What it's like to be an introvert

Some folks complain about 'adulting'. Introverts complain about 'people-ing'

   When I was in High school we had an annual parents’ open day for the form two students. Basically all your teachers sat at different tables and you and your folks went round from table to table so that they (your folks) could meet the teachers and discuss how you’re doing and what-not. I was struggling a bit with some of my grades and it didn’t help for me to have the teachers for the two subjects I was struggling the most in: Math and chemistry – tell my parents that I barely participated in class. I was deeply offended. In my view I was doing very well at class participation. I was practically slaying class participation. Those teachers had it wrong and my parents were equally as wrong for not believing me. That’s what it’s like to be an introvert.

   Of course the only people who can appreciate that deep struggle are fellow introverts and ambiverts (Ambiverts are people who have both extroverted and introverted traits). Extroverts don’t see when you’re putting in 100% effort to be out there. Because their 100% is not the same as yours. In fact your 100% is probably like 50% in their view. Maybe even 25% as illustrated in my high school story. And it can be so easy for an introvert to be written off as snobbish when they are judged by somebody who’s lived their whole life being the life of the party. Normal is a relative term. Newsflash: There are people who dread having to be in new social situations because to them the process of approaching a stranger and striking a conversation is painfully awkward. There are people who have opinions but don’t always (want to) voice them. There are people who are perfectly ok with being alone instead of going for whatever social gathering is scheduled for this weekend. In fact, they would gladly choose to be alone 90% of the year but unfortunately they haven’t yet invented houses that are self-sustaining and so they are forced to occasionally step out of the house and interact with other humans for one reason or another.

   My high school incident was compounded by the fact that I’d never had such complaints raised against me. When I was in primary school the world was basically my oyster. I was one of the ‘smart kids’. The one who excelled at pretty much everything. But do you know what happens when you take all the smart kids and put them in one institution for their secondary school education. They realize that smartness is a relative term. That there are others who are smarter than them despite their inherent smartness according to the rest of the world. They begin to flounder as they struggle to find balance in this new reality where they are not necessarily the best and have to work so much harder to come close to that. And for an introvert like I was, that meant that I became more closed-off in a sense. You know, I was processing and trying to get my life together. Also I think the mere shock of always being around hundreds of other people at any given time was a factor. I was suddenly a new kid in a sea of new kids from all walks of life and everyday there was a new situation to experience. I was in boarding school for the very first time in my life and it took some getting-used to.

   And I did get used to it. Somewhere along the way I discovered that I can actually be a bit extroverted at times. So I oscillate between wanting to have a weekend-full of plans and wanting to do nothing at all and see nobody at all. Wanting to have been invited to stuff but have the option of politely declining. Wanting to throw away my phone and being bummed when not much is happening on it. Being ok with doing things on my own instead of waiting for others, and on the flip-side wanting to experience life with people.

Sometimes...

  So for all you well-meaning non-members of this club, please try to understand. It’s nothing personal. Because sometimes we are tired of interactions and want to get through them as quickly as possible. Small-talk can be daunting because we don’t always understand the formula of exactly what topics to cover and in what order. Sometimes we rehearse conversations…in our heads of course! Sometimes we need to recharge our batteries and for that to happen we need the quiet of our own heads. We're quiet because of the millions of thoughts running through our minds. So take a chill pill. We’ll catch-up with you later.

Ciao…

Photocredits: http://introvertunites.tumblr.com/