Yesterday, I was telling the story of my New Year's Eve 2011(henceforth on this blog, NYE 2011) to a friend who is new to my life, but has taken up space in my heart and life very rapidly. I was describing how, for years, I've helped my besties, my boys who are my family, cook and plan and clean and host and then met their friends (who are fun and amazing people and who have become my friends) at the resultant celebration. I said how awesome it was when MY friend came wanting to see me and meet them but how I had to be a bit of an intermediary. My friend wanted to party, but not stay at the house; while my Robby wanted everyone to stay at the house because in his mind post-NYE breakfast is lazy people in PJs in his living room (yes, that's right - we cook for days and make not only a stunning set of appetizers, dinner, cocktails, and dessert, but breakfast for the next day. A moment of silence for our awesomeness, please). I intervened and said, "I know you want to be an awesome host so make the offer, but if he says 'no' that's not the I'm-being-polite-but-you-can-push-harder signal, that's him saying 'I want to party and then go have some space to recharge as an introvert.' And in that case you need to accept that being a good host means respecting that need."
The new friend I was telling this NYE story to has been married for 3 years, and with her husband for 6 years before. Her husband is very much an introvert so she said, "It's so rare that non-introverts know that. It took me years to learn it and not take it personally."
We're an extrovert-centric culture. My more-than-friend, Rob(by), and I joked for a long time that the last frontier of prejudice was a world that assumed everyone is right-handed, and expects him, a lefty, to adjust everything without complaint. True, desks, scissors, tools, and spiral notebooks all assume use by a righty, and lefties just have to suck it up and learn ambidexterity or other ways to compensate. But it's also true that there are now stores that specialize in making lefties more comfortable as lefties. There are no stores for introverts . . . unless you count Best Buy and Elliot Bay Books as havens for the introvert who just wants to be left the heck alone with their media and their internal process.
The message in our culture regarding introversion is both unsubtle and incorrect, in my not very expert opinion because there is an assumption that being outgoing is preferable in all scenarios and that introverts are the opposite of this: shy. As it turns out, introversion isn't about being shy, or anxious about other humans, it's about where resources and energy go, and where they come from. (As someone who used to be a multi-focal trainer . . . and hopes to be again someday . . I often think about this as the difference between internal training and customer-facing training in an organization. With many of my clients' small businesses I would recommend and even provide training as a means of developing their operations, sales, and other business needs. But internal training was about developing resources on hand, and processing what was happening inside the four walls of that business, and drawing energy and participation from within the group/organization. Customer-facing training is all about putting energy into people outside of "yourself" - where yourself equals the business/staff/organization in this example - with the expectation of getting that investment back in increased customers, loyalty, etc. In parallel, introverts do their best work and understand the world best by facing inwards and drawing their energy and motivation from that, and extroverts shine most when they can invest in and be energized by others. )
From, Revenge of the Introvert "While extraverts spend more time overall in social activities than introverts do, the two groups do not differ significantly on time spent with family members, romantic partners, or coworkers. Moreover, extraverts and introverts both report a mood boost from the company of others. For introverts, however, the boost may come at a cost. Researchers have found that introverts who act extraverted show slower reaction times on subsequent cognitive tests than those allowed to act introverted. Their cognitive fatigue testifies to the fact that "acting counter-dispositionally is depleting."
A culture that prizes extroversion and gregariousness often conflates anxiety and introversion, placing not only positive bias on being extroverted, but negative assumptions on not being extroverted. It's nice that experts agree that introversion isn't the same as being shy. It's even more important that we consider what being introverted DOES mean and trying to understand, as this Ted talk says so eloquently, the power of the introverts around us.
Let's be clear, in America we are loud, rowdy, boisterous, and love the person who can party or make everyone feel good. We expect to be entertained at all that we do so we interview people for jobs seeking extroverted characteristics. In my recent interviews I've been asked the following questions:
- Tell me about a time where you had to make a connection with someone quickly
- Tell me about your team work experiences
- What can you say about your strategy for convincing groups of people to ________
- What are your strengths in facilitating groups?
Because we love the extrovert here, and we misunderstand the introvert as being awkward, shy, hard to draw out, unable to connect with people, and thus, somehow socially disabled. In reality, introverts may eschew small talk because they'd rather dig for deeper meanings and connections, they may choose not to go to every party, they may not only crave but need time alone to process and recharge, but they like people just fine, if possibly in shorter doses or via more careful selection.
