For a myriad of reasons there’s a long history of loneliness amongst an XXY and variant population, reasons given seem to centre on an array of psychological issues sometimes attributed to Sex Chromosome Variants especially those with trisomies. Before we even get off the mark we are told we don’t make for good partners, we are lousy at communicating, we are sterile ‘who would want us’, we are self-centred and think of no one but ourselves etc, etc. When you chuck in other known (for some) issues abounding Autism, Social Anxiety, ADHD and so forth it becomes easier to gauge why we might end up in such a dilemma. Of course just because those issues are sometimes attributed to us, it doesn’t mean we are destined to be unhappy and lonely only that we have to find a means to work around them, and we can do this in multiple ways. Olga Khazan has written a great article for the Atlantic and lets the readers in on the tips and tricks for breaking through that impasse (should it exist). When you’ve done reading and if you are an XXY and/or Variant individual why not write and let us know of your circumstances, if loneliness has been an issue in your life, have you have overcome it, and what changes have you made in order to achieve it.
One of the biggest misunderstandings is what loneliness is. They equate it with being alone, and that leads to attempts to solve the problem that doesn’t solve the problem at all. And if you try enough times, you start to feel like, “Well, I’ll never be able to solve this, I’m just a worthless person.” And that’s when you start getting social withdrawal.
The purpose of loneliness is like the purpose of hunger. Hunger takes care of your physical body. Loneliness takes care of your social body, which you also need to survive and prosper. We’re a social species.
One notion that people intuitively have is it’s just about being with other people, and we’ve already talked about how that’s wrong. The other thing is that it’s just about social support—“I need more support.” And that doesn’t work very well because the logic of that is it’s not mutual. Just getting support doesn’t actually make you feel very good. This is one of the reasons why when we do something for others, we tend to feel good. If you go cook at a soup kitchen, all of a sudden you start finding out that people can actually be pretty nice, they’re responding with gratitude.
The third common thing is that it’s social skills, that people with poor social skills are the ones who are lonely. Well, guess what? That’s not the case. If you have really bad social skills, you’re more likely to be lonely, that’s true. But lots of people feel lonely who have great social skills. Millionaires, billionaires, tend to feel lonely. A lot of athletes often feel lonely. Lots of people want to be their friend, but how would you feel if all the people who want to be your friend, you had the alternative interpretation that they want material or social benefits that you could give them.
This is why you see some [famous] athletes from [poor] neighbourhoods not severing those ties, even though it’s clearly to their benefit if they were to do so. Those are the only relationships they know are real, are authentic.
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The XXY Project 