Absolutely. But it makes some sense: how many would believe you if you’d tell people that you brought your Rubik’s cube to some public place for fun? 
It’s like bringing an iPhone to a maths class for work. That’s not to say that I haven’t done such things, I have, but that people will suspect ulterior motives and, subsequently, judge. That doesn’t make them bad people either, In my opinion; just people-like.
No, I’m with you. It’s interesting, though. You don’t see that many people out and about solving Rubik’s cubes. I thought this was probably just because it’s no longer as popular a toy as it was back in the eighties. However, I now realize that it’s because everybody is solving them at home, in private, behind closed doors. Obvious, really.
Rambling, disconnected thoughts here…
I’m very much an introvert, but a married one. No kids though. Husband was away for 10 days last month, and I spent 90% of that time alone, and very happy. I work from home, but I do go to a bootcamp class 5 mornings a week, plus the usual errand-type outings. I found that that was all the interaction I needed - I love my husband but 10 days all by my lonesome was a heavenly vacation for me 
I find I most enjoy the company of people who know me well enough to be comfortable just being together (not sexually, just hanging together), not necessarily doing anything or always talking. Interacting with those people makes me happy and is energizing. Socializing or working with people on a more formal level can be fun, but I find it much more draining.
When I’m on my own I rarely feel lonely, but I do sometimes like to be with people. I kind of like being alone in a crowd, so I’ll go out to eat and bring a book or something, or I’ll go shopping or to an event of some sort. I can talk to people if the mood strikes, or I can just hang back and people-watch (one of my favorites!)
The people who wear me out the most are the kind who feel there must be verbal interaction always. Just hush for a moment… please?
Really? I doubt people do it much at home too; they spend rather more time on the internet and doing other things than solving puzzles. It wouldn’t seem vaguely impressive in public if everyone did it in private.
It doesn’t sound like ya’ll are masquerading (which connotes phoniness, in my mind) as much as straddling the arbitrary border of extroversion and introversion. It sounds like a hard position to be in…being a shy extrovert or outgoing introvert. I don’t see it as a contradiction, though, but rather something you’d expect to find if you conceptualize extroversion-introversion as falling on a spectrum of some type.
I’d wager most people fall in the middle, with slight leanings towards either side.
No.
Anyway, I just hope you’re not going to tell me that I have to stop watching porn on my laptop in public as well. I’ll be running out of stuff to do while waiting for buses.
I agree with this. People seem to think all introverts are shy and quiet and that all extroverts are all outgoing and talkative. And that introverts never want to be with people and that extroverts never want some peace and quiet. Nothing is ever that black and white. “Introvert” and “extrovert” are just labels.
I’m not particularly shy. In a familiar element, I’m quite skilled with small talk and other social requirements. Rarely self-conscious, almost to a fault. Great sense of humor; can make the whole room burst out into laughter. But I’m about a million miles away from “extrovert” as you can get.
People automatically pick me out as an extreme introvert, though, so there’s no fooling anyone. Because even though I am socially able, I regularly turn down invitations to parties, don’t do a whole lot of idle chit-chat, and I’m very private. The last two get me labeled as “quiet”. Perhaps that’s an accurate description, but I can be “loud” when I feel like it. It’s just that that feeling rarely comes over me.
I can’t conceive of wanting to be more social because that’s just not “me”. I think if a person can imagine themselves having a richer social life, then they aren’t nearly as introverted as they think they are.
On the contrary, I have immense respect for people who can enjoy themselves. Though you may want to be careful in ascribing so much value to achievements that are conveniently objective but entirely arbitrary; it could make you vulnerable to criticism. Don’t worry, in that respect you are exactly like most everybody else.
I’m an introvert, but most people are surprised to hear that. I’m not shy at all and not afraid to speak in front of groups, which is good, since I am a college English instructor. I have friends and socialize quite a bit, but it’s only been in the last year or two that I haven’t felt completely awkward when I’ve gone to a party or other gathering alone. I live alone, though, and like the OP wrote, it gets really lonely. I’m usually okay on a weeknight; I am often doing something on weeknights, but I enjoy a night in alone, too. It’s the weekends that kill me. Some of my weekends are full of social events, but when they’re not, the aloneness starts to get to me. Like someone else wrote, if I spend more than one full day alone, I start to get depressed, like no one in the world cares whether I live or die. Some days I get in the car and drive to the beach by myself (50 or so miles) and have lunch or something, but often I go shopping or some other time- and money-wasting activity, just to get out of the house. Many of my friends are so introverted that they enjoy spending the entire weekend alone in their homes (?) and are hard to convince to join me in an activity. It doesn’t help that I’m an INTP and not always adept at social nuances, but I’ve been doing research about that to try to improve.
