Love Your Introvert
22 March 2006
I don’t remember exactly how I came across this, but I’ve recently been reacquainted with an interesting little article that was published in The Atlantic Monthly in 2003: Caring for Your Introvert by Jonathon Rauch. While the tone is light and the touch is soft, Rauch is really hitting on something I and many people I know well care deeply about, namely feeling guilty about not seeming to enjoy people as much as we’re told we should.
I don’t mean individual people, I mean people as a concept. I mean the idea of people. I would say it’s because I’m an only child, but I’ve known too many introverts who weren’t, and too many extroverts who were, for that to stand up to too much scrutiny. Whatever it is, people en masse seem to bug me, annoy me, frustrate me, and just plain piss me off if I’m exposed to them for too long.
Of course I haven’t done any real scientific testing, but I have definitely noticed a direct correlation between the level of my negative feelings towards humanity and the level, and type, of exposure. For instance, when I’m teaching my classes and interacting with people at work, I often don’t generate much at all in the way of negative feelings1. Now, drop me in a theme park or a mall2 and it’s often only a matter of seconds before my brow becomes furrowed, my lips pursed, and I stop even trying to avoid the idiots mouth breathers good citizens around me who are trapped in their idiot bubble walk right in front of me with no brain awareness of my existence or the fact that by not paying attention to anyone around them—or the effect they themselves are having on the world around them—they might actually be inconveniencing, disturbing, or otherwise having a negative effect on anyone else. I’m not talking here about people just walking along, I’m talking about the people who walk right in front of you, or stop suddenly right in front of you—usually somewhere crowded—, causing you to need to either slow or alter your course or trample them. And clearly these people expect the former, because if you choose the latter they tend to get a bit upset at your lack of courtesy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of a nasty glare or a few choice words of reproach. And those 12 year old girls can be mean, I tell you.
Anyway, my point is, these places are supposed to be fun, they’re supposed to make you happy. You’re supposed to want to go and be around other people “having fun,” and you’re supposed to feel guilty or like there’s something wrong with you if you don’t want to go or if you don’t have fun when you are actually guilted into going. And that’s just wrong. But then, and this seems logical if not entirely fair, I guess it’s the extroverts who really shape social and cultural perception. This makes introverts feel slighted and even persecuted, but we just keep it to ourselves…
1 Heck, sometimes I even end up feeling good about the human race after a particularly good class. But I don’t want that broadcast too loudly—I have a reputation to protect you know—so I’m hiding this in a footnote.
2 Is there much difference between the two these days? And, for the record, the comparison goes both ways, does it not?
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