: 174 The related schizotypal personality disorder and schizophrenia are reported to have ties to creative thinking, and it is speculated that the internal fantasy aspect of SzPD may also be reflective of this thinking. Alternatively, there has been an especially large contribution of people with schizoid symptoms to science and theoretical areas of knowledge, including maths, physics, economics, etc. At the same time, people with SzPD are helpless at many practical activities because of their symptoms. Secret schizoids
Many schizoid individuals display an engaging, interactive personality, contradicting the observable characteristic emphasized by the DSM-5 and ICD-10 definitions of the schizoid personality. Guntrip (using ideas of Klein, Fairbairn and Winnicott) classifies these individuals as "secret schizoids", who behave with socially available, interested, engaged and involved interaction yet remain emotionally withdrawn and sequestered within the safety of the internal world. : 17  Klein distinguishes between a "classic" SzPD and a "secret" SzPD, which occur "just as often" as each other. Klein cautions one should not misidentify the schizoid person as a result of the patients defensive, compensatory interaction with the external world. He suggests one ask the person what their subjective experience is, to detect the presence of the schizoid refusal of emotional intimacy and preference for objective fact.Frequently, a schizoid individuals social functioning improves, sometimes dramatically, when the individual knows they are an anonymous participant in a real-time conversation or correspondence, e.g. in an online chatroom or message board. It is often the case the individuals online correspondent will report nothing amiss in the individuals engagement and affect.
Fantasy thus becomes a core component of the self in exile, though fantasizing in schizoid individuals is far more complicated than a means of facilitating withdrawal. : 64 Fantasy is also a relationship with the world and with others by proxy. It is a substitute relationship, but a relationship nonetheless, characterized by idealized, defensive and compensatory mechanisms. This is self-contained and free from the dangers and anxieties associated with emotional connection to real persons and situations. Klein explains it as "an expression of the self struggling to connect to objects, albeit internal objects. Fantasy permits schizoid patients to feel connected, and yet still free from the imprisonment in relationships. In short, in fantasy one can be attached (to internal objects) and still be free." This aspect of schizoid pathology has been generously elaborated in works by R. D. Laing, Donald Winnicott and Ralph Klein. : 64

Sexuality
People with SzPD are sometimes sexually apathetic, though they do not typically experience anorgasmia. Their preference to remain alone and detached may cause their need for sex to appear to be less than that of those who do not have SzPD. Sex often causes individuals with SzPD to feel that their personal space is being violated, and they commonly feel that masturbation or sexual abstinence is preferable to the emotional closeness they must tolerate when having sex.