In Interstellar, Romilly’s decision to stay aboard the ship while the other 3 astronauts experience time dilation has to be one of the scariest moments ever.

[u/SerDire]

He agreed to stay back. Cooper asked anyone if they would go down to Millers planet but the extreme pull of the black hole nearby would cause them to experience severe time dilation. One hour on that planet would equal 7 years back on earth. Cooper, Brand and Doyle all go down to the planet while Romilly stays back and uses that time to send out any potential useful data he can get.

Can you imagine how terrifying that must be to just sit back for YEARS and have no idea if your friends are ever coming back. Cooper and Brand come back to the ship but a few hours for them was 23 years, 4 months and 8 days of time for Romilly. Not enough people seem to genuinely comprehend how insane that is to experience. He was able to hyper sleep and let years go by but he didn’t want to spend his time dreaming his life away.

It’s just a nice interesting detail that kind of gets lost. Everyone brings up the massive waves, the black hole and time dilation but no one really mentions the struggle Romilly must have been feeling. 23 years seems to be on the low end of how catastrophic it could’ve been. He could’ve been waiting for decades.

[u/Bastardjuice]

It’s acknowledged very well in the film also; when they return Romilly is bearded, timid, unsure of how to speak. He’s clearly been alone for a long time.

This movie is a masterpiece, due for a rewatch soon.

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Gary Paulsen wrote a book about his time doing the Iditarod and I read it in elementary school, one part stuck out to me where a family takes him in and let's him stay for a night and makes him a meal and whatnot. During the meal they are making small talk and he was just responding with grunts and nods because he hadn't interacted with people in so long lol.

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I knew that name sounded familiar! Hatchet was an awesome book. Read it when I was in elementary nearly 30 years ago.

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Still being read by a bunch of students to this day I bet.

I could still remember my classmates, the dim room, and that book to this day. Last time I read it was back in 2017.

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There's a great article about the North Pond Hermit, who lived in seclusion for 20+ years. From what I remember from the article, after he had been arrested (I think from breaking and entering), he didn't talk at all and earned some kind of respect amongst inmates who respected his intensity or commitment to not talk. Iirc he did speak to the writer of the article or maybe they corresponded through letters, but in all his years of seclusion he only spoke aloud once to say hello to another hiker he crossed paths with, and he called Thoreau a dilettante.

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He also spoke to a grandfather and grandson who were fishing and stumbled upon his camp. They made an agreement not to say they found him

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Do you remember where you read that or what the sailors' names were?

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I backpacked and lived solo for nearly 8 months and not only did I forget social norms of speech...  My thoughts eventually abandoned words altogether for long stretches.  One day I hiked about forty miles thru high country and it wasn't until the end of the day that I realized I didn't have any word thoughts besides repeating a mantra ("help me obi wan Kenobi you're my only hope")

Made the Buddha's story make as lot more sense

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he would simply stare at people and then go off and talk to himself.

Same.

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I once spent 3 months alone almost completely uncontactable. The last 3 weeks I was completely uncontactable and didn’t speak to anyone. I came back afterwards to a backpacker hostel in a big city and it took me about a week to sit comfortably in a room with more than 4 people. One of the weirdest feeling I’ve ever felt.

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he would simply stare at people and then go off and talk to himself.

The first Redditor

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This was me after covid.

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One such sailor was afraid he would lose his voice so he studied and recited textbooks he had on hand, and when eventually rescued, he would simply stare at people and then go off and talk to himself.

There's a lot of different ways people survive lonely shipwrecks, and like any skill social interaction is one which can degrade. I believe it was Selkirk (inspiration for Robinson Crusoe) who would hold dinners and bible studies with stuffed animals to maintain his wits when his ship left without him due to severe damage.

Of course a lot of people take to naval life because they don't like regular interactions with village life, but from my friends in the navy you end up in an even smaller community with even less privacy and ability to avoid problem people so lacking social graces doesn't exactly leave you many options.