I'm going to answer the question: Can a schizoid individual have a partner?
I think it depends on the purpose of the partnership. Going over the definition of
a partner, we have a pair of people engaged in the same activity, a person with whom one
shares an intimate relationship, or one member of a couple. Taking the first line of the definition,
when it comes to business or study projects, yes, we can work together with other people if
we want to, though we do prefer to work alone. Schizoids tend to be very individually-minded,
and this can make working with others towards a goal to be a challenge, especially
in terms of communication, etc. We do prefer to work alone. It's possible that
we can adapt to working with another person if there's a need to do so, especially if we
don't have to interact with one another for long periods of time to get the job done.
In terms of a partner, in terms of a close relationship, this is a little bit different.
I would say that there are, amongst other things, three conditions I think that are essential
in a partner if there's any chance or possibility of us having a close relationship, and that is
if the person is not intrusive, not emotionally demanding, and acceptance of our way of being. So,
I elaborate on these points more. To be non-intrusive, it just means giving us
space and allowing us plenty of alone time to do our own thing. We're not going to do well with
loud people who require a lot of our attention. We tend to be in our heads a lot of the time
as we are often dissociated or detached from the external world. We value being in touch with our
own thoughts and ideas, and so people who disturb the relationship that we have with ourselves tend
to be an unwanted addition to our lives and not something that we're going to stand for very long.
We can steadily build resentment or just staying towards these type of people who
frequently force us to involuntarily have to attend to the external world, especially
over things that we may perceive to be trivial matters or there are of little interest to us.
When I say you're not emotionally demanding, I'm saying that we cannot deal with people who put
emotional demands on us. Many schizoids experience Alexithymia which is a form of emotional
blindness, meaning that we have difficulty connecting with and reading our own emotions.
Along with that, and also, it does get so different which creates a barrier towards
intimacy and interpersonal exchange. We can only express a restricted range of emotions. We have
difficulty in communicating tender feelings of other people and also expressing anger. This means
that we're not going to emotionally respond in a neurotypical way to situations and circumstances
that occur in our lives. When somebody places the expectation of us to have normal emotional
reactions or responses, this tends to be something that we're unlikely to be able to live up to,
especially in the long run, as it's going to become apparent over time that we
don't have the capacity to really communicate emotionally.
So, we need someone who isn't interested in a conventional romantic relationship.
So, for many of us, the societal notion of romance is not something we're capable of playing
out. We can't be relied on to be emotionally available, and someone who pressurizes has to
communicate our feelings is not the sort of person we're going to stand to have around.
The third one, acceptance of our way of being, this would be quite self-explanatory, but I will
add that we need a partner who can understand how we function psychologically and the challenges
that we face as schizoid individuals. We need to live our lives in a way that is natural to us.
So, if we're to consider having a partner,
it needs to be someone who doesn't expect us to go out of our way for them.
Doing what comes naturally to us means that we can't consistently live in alignment with
someone else's expectations of how we should be or what we should do or other people's value system.
This means that someone who tries to push us to engage in, say, social activities or tries to
get us involved in tasks that we're not good at would not be a suitable partner for a schizoid.
As a connection to a partner isn't going to be based on an emotional connection,
it would help if we have shared interests with the other person as this will create
a common ground for which we can exchange communication and share our thoughts or ideas.
Due to the issues that I've covered here, I say that we're unlikely to be compatible in a
relationship with most neurotypical people who share intimacy and bond through interpersonal
emotional connections and engaging in frequent social activities together. We're better suited
to form a relationship with someone who is low on the scale of emotional feeling, and so such a
person could be maybe another schizoid. It could be potentially a good match in a partnership.
Even still, any kind of partnership may potentially become a strain on us under
these conditions. The number of people we can potentially form a partnership with is reduced.
I came across an article, and someone was talking about
what he saw as his parents that will probably schizoids. So, he wrote this:
"I think both of my parents were probably covert schizoids, married for 47 years, put on the smiley
faces in public, but I can't think of any real emotional engagement interaction. Maybe it worked
because neither made any emotional demands on the other. They were okay with a pro-formal marriage.
After that died, Mum seemed relieved to be alone. Never talked about it. Neither of
them ever talked about any personal stuff with us kids or so if I was I could tell. With each other,
like there was a glass wall between them. See but don't touch. See but don't touch."
So, this is talking about his parent's schizoid relationship, and it just outlined the fact that
there was no emotional connection or exchange, or at least not to be seen.
It's important to keep in mind that schizoids are all different individuals with different values
and preferences, and so it also falls along different points in the schizoid spectrum.
With some individuals who have written off or no interest in being in a close relationship,
while others are still open to the possibility.
So, to sum up, to answer the question, yes, it is possible for a person with schizoid
personality traits to have a partner, but it will be harder for us to initiate or
maintain romantic relationships due to our tendency to be emotionally detached
from other people and our limited potential for emotional engagement or expression. And
there will be the conditions that I've outlined would need to be present, I do believe,
to give the relationship a chance of survival.