I is for Introvert
The short way of explaining what it means to be an introvert is to say that we hate people.
To a certain extent this is true. I hate large crowds of people. I don’t like physically bumping into people I do not know on a crowded street or public transportation. I despise small talk, especially when I feel pressured to carry on conversations with strangers. I hate it when people are loud or aggressive in public spaces. In general I prefer to stay away from public spaces and people, period.
It might also be said that introverts fear people. Again, this has a shade of truth to it. It is not so much the people I fear as the interactions I am expected to have with them. Life as an introvert means that preparing for a social event is not about looking forward to a party, but rather preparing oneself by figuring out how long one has to stay, what kind of conversations one might have, and how to celebrate when one gets home and can finally relax. People are exhausting to be around and I just don’t have the energy for that kind of work. It’s not really fear, just a desire to avoid the exhaustion.
To say that introverts hate or fear all people is an oversimplification. In reality I think most of us actually love people deeply, but are very selective when choosing the people that we love. Speaking for myself, when I find someone that doesn’t completely wear me out with their presence, I am delighted to add them to the list of “People Who Do Not Count As People”. This means that when I’m with them I do not get that exhausted feeling that comes when I’m stuck with the general public. They understand me and I understand them. They aren’t confused when I say I don’t want to go out to a club on a Saturday night; in fact, they’d know better than to even ask me that question. These are very special people. I love them deeply.
Over the years living as an introvert I have found that the “People Who Do Not Count As People” list can be reliably divided into three categories: Family, Fellow Introverts, and Emotional Support Extroverts.
Family
I love to read on vacation. I love to read in general, but to me a vacation is not complete unless I’ve made progress through a good book or three. This July I was part of a family trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina: nine adults, five children, and two dogs all in one house at the northern end of the island. You would think with that many people around it would be hard to find time to read, and it was. Unless I am deeply engrossed in a fascinating and spellbinding book, I cannot read around people; I get too distracted.
Most of the time I was fine with being around the family and not being able to focus on my book. We played card games, cooked meals, talked to each other, even sang songs with my sisters accompanying on the ukulele. All of these things individually were fine, but on one afternoon they all culminated into a perfect storm of overwhelming human existence. My niece wanted to play war, my sister was cooking in the kitchen with music playing, the little kids were running around, and then the ukulele came out. In that moment the tiny guitar was a bridge to far for my overloaded mind. I made my exit and hid in my room with my book for a good portion of the afternoon. Soon enough my mom texted me to say that dinner was in about five minutes. Refreshed by the hours spent alone reading, I readily went back upstairs and spent the rest of the evening with the family.
No one asked me what was wrong. No one tried to convince me to spend my time otherwise. Whether they thought I was being mean or anti-social I cannot say, but I hope and believe that they simply understood that I needed the time to myself. While being around 13 other people for seven days was certainly a challenge, the fact that I could walk away into blessed silence for hours at a time with no questions asked was a saving grace. This is what makes the family not count as people - because they get it when I need to step away.
It goes without saying that not all families are like this. I am grateful for mine.
Fellow Introverts
It is fairly easy to recognize another introvert when you are one. It does not follow, though, that you instantly have camaraderie with that person. My workplace is littered with extroverts; it is sometimes terrible to be so surrounded. On days when I’m low on energy it is almost intimidating to step out into the hallway, knowing it is quite likely that I will encounter someone who wants to have a deep, personal chat for seven to fifteen minutes. I don’t live at that speed, so I much prefer when I cross paths with one of the staff introverts in the hallway. We exchange pleasantries and move on. Without saying a word, both parties understand that there will be no further conversation. While there is no animosity between us, there also is no capacity to chitchat. What a joy it is to be thusly comprehended and able to retreat back to my office having expended no unnecessary energy. Two introverts, when they meet in the wild, do not automatically become best friends. I’d argue they are actually less likely to form a bond than another pairing might be, but there is a mutual understanding to be found which is a pleasure.