As one of my closest friends is an introvert, I've actually done quite a bit of reading and considering on the topic of how extroverts and introverts can live together in peace, how to be supportive of introverts around me, and even, how shall we say . . . well, I'll just quote this article, Caring for my introvert(s). My own experience suggests that by respecting boundaries, learning to enjoy quiet, seemingly solitary activities with them (watching TV, studying in the same room, reading), and being very open to real conversation that goes beyond weather and gossip, an introvert will show that they have paid deep attention to what has been said and, sometimes importantly, what has not been said, will share things that reflect deep emotional connection and awareness, and will ultimately let you inside their introspective, quiet place. Introverts aren't about what's on the surface, and part of the bias of an extroverted world is not only judging introverts for not playing the surface-niceties game, but to also judge introverts only by what they show on the surface . . . and there's so much more beneath that layer. My friend from college and I had our deepest talks when alone in a dark lab at 2am or when I was massaging him. (That sounds dirtier than it was. Giving massages was just part of my friendship with him) I know things because I stopped asking-asking-asking and started shutting up and listening.
I did all of this with the idea that I was on the outside of this circle (or to be more accurate, the individual circles the introverts I know have for themselves, and expand oh-so-very selectively, letting others in very carefully).
I knew my college friend as introverted long before it ever came up in conversation, and since the inception of that friendship, I've had a few other important connections with introverts, including the relationship I'm in now. I have two other close friends here in Boulder that are introverts. One of these makes no bones about it - she prefers to spend time with me one-on-one whenever possible so we can deep-talk, and she feels most connected with people in this way and sometimes overwhelmed (not shy, just too stimulated to process) when in bigger groups. The other puts on a great show, and truly is one of the most entertaining people I know, but often reports to me being tired by that. When we were first hanging out, because she is so energetic and hilarious, I worried she wouldn't want to spend time with me . . . that I wouldn't be cool enough. But as I thought of fun things for us to do, time and again she would choose to just come over to my house, eat dinner, talk, and watch TV. Secret Introvert.
One of my brothers is a secret introvert. He often claims, "I hate people." He'll make me come for certain holidays so that I can "buffer." The truth is, he talks about people more than he talks about anything else (including working out, beer, and sex, so that's saying a lot): our sister, our other brother, my mom, his best friend, his best friend's new baby, going out for drinks with my besties which happened, like, 3 years ago. He doesn't hate people - he hates small talk. He hates being "nice" because he isn't (not by most people's limited standards, anyways), and because he has a slow-to-warm-up personality that makes him often pressured or misunderstood. And, after a big family event, he craves retreating to run, read, sleep, watch TV on his own the way my knocked-up friends crave chocolate. Secret introvert.
I have shared a lot with introverts in my life . . . but always thought of myself as an extrovert. But recently, my person sighed and said, "Ohhhh, Christie. You can say you're an extrovert, but you are telling me things that make me think you're an introvert."
This was almost as stunning as when he referred to me as a writer, weeks ago. I've just never considered myself as anything other than extroverted. How much of this is about extrovert-bias and how much is true? It's hard to say since most tests of this personality spectrum from the introvertedy-introvert all the way to the most extroverted there can be are based on either self-assessment or self-reporting or both. So, even if I look at the fact that I always test as an ENFJ (or, in the past, very occasionally as an ENFP) I may be responding to misperceptions of myself, and those perceptions, in turn, may be shaped by extrovert bias. So hard to say since all of the questions on such instruments are open to so much interpretation, which requires comparison, which of course, again, are shaped by biases and bad information.
So logically, let's look at my family: I grew up with two siblings. One is the most extroverted anyone could be; the proverbial social butterfly who places himself in the center of activity at any party, gathering, or family event and can talk and entertain for hours. Alone time seems a punishment to him and so he seeks out shared living (while my other sibling and I have admitted that living alone is our greatest luxury) and careers that require constant contact with others. The other sib is described above - secret introvert. I have one parent who is genuinely miserable when by herself (the textbook extrovert who wants to be out, with others, all the time and when alone picks up the phone ASAP) and had another parent who very much fit the mold of the introverted engineer that he was. It would make sense for me to be either a moderately expressed extrovert or a moderately expressed introvert, not heavily weighted on either side, given this set up. And while early personality-type research suggested that firstborn children were more "dominant" newer research suggests that firstborns are less likely to be extroverted.
