“Introvert” and “Shy” are those types of words which carry more than their dictionary definitions. Unless you actually are one or the other, you’re not likely to make the distinction, and I’m okay with that. Surely the bigger issue is the notion that you must follow numerous rules for dealing with said Introvert. If someone introduced you to Joe and said, “Here are the 12 rules you must follow to deal with him”, you’d be wise to respond, “Nice to meet you Joe, I’m going to go over here and hang out with Steve now”.
…Spoken as a shy introvert who seeks out extroverted friends just because it’s easier.
I’m an ambivert I guess-while I usually prefer to hang out by myself, I can get a lot of energy from the right kinds of personal interactions or people (such as some of my students where we have a definite rapport and he or she is learning a lot). The wrong kind tho will instantly suck it all out of me (such as at a disco for example).
This is the usual piece that comes up when people talk about handling introverts. There are several pop psychology books on the subject, for example, Introvert Power. Perhaps the most recent and well-known popular authors is indeed Susan Cain. The above list does look like a distillation of pop discussions of introversion from a number of sources.
Ye gods, yes. I love written communication, because it lets me think about what I want to say and take the time to make sure that my words convey exactly what I mean. But put me in a situation where I have to communicate verbally and I’m expected to respond immediately, I either end up just saying what I think the other person expects to hear, or I end up with embarrassing “Wait, did I say that out loud?” moments.
I’m completely baffled by some peoples’ need to “chat”. I’m the type of person who mentally plans “what I’m doing today”, and nothing drives me more insane than answering my phone and it’s my mom, or even my (one!) best friend just calling to “chat”. One of my favorite “proverbs” is, “Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it.” (James Russell Lowell) I’m one of those who just doesn’t have a lot to say. My life isn’t “exciting”, and I have a fairly unchanging routine of work and leisure, so my mom constantly wanting to hear “what’s going on in your life” just … pains me. One the work side there’s not much to talk about, because the only thing I can talk about at any length is the generic complaints I have about my job, and I’m smart enough to know that most people don’t want to listen to that. And on the leisure side, well, I spend much of my free time playing MMOs. And I’m smart enough to know my mom isn’t going to be interested in hearing about my superhero adventures in Paragon City. But they want to “chat”, so I “chat”, and by the time we’re done, all I can think is that now I’m an hour “behind schedule” in my plans for the day.
Then there’s the scenario I’ve observed over and over in my career in restaurants: That group of friends, often retirees, who go to the same restaurant every single day, sit at the same table, and “chat” for 3-4 hours over coffee. What the hell do they find to talk about? Do they just sit there swapping lies? Are they just recycling the same old stories over and over and over? Because I just don’t see enough “new stuff” occurring in the 20 hours since they last saw each other to fill another 3-4 hours of conversation.
Frankly, that list is kind of insulting. I’m a fairly strong introvert, I need a fair bit of alone and introspective time, but I enjoy social interactions. The thing is, yes, I think this list is conflating some social anxienty with introvert because it seems like people tend to think that extrovert means normal social person and introvert means shy recluse. So here’s my thoughts:
This should apply to everyone. Even the most extroverted people will need at least some privacy
Depends. If someone embarasses me as part of a harmless joke, it’s all good. If someone is trying to make me feel bad, well, that would affect extroverts too.
This isn’t an introvert or extrovert trait. Some people need to observe and acclimate, some don’t.
This isn’t an introvert trait either. Some people are quick on their feet thinking, some aren’t. I do think that demanding answers now is rude for everyone though.
Not sure what this has to do with introversion either. Interrupting is just rude.
Introverts can handle change just fine too. I’m not even really sure what sort of things one can give advanced notice of. I’m not even really sure what it means
Seems like they think introverts have ADD or something. Some introverts need this, some don’t; same with extroverts.
I’d think most people would like to be reprimanded in private. This is basically 2 all over again.
What does this mean? If things are done respectfully, I don’t have a problem with learning things publically. If you’re going to be demeaning about it, I’d rather not have it at all.
I don’t have one best friend, but I do have a very small number of people I consider good friends, as in 2 or 3, but they each are friends in different ways covering different interests and needs. I do, of course, have more friends and acquaintances beyond that, but they’re far from “best friends”. Most extroverts I know couldn’t put a number on how many friends they have. IME, introverts tend to have fewer deeper relationships and extroverts tend to have more shallower ones; depth vs. breadth, neither is better than the other though.