My favorite fellow introverts are the ones to whom I am related. The easiest example is to explain how we celebrate Thanksgiving. Several years ago Thanksgiving and my dad’s birthday fell on the same day. After thinking about it, he decided that the way he really wanted to spend the day was not cooking an elaborate meal for just he and I to enjoy. Instead it was decided that we would rent rooms at an inn in Ocean Grove, New Jersey and go out for dinner. In this way we could enjoy the quiet of a shore town in November, get away from real life for a couple days, and no one would have to touch a dead bird. (To cook it…I suppose if we found a dead bird and wanted to touch it we would have felt free to do so.) Long story short, it was GLORIOUS and a new tradition was born. Each year Daddy and I would make our way to the shore and spend two to three days in each other’s company, but not really talking. We’d each read what we wanted to, eat breakfast at the inn when we wanted to, retreat to our rooms when we wanted to, not giving the slightest explanation to the other but both knowing that we were each doing our own introverted thing. We bragged about it so much that soon my sister Meredith joined us and we all three enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving alone, but also together.
Emotional Support Extroverts
My beloved coworker/work wife Krystina lives close to Ocean Grove. One year at Thanksgiving she invited me and my family to stop over at her house for dessert with her family. Only if we wanted to, no pressure, she just wanted to invite us because she knew we would be close by. Grateful for the invitation though I was, my immediate internal reaction was, “why on earth would we do that?” Why willingly walk into a house where we would have to talk to lots of people we didn’t know, when we could so easily just have dessert at the restaurant where the only person we have to talk to is the server? I explained to her as kindly as I could that we would probably just go back to the inn and relax after dinner. She laughed and shook her head and said something along the lines of, “should have known that’s what you introverts would want to do.” I did reassure her that if we were to interrupt our introvert weekend for anyone, she would be a top candidate.
Krystina is what I refer to as my emotional support extrovert. I did not come up with this term, but learned it when our boss sent us both the video linked above. When I watched the video I immediately was like, “YES THIS IS US.” Because with Krystina by my side as support, I magically have a little bit more social energy. If I were to go to a café by myself, I would be perfectly polite to the staff, smile and say please and thank you, but it wouldn’t go beyond that. But when I go to a café with Krystina, chances are that she will start a conversation with someone in the store, either staff or customer. And because she is with me and started the whole thing, I find myself able to join in. Chitchat still doesn’t come easily to me, but knowing I have Krystina to lean on if silence falls gives me more confidence to speak up.
After learning that emotional support extroverts exist I realized that all of my closest friends as far back as I can remember have been extroverts. The friends I lean on to this day are far more extroverted than I. The reason that I am drawn to extroverts is, I think, because at the end of the day I do not fear or hate people as a whole. I actually want to be able to interact with people better, but I don’t know how to do it. I need help, and so enter Monica, Gabrielle, Krystina, and all the other ESEs that I’ve glommed on to over the years. In their presence I feel more comfortable and safe and therefore am more confidently able to interact with other humans. Long live the emotional support extrovert! Oh how I would be lost without you.
My brother-in-law once told my sister that she, my dad, and I seem to wear our introversion like a badge of honor. He’s not wrong, we do. When we talk on Facetime we’ll say things like, “I didn’t talk to another human being until almost 4 pm today!” Such an announcement receives praise and congratulations, sometimes envy. We were really proud of how on Spring Break at Daddy’s house we spent the first couple of days sitting in the living room doing our own personal projects (sewing, crocheting, crossword puzzles) while Downton Abbey played in the background. This, to us, was exceedingly relaxing and not the least bit boring; we had a rollicking good time.
But it takes a long time to figure out how to live in the world as an introvert. When work and life demands that you get out and be amongst the humans every day it is exhausting. Sometimes schedules do not allow enough time to be alone in the quiet to recharge, so you enter each successive day with a little less social energy than you had the day before. And then it is not too long before you are grouchy and a real bear for anyone to talk to. As introverts we have had to navigate ways around this inevitable kicking of our social keg.
I am proud of my introversion because I’ve figured out what I need to do to recover. I know that after a long week of people, I need to sit at home alone for at least a few hours, talking to no one but the cat (and sometimes not even him). In order to get back into the world, I need to shut it out for awhile. Once I do so, I can venture back out, ideally with at least one emotional support extrovert close at hand.
I is for Introvert, and I is very much me.
