Sorry for the subject, I don't know if it really says the same thing I wanted to say... I'll try to explain:

it's a thing that happens to me a lot, especially lately... there are times when I disappear from the lifes of the people I know (not in leteral meaning, I don't believe I have the power to turn me invisible ).
One day I start stopping texting with them... If they call me at the cellphone I don't answer, and if they write me I don't even read their emails.
It's not like I started to hate them, but at times, I want to be left alone (at times = even more than one month) and not talk to anyone.
It even happens on games. I play like I always do, and then, out of the blue, I get this sensation that I don't want to be with anyone, and I stop playing for months (usually totally abandoning the game and eventually the people I knew there).
Does this happen to someone else? It's not quite normal, it is?
Maybe it's another step on the stairs that lead to a full hikikomori?

Yeah it's happened to me too, a couple of times.. Though it's probably been a year since I last did that. Once in a while I feel like doing it again, but get interrupted somehow, and get convinced I shouldn't do it.. But it's probably because, now I always end up reading the e-mails and text messages, and think: "Aww I should answer"... I used to just ignore them too... Though being the child that I am I'll probably end up doing it too later on. I think a lot of people need to be alone once in a while

Well, at least it doesn't happens only to me. I feel more normal, thanks!

It happens to me as well. In fact, I haven't talked to one of my best friends in several months now. I think a big reason is that it seems like they've gone so far, while I'm more the less in the same place as I was when I left high school.

I recently developed a bad habit of deleting and/or blocking people I know on MSN, for fairly similar reasons as Quasar. I usually add them back eventually though. The other reason is because I get really nervous talking to people (yes, even online too) and I want to hide from them. Also sometimes I feel like I need a 'break' from people, heh. I just get overstimulated/mentally exhausted from talking too much with others.

That s exactly how i m feeling right now, i ve found myself even ignoring my closest friends because i don t want to admit that they re doing a lot 'better' than me in the traditional social sense.

I'm in the same boat. I do it for months or even years at a time.

To me it feels more comfortable to be isolated when I feel bad. It does however create spans of great loneliness. Oh well, what are we to do?

I don't delete/remove contacts from messenger (too tiring ) but I disable the "start automatically" option so I can't see anyone and vice versa.
Recently I even can't play mmorpg no more. There's too much people running around, asking things, talking.. I feel really overwhelmed and run away after killing some mob.
I remember that around ten years ago I could easily start playing a game and make some new friend or join a guild.
It could really help understanding what happened in this time, but I really don't know.

I can totally relate to this. I've let most of my friendship relations dissapear that way.

In games, I'm so antisocial that I can't even join guilds. I don't understand the community, the humor, the people etc. I usually just solo until I meet one or two people I can get along with and play with in an unconditional way. Haven't played an online game for years though.

i do this too, even with my own family. they've started to figure it out, and only call me once every few months to figure out if i'm still alive. my sister and i haven't spoken to each other in over a year. we only communicate through short text messages every few months. luckily my family doesn't harp on it because i've been a loner since i was very young. text messages work very well for me because it's not as personal or emotional, and you have a moment to think out what you want to say.

i only have one friend left from school, and i can barely talk to her because she's very immature. i think we talk maybe twice a year.

I feel the same way, I'm always ignoring/blocking people on facebook chat and MSN. It seems a few of my friends aren't really interested in a friendship with me anymore. I always forget that If you don't talk to someone for a while, they might become angry or not want to be friends anymore. But for me, If someone doesn't talk to me for months even, I still consider us friends. It's a little depressing.

Wow...I can relate to a lot of these posts. I do feel horribly about the way I've shut out
some of the people that I felt genuinely cared for me and seemed sincerely interested.

I've literally no non-family acquaintances left in my life at the moment, as I'll go through
these cycles where I purge myself of the company of almost everyone. No calls picked up,
no e-mails returned. My last cycle was a few months ago.

Likewise. It seems like going silent to everyone for weeks at a time is the way of things. Then a week or two of 'normality' (though it's essentially vice versa now), and then it's back to blanking people.

It's not malicious, i just... do it. Unexplainable y'know? Or at least, unexplainable by me.

I've been planning on responding to this thread for quite some time.

I also avoid people - I'll stop answering the phone, I'll sign into my instant messenger as invisible (or simply not sign in at all) and simply avoid all types of communication.

Anyway, just to let you people know, I decided to block and delete all of the contacts I had added to my instant messenger. I made no exceptions, even with my best friends and close family; I blocked/deleted them as well.

I blocked/deleted my contacts to prevent myself from easily being able to quickly install my IM and begin chatting again. Once I was finished blocking/deleting everyone, I uninstalled my instant messenger. I'm telling you people this since I had quite a few of the people here added to my contact list.

I have been planning on 'boycotting' instant messengers for a while now, and finally decided to do it.



If you want to talk sometime, you can email me at HikiCulture@Gmail.Com. I will now stick to using Gmail when having personal conversations with people.