Just curious: Why the question mark?
Thoughts like that sometimes make me depressed as well. Often, though, that changes to a feeling of tremendous freedom, and I then spend the next two days surfing the web in my underwear, safe in the knowledge that no one cares anyway.
I look at it like this: I am not shy and am quite outgoing and friendly. That does not make me an extrovert. It’s exhausting. I make sure my inner circle friends are aware of this when I’m trying to bail early on an evening. Sometimes all the interaction can be overwhelming and I just shut down anyway and become that creepy wallflower lurking in the dark corners (which is where I usually find my friends).
I get lonely, too, so for me the answer has been limiting my social interactions to smaller groups. Every once in a great while, I’ll go out clubbing or to a huge house party (my definition: more than 8-10 people = “huge”). I won’t stay long and I’ll be delighted to leave. I may even have to cut off my phone for a couple days while I recover from that.
But hanging in a small group of people, say 4-6 people, gives me enough socialization without driving me back to my fortress of solitude to recover. I’ve also been known to seek out a self-admitted introvert and drag that person off to a quiet corner to keep me company until I feel like I’m ready to go “back out there” into The Social again.
I (as I may have intimated in my other thread) am as enigmatic as ever when it comes to this issue. If you graphed my outgoingness over my lifetime, it would have started out rather high until grades 1 or 2, at which point incessant teasing and bullying by my peers drove me deep into a shell. I started to come back out of that by the middle of high school, and it took a job as a cashier to completely bring me back out again from my citadel.
But I am, and have almost always been pretty much a loner-have a meager handful of friends, and loathe socializing purely for the sake of socializing-a place like a club, with all the noise and artificiality will completely suck the energy out of me in a heartbeat. Idle chitchat bores me out of my mind. I’ve never felt that need to interact with others like many seem to do, and at a typical social occasion will you eventually find me trying to get outside and back to nature at some point.
Yet, when I work with my students it energizes me tremendously-many a time after a particularly fruitful session with someone (like the precocious 2nd grade girl I had today who wants to be a paleontologist) I’ll go home on cloud nine, and be high for the rest of the evening.
Go figure.
I’m pretty sure I’m an introvert who acts like an extrovert because of my job, probably very similarly to you.
The way I handle it:
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Cultivate a few, close friendships. Maybe you had a best friend in high school or college. Marriage pretty much guarantees you to have a best friend who can’t run away when they don’t like you anymore.
After you have a couple, work on making them stronger/better. -
Roleplaying: start a few video games and create an alter ego. Usually, my alter ego has all the qualities I want to have. Join a few game-related boards, build a reputation, and create a sense of belonging.
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Get a pet. Tell the pet your deepest, darkest secrets. What you will find out is that sharing doesn’t hurt as much as you think it does, and this will help you to build stronger relationships.
Oh, one more thing: an introvert doesn’t have to give up being an introvert to be happy. Extroverts, by and large, are just as unhappy as anyone else.
Okay, this is me. I mean, I love my boyfriend and all, but having the house to myself for a few hours while he’s away at school or work? HEAVEN.
My favorite living situation of all time, I think, was when I was a junior in college and living in a single dorm. I loved it. Obviously I interacted with friends and my (then) boyfriend sometimes, but mostly it was just me, all by myself. And I was perfectly okay with that.
I recently read Bill Bryson’s book At Home: A Short History of Private Life, and learning that privacy as we know it today is a fairly new concept was a bit jarring to me. Obviously I would be used to not having privacy if I lived in a time period where this was commonplace (indeed, I would know nothing else), but reading about it as a moderner made me squirm just a little bit.
I am both very shy and introverted. I was fine being by myself for years, literally. In the last year or two, I’ve felt incredibly lonely, but my extreme shyness has made it difficult to make and keep friends. Since I wanted to meet people so much, I began to wonder if maybe I had turned into a socially awkward extrovert. On further reflection, I realized I do prefer to be by myself the vast majority of the time, but it would be nice to have at least a friend or two. Great, now I am beginning to sound like mookieblaylock.
I am very shy and introverted, but I’ll put on a gracious face for people I don’t know. Activities like Scouting with my kids were great in getting me out of my shell; I miss them now that I work shift-work. At work I’m quiet, I do my job, I keep my head down,
and I head home at the end of the day. Around the house I can be more fun, but everyone there seems tired of it (and me), so I’ll write or I’ll come to the Internet to post or to game.
I truly enjoy the occasional trips to my brothers house or one of our friends houses because there I can open up and be myself and not hide behind the masks of politeness and efficiency.