The Blues

and other confessions of a wannabe introvert:

The other day, I was lucky enough to stumble across one of the best things I’ve ever read on the Internet.  This includes spoilers for all favourite television shows, posts of addictive fanfiction and news from friends via email.

Just joking about that last one.

If I had read ‘Caring for Your Introvert’ by Jonathan Raunch 20 years ago, I would have been a different person.  Instead of gradually learning these facts about Introversion in its most practical application, I would have had a heads up, an insight into exactly how the more introverted person ticks.

Please don’t judge me for not listening closely enough in first and second year Psych at Uni.  I was too interested in stretching techniques for the Sartorius muscle, the most efficient contraction of the Bicep during partying and the physiological responses of the Adrenal gland during pashing.

According to Raunch:

(Science) has even learned, by means of brain scans, that introverts process information differently from other people … If you are behind the curve on this important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

Thank goodness I’m not the only ignorant one, and I say this with great sincerity.  Myers-Briggs is as commonly spouted about and used down here as Vegemite, but reading the thoughts of an introvert as they are applied to how they are perceived and how they think?  

It’s invaluable.  For everyone.

Friends, partners, business associates.  Teachers, parents, family members, lovers, EVERYONE.

There are several prongs of this article that really poked me in the Gluteus Max.  This:

after an hour or two of being socially “on,” we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn’t antisocial. It isn’t a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: “I’m okay, you’re okay—in small doses.”

not only made me smile at the last statement, but explained so much about the people in our lives that really need the alone time I don’t really understand that well.  I should probably clarify here, I do need and enjoy alone time especially to write, but here’s a fundamental difference.  While my favourite introverts love alone time to BE by themselves, to nestle in their own thoughts without me chatting to them or questioning them, I sprinkle my alone time with emails, text, gchat, phone calls, Livejournal, interaction of some kind!

And then I have to tell people about my alone time, in case they missed something.

Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.

Dearie, dearie me.  If we were in a confessional at the moment, I’d have to say a dozen Hail Marys for that extroverted side of me who has sometimes … okay, read often … wondered why a person would prefer to be alone than with someone else.  i.e.: ME.

I didn’t realize and I’ll add an Our Father and Glory Be to my penance.

On the other hand, I’ve improved my listening skills over the last couple of decades.  To the point where I’d say that I’m not an extreme extrovert at all, just as there are degrees of introversion or a spectrum, of sorts. Hope so, anyway.

Then:

 Introverts are described with words like “guarded,” “loner,” “reserved,” “taciturn,” “self-contained,” “private”—narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially … more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty.

The introverts I love are sometimes describe in these terms, not so by the people who know them well, but by the acquaintance or casual observer.  But they are not.  They are, actually, HOT.  And this is how I want them to be known, from now on in.  Okay, so we might always find the introvert ‘in the kitchen, at parties’ (thanks Jona Lewie) or chatting one-on-one by the (Marry Me) Tiramisu, but that’s OKAY.

Jonathan Raunch, self-proclaimed introvert, says it’s so.  Why we didn’t know this before?  Perhaps we haven’t STFU for long enough to understand or appreciate the facts and how important it is for us to know this sort of stuff locked away in the greatest of minds.

Finally:

“I’m an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush.”

Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don’t say “What’s the matter?” or “Are you all right?”

As a person who tends towards extraversion, I cannot begin to express how much this article means to me. Although as soon as I read it, I emailed it to one of my best introverts in this world and asked them if I could possibly be an introvert ‘coz I love writing time’.  She said, without rancour,  ’No’.  When I replied in the next email, ‘what’s wrong, why are you not talking?  Are you mad with me?’  She probably thought ‘SEE?’

Of course, we don’t care for our people just because of their personality traits.  It’s an ongoing understanding, a combination of chemistry, history, environmental and genetic factors.  Kismet.  But armed with this knowledge, I’m better able to understand a daughter, a partner, a sibling, a few great friends, a colleague.

Thank you, Jonathan, for coming out of the closet, for letting us hang in the sexy confines of introversion if only for a while.  I cannot count the number of times I have ‘fought’ with a beloved introvert because I have misinterpreted his quietude for something being ‘wrong’.

‘What’s wrong?’   I’ve asked, wondering what has made everything so SILENT:

“I’m an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush.”

Ah, and now I get it.