You shouldn’t push someone of any type to do or not do something socially. Its good to be exposed to new people and I like meeting them, but I also have limitations on how much I can handle. People just need to respect when I’ve reached my social limitations and need to recharge and let me do it.
This, at least for me, is really the only thing that I think specifically applies to introverts. It seems like, because a lot of people see extroversion as normal and introversion as shy, socially awkward, recluses, that they think that people that are introverted have something wrong with them and that they’re fixing them by trying to remake them as extroverts. Or, in my case, people saw that I liked being around people and assumed I was extroverted based just on that, and then would force me into social situations and not really give me an avenue for escape or couldn’t understand my need to recharge with alone time. That actually led to some social anxiety for me until I realized that and was able to moderate my social interactions better.
You’ll never believe what I saw on the way over here! A hawk swooped down out of the sky and grabbed a frog!"
“How do you know it was a frog? Maybe it was a toad.”
“What’s the difference?”
And so begins an in-depth conversation about the the differences between frogs and toads with a side discussion on the dietary habits of hawks and maybe in transitions into a literary discussion of Aristophanes’ The Frogs or a musical discussion of Froggy’s Gone A’Courting or it goes nowhere in particular but some comment leads to a suitable jumping off point for another discussion.
I find it unbelievable that you find it unbelievable that people can chat. Don’t you think? Don’t you have lots of thoughts bubbling around in your brain all the time? I can think on my own and it’s great or I can think with other people and that’s great too.
I know this will sound arrogant but starting a general discussion about the difference between frogs and toads for example with a typical group of people will feel exactly like teaching a public school class randomly mixed between kindergartners and high schoolers except the kindergarten level ones may be able to convince everyone that only they know the real differences if they are popular enough. I don’t teach school at all for a reason. There are very few people outside of boards like this that are smart enough to make it worth having those types of winding discussions with. I have met exactly three in my entire life and that was at different times.
I am far from the smartest person in the world but most people, even smart ones who are experts in certain subjects don’t have the breadth of knowledge or interests to encourage general chatter from them. My own family drives me insane about the stupid and ignorant shit they talk about during the holidays and half of them have doctorates. I just go to a different room and read something quietly which is the typical introvert reaction and response.
I’m not doubting that they’re able, I’m merely baffled as to how they can do it 365 days a year for years on end with exactly the same group of people, without eventually starting to repeat themselves and boring the living shit out of each other. I’m not making a value judgement. The bafflement is entirely on me, because I simply could. not. do. that. Sure, I have all sorts of thoughts and ideas going through my head, but my introverted self suspects that nobody wants to hear me chattering about them any more than I want to sit and listen to them chattering about what’s in their heads.
Admittedly, this is probably the result of having a very extroverted dad and having to listen to him tell the same stupid stories of his glory days over and over and over in every social gathering. He’s in the same age range as these restaurant patrons I’m talking about, and since he still goes on and on with the same damn stories I first heard 40 years ago (albeit “new and improved, with more embellishment and less-well-concealed racism” versions), I’ll admit to some transference and suspicion that these other guys are going on the same way.
Forgive my bluntness but I find that extremely sad. As for me, I honestly can’t remember a time when family gatherings weren’t an intellectual pick-your-brains and symposium. Of course, I enjoy talking with people who are wrong as much as I enjoy talking to people who are right. So often there’s only one way to be right and so many delicious and exciting ways to be wrong.
Let me put it this way. I think it applies to lots of introverts. I love people of all types including the dumbest, most ignorant, and most screwed up among us. I will happily talk to an active drug addict all day long one-on-one just to learn something from them.
The thing I don’t understand well and I am just not very interested in is emergent group behavior when you get several or more people together unless it is for a special purpose like a convention or something. I don’t understand social dynamics of groups that well intuitively and it isn’t something that I care to learn more about. Given the choice, between being in a group and doing what I want, I am picking me every time.
I have occasional thoughts. My doctoral research includes ancient languages, applied mathematics, and a bunch of stuff in between. I have reasonable competence in a few areas, even if I am nothing special in any one of my fields. I am very committed to ideas, am not a pinhead overspecialist, and I am non-shy. My thoughts are sufficiently useful that I have a piece forthcoming in a volume next year (and no it is not a conference proceeding).
This conversation is my idea of hell. I am sure you find it refreshing, rejuvenating, and absolutely scintillating. I get that and I hope you find conversation partners who share your enthusiasm.
