It’s certainly true that introversion is not at all the same as having a deficit in social skills in general, or conversational skills in particular. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they’re totally unrelated.
For one thing, conversational skills, like any skills, get better the more you practice them, and the extravert is likely to have had more chance to practice (as I think it was Martian Bigfoot who pointed out).
But also, some people are better at “thinking out loud,” or they develop their ideas by talking them out, while other people have to think things through inside their heads before they can put them into words/speech. And the impression I have, from what I’ve read and from personal experience (correct me if I’m wrong), is that the former tends to correlate with extraversion, and the latter with introversion. And, as I noted earlier, having to think things through before speaking can put one at a conversational disadvantage, especially in a large or fast-talking group. Personally, I find it easier to contribute to “conversations” someplace like here on the SDMB than in real-time discussions, because I have the opportunity to think before responding.
By the way…
Hey, lurkers! Yeah, you, reading this thread but not responding! Why are you so quiet?!?
This is me too. I have good social skills and I like people but they drain me. I have 2 kids (the older one is very extroverted) and it surprised me how much they drain me. It is getting better as they get older but having to be constantly “on” is so wearing.
Exactly. I love teaching and acting, and both of them involve fixed, hierarchical social relations with a group of people. In natural social settings who gets the conch is constantly being negotiated, emotions and subtext are in play, and somehow consensuses emerge without needing to be discussed directly. I’ve learned how to deal with this, but it is not my favorite thing to do. I used to work for a fortune 50 financial services company, so I eventually had to settle into a corporate persona to get through the day. It worked fine, but I left because I knew I could not do it forever.
I much prefer either being the speaker or being the listener, not a nebulous place in between. Teaching is great because I love the kind of rapid fire repartee that works well in a classroom and somewhat badly with most semi-strangers.
And dear god, do I hate being interrupted when I am thinking about something. It is actually painful: it feels like an electric shock that goes from the back of my neck down to the tips of my fingers.
I can do either. I think it might be that I’m not afraid of being wrong or coming up with a goofy idea that others shoot down as goofy or unworkable. A lot of shyness (not introversion, necessarily) is over-emphasis on self presentation and a sort of self-absorption, that other people are always looking at you (this is a general you) and judging you rather than just not caring what you are doing, for the most part. If you get obsessed with how other people are relating to you, you back off further, trying to control the image rather than just letting people see the warts and all.
I like (some) people. I make a lot of small talk at work and it doesn’t bother me a bit unless there’s some reason for it to be uncomfortable (people I can’t understand [nobody fucking speaks English where I work or live], people flirting and I’m not interested, people talking about topics I find distasteful like killing deer as happened the other day, etc.). But it makes me fucking crazy how loud the background people are (retail) and when I get home I am USELESS until I’ve had some time to myself to recharge. I will not make plans for right after work.
No, “A” is not a “toxic person”. More, likely “A” the saddest creature I can imagine: A shy extravert, or even an extravert with severe social anxiety - someone who wants to interact with other people and desperately wish they could, because they need those other people to feel OK, but doing so makes them scared and overly self-conscious. At least if you’re a shy introvert, you don’t actually suffer so much from missing out on the company of others.
Spare a thought for the shy extraverts, people.
Also, “B” does not describe all real introverts. Many may not feel anxiety at all in the described scenario, just lack of energy.
Maybe. I think out loud, too. It’ just usually for the best that I do it when I am by myself. It’s not that I worry so much what other people think of me so much as the discomfort I impose on others who are not already quite comfortable with me. I can tell when people start to get uncomfortable, and I always regret it afterwards even if I am not entirely sure what I said that did it. So I like to think things through when I can because not everybody cares for my unedited offerings.
I do have several good friends (and a fiercely loyal and long-suffering wife) who would help me cover up a capital crime if I asked them to. But I don’t really have acquaintances or situational friends. Socializing with my good friends is always refreshing and great, but for everyone else, it is work.
It’s important also not to confuse introversion/extraversion with the other factors that make up the over-engineered, fatty mess that is a human personality. If we’re going with Myers-Briggs (and that doesn’t even figure in stuff like social anxiety or possible pathologies, or the fact that some people are just assholes), the other dichotomies are sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling and judging/perception.
For social situations, the thinking/feeling pair certainly also plays in. People who are high on the “feeling” end tend to (along with a lot of other stuff) be interested in consensus, and will care more about the needs of other people.
