Because the deceased author James Michener will be a major character in my next novel, now wandering the world alone as a ghost, I've been thinking a lot about him. I realized today that he is another candidate for these lists of people who might belong on the spectrum. For he was a loner among … Continue reading Autism’s lost loners | James Michener
Autism’s lost loners|the boy who bought the Earth
Somewhere I’ve said that I think most loners are on the ASD spectrum. Enough has been written about famous loners who, in ‘real life’, have or probably have or had Asperger’s syndrome/ASD - Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Abraham Lincoln, etc, etc - in this series, I’m going to look at forgotten ones, … Continue reading Autism’s lost loners|the boy who bought the Earth
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s warning about Incels and/or Shy Loners
Writing since the 1970s, Philip Zimbardo is one of the few psychologists who has devoted much of his career to shyness. In a Mar 31, 2016 post in Psychology Today, "The New Shyness -How virtual reality has made social Isolation more seductive than ever before", Zimbardo provided a very interesting update. He says shyness is … Continue reading Psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s warning about Incels and/or Shy Loners
Rescuing Shyness|Why being a loner may be good for your health
The above refers to a Feb 28/2018 “Best of BBC Future” post by Christine Ro. After acknowledging that there has been a lot of research into the negative psychological effects of 'social isolation' (for example, the Royal College of General Practicioners in the UK say that research has found loneliness to have a risk level … Continue reading Rescuing Shyness|Why being a loner may be good for your health
What is a Loner?
About 10 years ago I did a search for loner websites and found none. The only site that used the term was Loners of America. That turned out to be a group of seniors who had each lost their partner but owned an RV. This group of newly singled men and women travelled around America together, … Continue reading What is a Loner?
Are We a Social Animal?
I've been asking myself this since I was in high school in the 1960s. That's when I read the chapters in H.G. Wells's Outline of History, where he introduced me to the evolution of early humans. Inspired, I read everything I could find on human origins. Over the years I noticed that most writers assumed that humanity … Continue reading Are We a Social Animal?
Lonely in the City? – Maybe Not
Here is a post from my previous blog, Loner's Highway. I was writing about columnist Heather Mallick's review in the Toronto Star of Olivia Laing's book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. I think this should interest most shy people as well as loners, so I'm repeating it here. What interested … Continue reading Lonely in the City? – Maybe Not
What is your Dunbar number?
Do you know about Dunbar's number? A British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, studied the size of stable social groups and concluded in the 1990s that an individual's preferred number of people is 150. Neolithic farming villages supposedly were that size, the basic operating units of armies since Roman times have been and are that size, and … Continue reading What is your Dunbar number?
Alan Conrad 