Hey Extroverts, Quiet Down There a Minute And I’ll Tell You
Hey extroverts – whisht!
Quiet down there, simmer down now a minute and I’ll tell you.
If you’re not the loud, assertive, life-of-the-party type then there’s something amiss with you, isn’t there? Course there is. ‘What’s wrong with you, don’t you like having FUN?!’ Now this may be shocking to some, but what constitutes ‘fun’ differs from person to person. I’m sorry you had to read that, I am, come back to me after you’ve had a cup of tea and the shaking stops.
I’ll borrow some warped wisdom from Coolio (because why the fuck not?): Been spending most my life living in an extrovert’s paradise. We are living under a paradigm that Susan Cain, in her magnificent book Quiet, calls the Extrovert Ideal. It is pretty self-explanatory. The ‘ideal person’ (in the Western world, at least) is an extrovert; they are outgoing, loud, assertive, ‘fun,’ etc. The problem is, though, that I’m an introvert. About one third to one half of everyone on the planet is, in fact. The prevalence of the Extrovert Ideal puts us quiet ones in a very awkward position indeed.
We are often and summarily accused of being no fun, of being too quiet for our own good, of being socially awkward. In her eye-opening book, Cain extols these very qualities that are so often the reason for which introverts are on the periphery – or altogether outside – of social interaction. Deep thinking and a propensity for quiet and meaningful conversation do not a party animal make. They do have their own set of advantages, however, which often come to fruition later in life.
Being a teenager is hard enough, and being an introverted teenager is harder still. I know this because I was one. While everyone was out and drinking and discovering the world through socialising, I was happier most of the time to stay in reading and – dare I say it – studying. Persistence is a hallmark of the introvert, and I realise now that it is mostly thanks to this temperament that I have managed to learn French and Spanish. Which means that I now have the choice of not talking to people in three languages.
But I did of course have to learn how to interact with people too; it just took me a little longer to get the hang of it. These days, though, I’m very happy to go to a house party full of friends and have a great time, as long as I have some quiet time beforehand or the day after to unwind. Unwinding for me constitutes silence and a good book, or playing a video game for a few hours, speaking of which…
A friend asked me once if I played any video games online. When I told him I was allergic to online gaming, he surmised that I’d had a bad experience by getting killed too many times in Call of Duty or one of the other shoot ‘em ups. He got a good laugh out of his hypothesis but the reason I play videogames alone is that I want to get away from people altogether, not just interact with them in a different way.
Similarly, not being able to get away from people for eight hours every day takes a huge toll on me. Oh the hell that is the open plan office. How I long for the days of cubicles! I dislike small talk, and especially the open plan office variety. I have no doubt this makes me seem distant and aloof to my colleagues, but the very way our workspace is set up is geared towards their (mostly) extroverted personalities.
And so, if you’re an introvert struggling to fit in, take comfort from the fact that the world just isn’t geared towards your temperament. If you’re a raging extrovert, enjoy being ideal but for the love of god cut the introverts around you some slack, and maybe, just maybe, learn to whisht every now and again.
Featured image via iStock