Personally, I score way high on the “thinking” end (which is certainly not to say that what I think always makes any sense). This has the effect that I will sometimes, for instance, disagree vocally with someone on some point, and it just won’t occur to me that they might get hurt on a personal level by this, or I won’t notice if they are. Hey, the conversation wasn’t about you, it was about (whatever point we were discussing), right? On the plus side, it also means that I’m fine with people disagreeing with me, and don’t take it personally. I may well keep arguing the point, but I’m not hurt. On the negative side again, though, I often fail to recognize that people are pussy-footing around something even though they disagree with me, out of fear that I may get hurt.
Anyway, where the heck was I going with this stuff… yeah, small talk. If you’re on the “thinking” end of the scale, you may find small talk boring, difficult, or both, as you’re more interested in the factual side of a conversation and the matter being discussed, while a person on the “feeling” end will be more interested in the social aspect and the well-being of the people participating, and the content of the conversation will be less important.
Again, one isn’t better than the other (although I dare propose that “thinkers” tend to be a bit smug about their position on the scale, just like introverts, myself included, can fall into the trap of feeling “superior” about their introversion), it’s just different ways a personality can work. However, high “feeling” combined with high extraversion will certainly make you more likely to win more friends and influence people. High “thinking” and high introversion will have the opposite effect.
Hopefully this is on-topic, but the issue reminded me of a complaint my wife had in Grad School. In her Cohort, there were 4 women that never talked during discussions. This really bothered my wife. She felt like everybody that contributed to discussions in class benefited the class as a whole, and these four women staying silent, in some way I don’t fully understand, held them back.
Its not like my wife is an extreme extrovert, but when its relevant to talk/discuss, its very important to her. I’d be interested to hear some feedback on this particular issue, since it seems like being an introvert in this situation would be a huge disadvantage (and potentially hold back other people in the group if you have potentially good ideas).
I’m surprised you don’t understand how that puts more pressure on those who do talk. A discussion requires both speaking and listening, not just listening. So people who are only listening are contributing less than those who do both. And depending on the type of class, those who are only listening might be able to synthesize the ideas of the rest of the class with their own good ideas while those who shared their ideas have not kept back ideas for themselves.
Contempt is too active a word. My reaction to most people is more passive; I just don’t care.
I’m sure I’m just as uninteresting to others- which is why it baffles me when people try to chat with me.
An interesting conversation is interesting. Chatter isn’t.
During class discussions, I often found that the answer was obvious and was sufficiently elaborated on by the first person to raise their hand. Then someone else might say something, and it would make perfect sense but I never would have thought to bring it up because it followed so naturally from the first. It would be like saying “cats have good ears” and then someone else saying, “ears allow cats to hear well” and then someone else saying “therefore, their sharp hearing allows them to find prey”.
In the end, I often had hardly anything to say because I felt it didn’t need any explaining. I found the discussions to be rather boring because they were not relevant to me.
There definitely was a grudge between those who did not want to discuss obvious talking points and those who thought that people who did not discuss were holding the class back. Each one thought the other was holding the class back, either by not discussing or by over-discussing.
It is a little more complex than this, at least for me. I’m a 5th year doctoral student and have had my share of classes over the years. I used to love going to class, and now I am thankful daily that my coursework is long behind me.
Martian Bigfoot’s remarks above are absolutely spot on. You might think that a class setting would be full of people who are passionate about the actual material, who are willing to put themselves and their ideas on the line to have spirited debate with their colleagues, and who treat grad seminars as a safe intellectual space to work through ideas without worrying too much about hurting anyone’s feelings. You’d be wrong. It’s actually quite the opposite. Sensitivities are heightened, people are terrified of looking stupid, and spirited discussion is frequently not appreciated by one’s fellow students. Because I struggle with having collaborative, mutually assuring dialogue in groups of people, it is much less risky to stay silent. It took a few years of practice being able participate in seminars without dominating them or otherwise alienating fellow students who were afraid of looking stupid. Grad school is an ego-eroding process, so the last thing people want to do is get put on the spot in front of professors who hold the keys to their future.
One professor I have had several times is one of the foremost worldwide authorities on Sanskrit. He is just an extraordinary person to be around, and I have had to good fortune to have been in several of his small classes. I was always the dumb kid in the class, to be honest. He probably gave me the best academic compliment I have ever received. He said, “Maeglin is always honestly looking for truth, he doesn’t care how often he is wrong or how it looks.” I don’t think he meant it to be entirely complimentary, but I sure took it that way.
To anyone asking anything that starts with, “Why are you so X?” - My response would be, “Who made you the arbiter of what the proper level of X is or should be?”
