Living as an introvert

It’s rather common nowadays to hear people talk about their social behaviors, I personally noticed a trend about the use of the words introverts and extroverts and people self identifying themselves as one or the other.

It should be noted however that at least half of us (if not the majority) actually fall into the category of “Ambiverts”, the middle ground between introverts and extroverts, with a leaning towards one of the mentioned extremes, but only a few of us actually fall into one of the extreme categories.

So, how could I be so presumptuous that I feel I know enough about psychology to self identify myself? Well after reading a bit further I would be surprised if any of you thought I am not an introvert, if I misunderstood the topic and you would have the patience to enlighten me I would gladly read your comments.

Being alone and being with one person whom I feel very close to is very similar, and almost the same thing to me, but being with more than one person (yes even two) is very tiring for me, the more people, or the less I feel close to each of them, the less time I can spend with them before losing all my energies and either A. fall asleep if it’s a slumber party, much earlier than anyone else, or B. go home and rest.

And being alone never gets old, it never tires me, it is actually a bit dangerous, because if I did not put an effort into it I would not have any friends and would just stay alone, when I was younger, before learning that friends are very important I went sometimes months without meeting anyone after school hours and barely talking to anyone at school, I could (and still can!) easily spend my whole day with my headphones on while not talking to anyone at all the entire time, and still do everything I need and be generally happy.

I guess you could say I can get addicted to staying alone, but that does not mean I am shy or bad with people, being an introvert just means it is tiring, but as a matter of fact I have fantastic social skills and it is pretty hard to embarrass me, nobody ever caught me lying (although I do that pretty often), I spoke and even performed in front of large audiences with relative ease (my legs shake sometimes) and been praised for my charisma.

I say all this not to brag (it is not impressive at all, anyone can do that), but to prove to other introverts that being an introverts will not hinder you if you will not let it, just be sure to get out of your comfort zone as much as possible and you might even be better at talking in front of a crowd than an extrovert, because the two are not related.

Another myth I would like to shatter is that as a person who likes to be alone, I love thinking about ideas and things that are important to me or are interesting, that means that I actually ENJOYS TALKING, yes, as long as you do not talk to me about the weather or the latest gossip you can talk to me as long as you would like, and if I am with just one other person than I can seriously keep talking for days.

There are a lot of strengths in being an introvert, it is actually very calming to not be dependent on other people, being able to derive happiness by myself keeps me self assured that I can always be happy, that applies to working and studying as well.

However, it is impossible for me to have a lot of friends at once, since it is so hard for me to maintain relationships and being with more than one person is rather hard for me. Right now it feels like 4 friends are my limit, and I feel more than content with that amount.

Another thing I do is admiring from afar, I truly believe that every last person in this world is unique and truly magnificent, everyone is so special and I love seeing what makes people tick, there are a lot of people I really do not want to be friends with, because I know we are too different, but I still appreciate them.

The last thing I will talk about is the saying that introverts have rich imagination and inner world, while I cannot talk for other introverts I can say I personally do posses that qualities (though I am not sure it has anything to do with getting tired quickly from social interaction),it is often why I enjoy so much to be alone, it gives me time to explore ideas, write about stories and characters or even songs, or just think about stuff that goes on in my life right now and what I will do about it.

To conclude, being an introvert is not something to be proud of, it often means it is hard for you to be around other people, which will not help at all in a world filled with human beings, being an introvert is a nuisance, just like some people have a hard time with mathematics, being colorblind, or taking a long time to pick up another language, it just means it is hard for us to learn social skills since we do not really want to use them in the first place.

And talking about color-blind people, I think that would be the topic for the next entry of this internet diary, since I am one.