Ok, so, not crazy given my family. The next natural thing would be to observe myself . . . except that there are arguments both for and against the present circumstances I find myself in. On the one hand, not working is pretty exceptional for me. I've been working for more than 20 years. And the toll of not working has been difficult, to say the least. On the other hand, there's an argument to be made for looking at NOW as the Christie-in-her-natural-habitat; not responding to others' needs, not running myself ragged for a paycheck, but just being me. Viewed by the former lens, it's easy to discount where I'm at as situation-specific and to say that my tendency for more solitary reflection is about the natural disappointment at being in this position. Viewed from the later perspective, these five months are more telling than the 5 years that came before them.
And the truth is, for the last 5 months, it has made the most sense to me to sit still, to think hard, and to be very, very open about who and what I am. This speaks very deeply of some previously unnoticed introverted tendencies that are nonetheless core to who I am. I like to talk things over with people, but I don't run over to the phone as soon as I am alone, and in fact, I'm quite choosy (some would argue, too choosy) about who I let in . . . and have written about that many, many times on this blog. I also do some of my best reconciling life with myself by staring at a ceiling, or processing solo. I am a multi-tasker so sometimes this means laying on my couch and staring up quietly, but more often it's me being a whirrling dervish of laundry, cooking, cleaning, while turning things over in my head and letting them set down and find a soft landing site. I have never been one for small talk, and right now, it just seems to have no place in the life of meaning and understanding I'm trying to envision and then build . . . from scratch. I just had my birthday and for me the best thing about it was having just a few awesome folks who all liked each other . . . read: no real work for me to facilitate it. I felt tired at the idea of a big party, and excited at the idea of the right group of people and getting to catch up with them and drink beer.
For my person, the argument here is that if I am at my healthiest right now by giving myself the time, and the space, and the reflective alone-ness to understand and make friends with myself, then it is an indication that it might not have been healthy for me to peg myself as an extrovert and then invest myself in passing as one. For me, the image in my head is of the little girl I was in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade (importantly, old enough to have a recognizable personality, but young enough to not yet have been fully tainted by the expectations of others and the social machine young girls wed themselves to so painfully early) who would clamor to get off the school bus in order to run up the hill, grab an apple, and throw her legs over the arm chair with a book . . . alone. This was the same little girl who had one or two close friends and didn't much care to surround herself with more. It's inconvenient that recalling this also means remembering the bad dresses she wore, and that her mom favored the pig-tails hairstyle but . . . I do this in the name of some unpolluted data.
Even this blog is a mixed case - I am opening the door, at least in theory, for anyone to know the things I write here. But the act of writing it involves a lot of reflection, a lot of collecting data, connecting the dots, navel-gazing about meaning and theory and deeper connections. And I almost never experience more of the person I am or could be than when I'm writing it on this level.
So, pure data isn't so pure. I shouldn't be shocked after my four semesters of graduate level statistics, during one of which the grads all heard the best quote ever, "you can torture your data all you want. sooner or later it will confess to something." I retook the Myers-Briggs personality test again in preparation for this post and found that if I reinterpreted a couple of the questions to fit my current lifestyle (and by a couple, I mean exactly three questions) I tested as an INFJ with moderately expressed I-ness. When I read the ENFJ type that I've so often been reported as, so much of it reads true . . . I am prone to placing the needs of others above my own, I am chameleon-like sometimes, I do have a talent for bringing out the best in others and I am loyal and straightforward, sometimes to a fault. And I read the INFJ description and see pieces of myself there too: I am overly sensitive to conflict, and don't handle it well, I am prone to creative, independent pursuits (ahem! This blog, my 365, and even my previous job which had me running a remote region solo), I do tend to be overly orderly and I do, indeed, hold fast to values and find myself prioritizing and re-prioritizing in order to make sense of my world. (Again, Ahem! This blog).
It is also true that I love my friends and positively light up around them and that after processing on my own, or taking my long walk, or reading and writing, or immersing myself in ideas, I want to share with them. I want to affect others, I want to influence and be influenced, and importantly, I am energized by others . . . if it is the right others. Maybe I'm just a miserably picky bastard with trust issues. Or . . . maybe I'm a secret introvert. Like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, the the world may never know . . . and it may never be important. But, if it's a secret I've kept from myself, I'll be watching to see how thinking outside of the "extroverts are excellent" box changes how I see myself.
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