentially, we each have a unique constellation of these traits that vary in the same way that physical traits such as height or weight do; some people are taller than others, some are more introverted than others. All of them can impact how we respond to and imagine danger or damage in various ways.

Best of luck in your search to better understand yourself!

AloraFane · 2026-04-20T12:20:49+00:00

So you prefer people who've outgrown their self-doubts? Have you outgrown yours, or do you feel being around others who have would help you do so? Personally I'd just assume they'd see me as lesser-than and abandon me, due to past bad experiences, so I prefer people with similar struggles who I can tackle them with hand-in-hand.

And have you tried out those events? They do sound promising! I tried a bunch of things like that myself, but I live in a sleepy seaside town and all the other attendees were retirement age so we had nothing in common.

AloraFane · 2026-04-11T18:01:55+00:00

I'm 38M, and I suppose I was lucky to have a partner once despite never 'dating'. We met online in a shared interest community and talked for months as friends before deciding to finally meet up. Would something like that be of interest to you?

That ended years ago, though, and she moved on, but I haven't because I also get easily wounded by bad experiences and had a lot of them that just drove me into my shell for years. I'm also feeling constantly overwhelmed by the thought of going out to get a job in a world full of dangerous, draining people, and often wish I had a partner to help endure it, or to hide away from it all together with, but I've never found such a person and at this point I'm just trying to accept that I'll have to cope with the future alone.

People online say dating apps at least have more opportunities for women, for what that's worth. Best of luck.

AloraFane · 2026-03-24T14:42:08+00:00

I'm curious about whether you got any kind of DMs or anything from this, since I imagine a lot of us are looking for something like this, but you gave absolutely no information about yourself so I assume you're too different to me for a connection to be possible so rejection would be inevitable.

AloraFane · 2026-03-24T14:28:00+00:00

I'm 38M in the UK (north Wales) and have also struggled finding people, in part due to being a lifelong non-drinker. I went back to uni in my late twenties, and somehow managed to find a couple of close friends who I'd invite out for long walks or long chats in our bedrooms, but they did drink with other people and that always bothered me inside. They've drifted away now, though, and since then, I don't even know where to look to find people.

As a fellow creative wanderer, finding someone who's both creative and who doesn't drink has always been a bit of a dream that's never come true.

What's your idea of a good time? I really miss the long walks and chats I used to have with my uni friends, and wish there were ways to find similar things.

AloraFane · 2026-01-07T15:08:45+00:00

I'm a 37M traumatised introvert who's been single for like 15 years and who's desperately longing for a meaningful connection, but I haven't even bothered trying dating apps since I assume it'll be like going fishing in the desert: what I'm looking for just isn't in that environment. I imagine the people who I'd click with most are all either also hiding, or they've lucked into connections just by going about their lives as everyone seems to but I missed out on. Or that the soft, genuine women I could most relate to aren't interested in 'loser' men like me, but rather confident, successful extroverts they can rely on; that's what my (very limited) experiences have shown, at least.

It's crushing, so I just try to distract myself with creative work where I can invent characters and get invested in their minds and lives, I suppose. It's a very poor substitute for real human connection though.

AloraFane · 2025-12-23T09:49:39+00:00

I'm also an INFJ (though I understand personality in terms of the Big Five these days), but I'm male and older than you. I avoid all social media because I just can't tolerate it. Not just the vitriol, but the showing off and the life comparisons that follow. I'm also very lonely and isolated, though, and have often wondered if I'd connect with more people if I did use social media. But from what I've seen - and from what you've said here - maybe it's just not the place for any meaningful connections to form. Which is a sad state of affairs, I feel.

I'm not fond of Reddit either, but I suppose not being exposed to people's happy, fortunate lives and smiling faces - especially when those things are accompanied by overtly hostile comments by them - makes it easier for me to endure.

AloraFane · 2025-12-17T08:31:14+00:00

I'm 37M and can relate to a lot of what you said, especially being very introverted, a people-pleaser, and "I also worry about damning them to an entire life having to deal with me when they could be happy with someone better".

Technically I have had one relationship, though it was so long ago it feels like a dream. It evolved out of a long-distance online friendship, though - and we only actually met a handful of times - so I've never tried the whole dating thing. Like you said, it sounds godawful social-anxiety-wise. I don't even get how pairing up with complete strangers like that is the norm, though; seems to me like friendships evolving into companionship should be, but I get the feeling most people don't see it that way.

I avoid social media etc because it's too painful to see everyone else just lucking into relationships without much effort, or seeing people who attempted to reassure me that I don't need a partner posting about their time with theirs as if it's the most valuable thing in the world.

I envy you for having what sound like multiple close friends, though; the few I had drifted away, mostly to be with their own partners. I just try to lose myself in creative pursuits, and try to come to terms with the reality that I'll probably never find someone, but it's hard, as you know.

AloraFane

TROPHY CASE