But please understand that when you ask me whether I am sure I saw a frog as opposed to a toad, I am already fantasizing about shooting myself in the face. I will desperately look for any way to end the conversation and extricate myself with a minimum of hurt feelings. It’s not that I can’t talk to you about this; I probably can recall a few lines of Aristophanes’ Frogs off the top of my head in Greek should it be relevant. I am sure you are witty and charming. But I would find the discussion enervating in the extreme. I would endure it only if there were some instrumental value. It is not my idea of fun.
Ick. The whole idea that introverts require special “care” and that you are responsible for the ones that are “yours” can only perpetuate the idea that introverts are suffering from some sort of disorder that needs to be managed since it can’t be cured.
I am an introvert and I can care for myself. I can say no to invitations that sound too exhausting to me. I can say “hmm, I’m not sure I’m prepared to answer that, let me get back to you.” I can spend the hours and hours of time alone that I love. I can even make pleasant conversation with strangers, though I may feel drained after.
I don’t need special allowances to be made for me by others. I’m an adult and I make the choices that make sense for me and do not need others to make sure I don’t get cranky and overtired.
That list sounds like it was written about children. How the heck is anybody supposed to “enable” another person to make one special best friend?
Thank you! I thought I was the only bothered by this.
I’ve read articles written by introverts that have the same feel to them, and I also find them to be off the mark a bit. The only thing that makes introverts similar is that they tend to live more in their heads than extroverts. That’s all. They are not any more sensitive, considerate, self-confident, anxious, or intelligent than anyone else. And they aren’t more fragile and delicate, requiring “special care instructions.” That’s just crazy.
It’s tongue-in-cheek. If anything, the idea of “care and feeding” is slightly supercilious. It suggests that we require our needs to be seen to by a subservient majority population of extroverts.
I’m an introvert (ambivert could be more accurate, but on the introvert end of that scale) and that list is pretty descriptive. It’s a bit patronizing / whiny, but I’d say every item on that list is pretty much a rule I’d like the world to live by. I am, however, comfortable with the fact that the world doesn’t revolve around me, and I feel no need to demand the world pretend it does.
4, 7, and 9 are the ones that seem oddly true for me. When asked a substantive question, I will always answer slowly and deliberately to make sure I’m giving the answer I really want to give. I hate switching tasks abruptly without warning because I hate leaving things unfinished or in a difficult-to-resume state. And I genuinely don’t like being shown how to do things in front of others. I can’t even say why, it’s just a general dislike.
I don’t believe I have social anxiety disorder. I say this because the friends I’ve had who have been diagnosed as such seem, well, more anxious. Busy social situations don’t make me “anxious,” they tend to make me bored (because I don’t feel engaged) and frustrated (because I have trouble communicating).
How scientific is the idea that people are divided into introverts and extroverts, or even, less binarily, come with objective particular locations on some kind of introvert-to-extrovert continuum? Whenever I hear discussion about introversion vs. extroversion, I can only see that I have traits associated with both introversion and extroversion, behaving more closely to one or the other narrative according as to my mood and the context (and, again, depending on my mood, I can choose to focus on my introversion or my extroversion in my self-reporting), but it’s not clear to me that I somehow fundamentally am one or the other. Nor does it seem to me that I am an anomaly among humanity for this variation within myself, as I don’t generally notice an introverted/extroverted dichotomy in everyone else around me either, any more than I might notice a general division of people into “confident” and “anxious”, or seek to plot people objectively on an athletic-to-nerdy scale, or any other such things.
This whole discussion seems to be attributing some objective status to introversion vs. extroversion above that applied to other vague personality descriptors, and I’d like to know if there’s good reason to do so. [E.g., is it as unscientific as the business of dividing people into left-brained and right-brained? Is it as scientific as determining genders?]
See mention up above about “ambiverts,” who comprise the majority of people. Intro/extro people are the extremes. It isn’t pseudoscientific. Probably more scientific than determining genders since we don’t have a good way to do that, especially if you also refer to sex!
The distinction is scientific in that it is a result that turns up consistently on any comprehensive personality test that is designed by statistics. Extroversion versus Introversion is not a binary switch however. It shows up with as a bimodal curve with peaks on both sides and a few people falling everywhere in between. Extroversion is more pronounced however with about 70% of people falling on that part of the curve. Most people get their official extroversion versus introversion score from the Meyers Briggs test which is old and controversial but all personality tests show the same thing and it matches most people’s experiences of themselves and their perception by others. It isn’t a horoscope reading in other words.
The science of psychological tests is a lot more scientific than portrayed in movies. The design and results are based on raw math and statistics based on large numbers of people. The problem lies in interpreting what the numbers mean for an individual but the same results show up reliably when they are graphed.