I wish others would understand this as well. I hate getting caught off-guard in a casual social situation where a simple greeting
turns into a mini-disaster. If I brush you off or otherwise dismiss you and scurry away as if I'm in a rush to be somewhere (I'm not)
I'm not being arrogant or nasty intentionally. I'm improving, but man.....If they only knew.

Yep i'm guilty of retracting from people too

i even googled "how to vanish without a trace" but it seemed to require a move to the phillipines for me to have any real success. i don't own enough shoes to move to the phillipines.

I did this about a year ago, and haven't used an IM service since (with perhaps a couple of circumstantial exceptions). I can't even remember why I did it. There wasn't a specific reason, it was just like a natural compulsion. But I don't really miss it, so I haven't really thought much about it until now.

This is the sort of thing that shows me why I'm here. I know I'm not nearly as reclusive as many of you. But yea, I just stop being interested in contact with other people. In the process, I also loose all track of time. I have no idea when I last contacted any given friend. I wrote one friend a few (weeks or months, I don't know) ago and never heard back.

Every time I fail to regain contact with someone, I feel bad, and it makes me withdraw that much more. I don't go in to quiet mode out of a desire to hurt anyone, unless they've done something to me. I just loose interest in contact, in general. Sometimes I'm very happy and deeply involved in some project. Other times, I'm not deeply involved in anything, and then I'm probably too depressed to want contact.

I'm in my best shape when I'm doing a project and having steady progress. Then I can occasionally be perfectly happy to set aside my work and be social--Provided it's not at my home.

I don't know if this adds to the conversation, but...

I retract from people if they try touching me (male or female), because for some reason, I just instinctively move away from a person, unless I've been around them for a long period of time. It's difficult to understand why I do this. And this makes it (or at least I believe) worse for relationships.

Wow...I thought that I was the only person to do this. I withdraw completely for seemingly no reason. I've lost friends that way.

It's like sudden desire to isolate myself because all this contact is too overwhelming. It's easier to avoid than to keep up. People can be tiring.

Strangely, I've gone through periods where I was in near constant (online) contact with people and then, I'd suddenly disappear. They must have thought that I was being very rude and unreasonable - which is sort of true. I don't want to upset others; it just happens.

And instant messengers...at one point, I was signed on all day, every day just to talk to one person, but now I never go on. It almost feels like I can't be bothered anymore. I wouldn't have anything to say anyway. IM makes me feel a bit anxious now.



Yep, I'm the same.

As I said in my introductory post, I will try my best not to do the "disappearing act" here, but if I suddenly go away, at least now anyone who notices will know why. I'll probably be still alive - just AWOL :P

I'd say it depends highly on why you stop talking to someone, for how long & how often, and whether (s)he understands it, or was at least given the chance to understand it.

I appear to disappear from time to time too. People don't understand it. I suspect that people assume I'm bipolar (people have suggested this online because in forums, I have a way of posting a lot, then disappearing completely for a while, then coming back and posting regularly again). But there's a different explanation.

I need to balance my time between focusing on different aspects of my life. I enjoy talking to people, but I need time alone to rest and reflect afterwards. I need time alone to focus on my own goals and projects. Then, after spending a length of time immersed in solitude, I feel the need to go out and seek out a bit of human company.

And I like having different friends in different places who don't all know each other. May seem selfish, but when all my friends know each other, I feel kind of claustrophobic; it gives me social anxiety. I like focusing on 1 person at a time. Groups of people are often intimidating.

If / when I vanish from here seemingly at random, it is likely I'll come back within a few weeks if not a few days. The most likely explanation is that I'm temporarily caught up in another part of life - school, creative projects, irl friendships, work, traveling. Something like that. When I focus on something, I focus hard on it. Then have to let go and turn my attention elsewhere for a while for the sake of balance / preservation of sanity.

My last relationship (we're still friends and uncertain about the future - geographically separated) was with someone more reclusive than me in some ways. He liked to leave the house and be around people on a daily basis, but he didn't care much about whether or not he interacted with them, although he did really cherish his friends.

However, he would often turn off his phone for great lengths of time, refuse to use email, etc. A lot of people judged him negatively for it, and misunderstood our relationship ("He's 'conveniently' had his phone turned off for a week - that should tell you something." - that sort of thing). But I understood that he just needed a certain amount of space, in general, more-so at some times than others. That was really hard to explain to people. Many couldn't conceptualize it. The good thing was that we seemed to be on about the same schedule regarding our alone time balanced with social time. And when we weren't, there was a nice level of understanding.

I tend to disappear easily to people. I know how to distance our relationship right before I disappear from them. It's not that I can't deal with people or anything like that.

It's strange. I just suddenly, inexplicably, lose interest from something and disappear.

When it comes to people it's usually when a person tries to connect with me too much or when someone suddenly distances themselves from me. Sometimes it's simply something that builds up and eventually I go 'poof'.