“Introverts living under the Extroversion Ideal
are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the
core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality
style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel
we must conform”
- Susan
Cain
I recently had a
discussion with my father after reading this Buzzfeed
article that lists some
popular myths about introverts. My Dad, but don’t tell him this, is quite a
smart and knowledgeable person and introversion and extroversion are topics
that he knows a fair bit about. He said that the first problem with the labels
introvert and extrovert are that they are absolutes. Realistically, no one is entirely
one but not the other as we all have a bit of both in our personalities,
however, what we do have is what he defined as a preference for either introversion or extroversion. He said that
your preference depends on where you get your energy from, so a person with a
preference for extroversion gets their energy from being around other people
and a person with a preference for introversion gets their energy from being alone,
but not in a depressing way.
This description
really helped me understand some of my own personality traits and reassured me
that there isn’t anything wrong with me (which was my previous mentality), I
just have a preference for introversion.
But the main problem
with the labels introvert and extrovert are the connotations that come with
them. So coming from the perspective of someone who has a preference for
introversion, let me take you through a few of these and tell you what it’s
really like.
1. We don’t
have friends/are loners
I
actually have a lot of really great friends and I value them highly, but at the
same time I do like to be alone. This does not make me a loner, but rather a
person with a preference for introversion, and we should not be called weird or
perceived as socially inept because of this. I am someone who has truly
wonderful friends and loves to be around them, but I also need and value my
time by myself reading, watching movies, playing/listening to music, making
videos, writing or just relaxing.
2. We don’t
like to go out
I
love going out! I really do, movies, concerts, dinners, but I just don’t like
to be out for as long as some of my friends who have preferences for
extroversion would like to be. The Buzzfeed article put it well by saying that
we need to ‘recharge’, as in I am happy to go out with friends, but there is a
certain point when I need to go home and be by myself in a comfortable
environment and recharge my batteries for the next time I go out.
3. We’re
shy/rude
I
have never really been a very confident person when it comes to social
interaction. Give me a stage to perform on or a speech to present and I’m fine,
but unplanned, spontaneous interaction has never been my forte. I have also
always been okay with silence, as in the times when some people feel the need
to say “awk-ward…” are, for me, just times when I have nothing to say. This
often leads to internal anxiety for me as I think that the other person must
think I am rude because I am not engaging in social pleasantries like small talk,
which, personally I find more awkward than silence. But the reality is, people
with preferences for introversion may appear to be shy but all we really need
is a purpose for social interaction so if we are not saying much or standing on
the outskirts it’s not because we’re rude, I swear!
Also
if you want to talk to a person who has a preference for introversion the best
thing you can do is just go up to them and TALK TO THEM. Cut the crap and don’t
beat around the bush and there will be nothing awkward about it.
People
like me who have preferences for introversion are going against social norms
because these social norms were created by people who have preferences for
extroversion. Personally I am sick and tired of trying to conform and I find it
exhausting constantly trying to fit in, so from this point onwards I am going
to embrace my introversion and not feel shame or embarrassment in going to
breakfast with a book by myself or choosing to stay in and watch movies instead
of go out, but most importantly I am not going to think there is anything wrong with me anymore because “I'm not different for the sake of being
different, only for the desperate sake of being myself."
-Vivian
Stanshall
