Solitary Nocturnal Introverts Are Challenging Our Understanding of Happiness

I know that many of you seeing this are also introverts. Reading is a hobby that selects for our crowd. And perhaps like me, you noticed early on in life the flickers of introversion, despite the exuberant socializing that most children are drawn to.

Just like our other personality traits, introversion exists on a spectrum — and there’s a distant tier, an outer Pluto of our group. Within it, people go about their lives in the wee hours of the night, in near-absolute seclusion. And it is this group that’s challenging assumptions psychologists have about happiness.

The lifestyle of the nocturnal introvert

It’s 10 PM on a Tuesday. Amy is finishing her breakfast, and heading to Walmart to pick up groceries. The roads are vacant and what would ordinarily be a fifteen-minute drive, takes only five.

Amy walks down the empty aisles, taking her time, not noticing the contrast between this life and the absurd crowds that fill these same aisles during the day. She’s willfully chosen a call center job in off hours so she can live outside the normal bounds of activity.

Another “nocturnal”, James, owns his own business. He answers emails and files reports — all before going to sleep right as the sun rises. Both of them claim to be much happier than in their prior lives despite minimal human interaction. Neither is fighting depression.

Cases like these call into question the implicit healthiness of an isolated nocturnal lifestyle. Research has long pointed to night shifts disrupting our circadian rhythm, and increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke. Other studies have pointed to lower happiness levels with introverts, largely due to loneliness and lack of social support.

Do these nocturnal introverts face even more isolation? Does their alternative lifestyle deliver enough value to offset these effects? As of yet — it isn’t clear.

I can surely empathize with their struggle. My own preference for solitude was long related to the messy hassle of socializing. Its forced nature, the feelings of too many people in my immediate space, and the subsequent loudness were overwhelming. It was also frustrating feeling like I needed to be someone else and amp up my pleasantness or risk being rude. Yet — I still understood and valued these get-togethers. I knew their purpose. How could someone skip them altogether?

A few examples of the nocturnal introverts

Because I’m in a profession (writing) that’s absolutely inundated with introverts, I know a couple of people who live this exact life. And their responses were telling.

My friend, Brian, who writes horror novels, and prefers to remain anonymous, lives an almost entirely nocturnal lifestyle with minimal socializing. And it isn’t because the night offered him a better vibe or inspiration for his scary stories. He grew downright resentful of modern life: rush hour, crowds of people, dealing with lines of impatient customers, and society at large.

Brian said, “I realized I could bypass all of this. There is a time of day when all of these things go away and the world becomes much more tranquil.”

It begs the question: is he that much lonelier than many of us? We’re surrounded by people yet so many are still lonely. You need only look around any airport and see everyone staring down at their phones, despite sitting next to their families.

In 2017, US Surgeon General Vivek Murphy warned of this loneliness epidemic, writing in the Harvard Business Review, “During my years caring for patients, the most common pathology I saw was not heart disease or diabetes; it was loneliness.”

Another writer friend, Katie, also lives this nocturnal solitary life and lives here in Tampa. She typically wakes between 6 and 7 PM, catching the last of the falling sun, before beginning her routine and starting to write. She does her workout at a 24–7 fitness center between 12 and 1 AM and is one of only a handful of people in the massive facility.

She told me, “I just like the openness and freedom of the world at these hours. There’s so much less stimulation. But I don’t want to live out in the boonies where I don’t have access to things when I need them.”

Both of my friends come off as quite happy in their lives, which was difficult to reconcile with the research suggesting we need people to be content.

Despite my own introversion, I grow sad and slightly neurotic if I go months without seeing any friends. I can go a couple of weeks without issue, but I feel the heavy blanket of isolation after too long. And this is even including that I have a partner I live with. The friend portion matters.

Both Brian and Katie told me they still do some socializing, but can only handle it in sporadic bursts, meeting for food at Denny’s, and other night spots, or having a late dinner, which is someone else’s breakfast. All before they feel the vampiric urge to retreat into the shadows.

On Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it lists only physical safety and physiological needs (food, sleep, air, and water) as being more important than love and belonging (friendship, intimacy, family, a sense of connection). Skipping this entire tier seems incompatible with happiness.

But some psychologists are challenging this notion. Per Dr. Colin DeYoung, “I think there are some people so unusually low in that need, that for them it basically doesn’t exist. We should take seriously the possibility that there are people who really don’t need social connection.”

And that’s the part I struggle to comprehend. My friend Brian doesn’t even have a romantic partner. He only has one relative he’s semi-close with. He has a couple of “arm’s length” friends, including me, that he keeps in his life. His dream is to be even more isolated and finish writing enough so that he can retire and disappear into the darkness, to enjoy a vacuum somewhere else in the world.

Making sense of it all

The pandemic surely changed how people view schedules, and how we think about work and our social life. It’s clear that many can work remotely, and with minimal coworker interaction and still thrive. Introverts are now realizing they can exist free of the pressure to conform to an extrovert’s world.

We’ve also seen a massive cultural shift over the past decade, with increasing acceptance of neurodiversity, and the different psychologies and approaches to life. America’s prizing of individualism has only soared in the past few years and to great effect, but challenges to this progress remain.

Perhaps the next addition might be the ultra-nocturnal introverts, and our need to suspend judgment of those who prefer darkness and isolation.

Meaningful friendships and connections still matter — but they can be achieved in many ways and interpreted differently by the individual.

Just as I’ve faced judgment for not meeting another’s quota for socializing, I’m sure the nocturnal introverts wouldn’t want the same of us. If passing social interaction and family is enough for them, then perhaps we should let them live and define happiness on their own terms — even if it’s in isolation.