But, then maybe that’s why I don’t get invited back much…
I just don’t understand why everyone around me seems to never want to be alone. They go to bathroom together, they go to the gym in groups or they don’t go, they walk at lunch with their coworkers, they shop together.
I NEED that time to myself, to recharge. I don’t want to see my coworkers at lunch, too. I like to go to the gym myself.
It really feels like we’re alone sometimes! And that’s because we’re introverts, and I hate when people are always asking me “Why are you so quiet?” They even ask me after I have just finished talking! Only because I am not talking as much as them.
I work in an office full of extroverts. One of these days…
#1: Needing to take breaks to recharge after socializing
#2: Bitchy resting face
#3: People wanting to invite others on what I thought was a small group activity. I’m hesitant to say no sometimes
#4: I spend about every other week staying home because I’ve gone out with friends the previous weekend
#7: I do feel like I have to be “on” around visitors and guests, because my normal behavior would be interpreted as me ignoring them
#9: I get mentally tired if I don’t get any alone time
#11: I HATE the feeling of being trapped at an event when someone else drives me. I absolutely cannot stand it so much so that I volunteer to drive everywhere now
#13: At a social gathering, I’m usually in the back being quiet
#17: This is why I have to stay in every other weekend
#18: Why do I need to be more social? I think I’m social enough as it is
#22: I always try to bring reading material or a video game to anywhere I go, just in case
#23: I prefer to dine by myself, watch movies, try out new food places, go to museums, go to conventions, and randomly explore by myself. I’ll go with friends too, but I want at least one session to myself so I can do what I want to do
#25: I prefer small groups to large groups, even if I know everyone in the large group
#26: Yup, recharge time is necessary
#27: People tire me out
Mostly, unless we’re talking about a specific subject, I can’t think of anything to say
I’m almost entirely a lurker at all the forums I frequent. Very rarely do I feel the need to throw in my 2 cents on a given subject: either several different viewpoints are already in the mix by the time I arrive, one of which I may lean towards (thus, negating the need for me to speak up–someone else with a viewpoint close enough to be mine already has), or the whole thread is a vast beastie dozens of pages and hundreds of posts long, which for me is the equivalent of all the people in Grand Central Station trying to have the same conversation at once, and thus, IMO, near-impossible to “break into,” and certainly not something I’d be motivated to join even if it was my favorite subject in the whole wide world.
Shy, obnoxious, introvert, extrovert–I think I am all of these at once, to varying degrees and fluidly, from moment to moment, and from situation to situation. It’s my general belief that this is the reason labels are an entirely useless convention. If you’re going to put people into pigeonholes, you’re going to need more than 7 billion pigeonholes, and more on order.
As for me in general, at the age of 53, I now only leave my house for work, errands, shopping, or the occasional outing that’s only for me and my family unit (wife and son), such as eating out or seeing a movie. I have no one outside my family unit that I’d call a friend, and almost no desire to make friends, or even put myself into situations where I might accidentally make friends. I am estranged from all units of my “extended family” (cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, brother, and all in-laws attached thereto), save for one brother.
I made the choices that put me here, and they were more passive than active (“I just don’t feel like talking with Cousin A”–thus, phone calls and visits stretch out, becoming less and less frequent until they don’t happen at all, as opposed to “I dislike Cousin A and everything she stands for, so I’m never going to have anything to do with her again!”), but here I am nonetheless. I could wave my flag of mental illness as an “excuse,” but really, I chose this hermitage over the alternative. Am I happy that I have no friends? Sometimes the answer is “No, not really,” but mostly it’s a mental shrug of my shoulders and getting on with whatever I was doing.
There are, I’m sure, many, many people who share this particular personality trait with me (although we’re all still in our own individual pigeonholes, mind you). Normal social behavior? Ain’t no such thing, based on my belief that there ain’t no such thing as “normal,” anywhere, ever, and never has been. You wanna talk about the road not taken? I’m not on a road, and haven’t been for a long time. Does that make me a special snowflake, superior to all I see? Not even a little bit. It’s just that I’m in my world, and I only interact with “the world” when I have to or I’ve a notion to (such as this post). One of the reasons I’ve gone the way I have has been touched upon by many here already: in social situations, something is expected of me, the social contract of give-and-take. I participated to varying degrees of success, long ago, but also long ago lost any desire to keep playing that game. “Friend” has become almost synonymous with “obligation” to me, and I’m just not motivated anymore.
Sorry, I’m sure I deviated from the OP, but there’s my rambling take on “being social” and my relationship with it.
