There can be any number of reasons why someone would prefer to consume cannabis in solitude. Some people like to sit alone with their own thoughts, while others get social anxiety or may feel awkward and quiet around others. While everyone is entitled to choose whether to get high alone or in company, it becomes a little more complicated if your very own partner is a “loner stoner.”
From the perspective of a solitary smoker, “sometimes you need the space to just get high alone, especially if it’s beneficial or important to your mental health.” Consuming cannabis in solitude can be good for destressing or decluttering the mind, he says, especially if there’s been an argument or tension between the couple. “You need to be able to communicate to your partner why [getting high alone] is beneficial,” he says. “If you can’t, that’s a sign of either communication issues or codependency.”
One woman recalls times when her partner would disappear to get high, rather than help with their baby. “I got pissed off because I never knew where he went and then there I was taking care of our child, but he did not participate,” she says. “But I guess getting high can also be a spiritual thing or a thing just to kick back into one’s own meditative space and so why does it have to be something that must be done together all the time?”
Indeed, there are moments when cannabis can help bring a couple together — as an aphrodisiac, a lubricant for conversation, or a tool for bonding — and then there are the moments when an individual needs “me time,” no matter whether they’re in a relationship.
“Partners don’t always have to share bong hits, but if the person who is getting high alone then retreats into some mental place where they withdraw, well that becomes another problem, such as using weed as an escape from the relationship,” the woman says. “And then the relationship may have problems that are more serious than the weed. The weed becomes imply the symptom, not the cause.”
If you’re in a relationship and your partner often likes to consume cannabis without you, first try to understand what their motives are. If they use cannabis medicinally, for anxiety, creativity, or productivity, they may simply need that alone time. It doesn’t have to be personal. However, if you feel that consuming cannabis together would benefit the relationship, ask your partner why they might be hesitant to toke together and try to find ways you both can work it out. Be sympathetic and understanding. Don’t judge. And accept their reasons as justified, so long as they are not, indeed, using cannabis to escape intimate moments that could be shared together.
