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Introverts unite!
A nifty article I came across today on Caring For Your Introvert neatly expresses a concept that I've always had trouble getting across to people -- that social interaction drains me. I sometimes have a hard time figuring out how to explain, without sounding like a total weenie, that it's not that I don't enjoy spending time with my friends; it's just that I need a lot of charging/recharging in order to prepare for or recover from an evening of social interaction, or even a phone conversation. It's fun, but it's also a bit like running a marathon uphill, especially in a social setting with a lot of people. I've learned by experience that about 2-3 hours of personal interaction (give or take a bit) or somewhere between a half-hour to an hour on the phone is about as long as I can happily enjoy before I reach the point where weariness starts to overwhelm the fun I'm having. So ... if I leave a party early, or if I politely start trying to end a conversation on the phone after an hour or so, it's not because I don't like you, it's just because I'm getting very tired and I need to stop for a rest.
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I think one of the things I liked most about that article is that it made me feel less misanthropic for just not wanting to be around people a lot of the time. I *do* like people; I just need a lot of alone time too, and most of my favorite things to do are fairly solitary pursuits.
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I work a public service job, which I like, because I meet interesting people, but when I go home at night?
I so need 2-3 hours of me time to process it all. It's partly why I could never have kids -- the mere idea of never getting any quiet time for myself fills me with despair.
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Interesting! One of the things I kept running across in the articles on introversion that I was reading today was how variable introverts actually are, and how most introverts actually *are* pretty good at doing the social thing -- we're not painfully shy, hiding in corners. We just need to go off alone on a regular basis to recharge our batteries.
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(Speaking of that sort of thing, we need to figure out how to make iChat work! I've been poking at it, but I can't figure out how to activate the video side of it.)
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I'm essaying again - sorry!
It's interesting that you've figured out exactly how much alone time you need! That you know yourself that well - I've never really been able to make a correlation between social time and needing a certain amount of time to recover. But then again, I wasn't even aware just how well much of the description of introverts fit me!
From the article, this really grabbed my attention:
Leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. In contrast, after an hour or two of being socially "on," we introverts need to turn off and recharge.
Because that right there? Is me and my brother. He's the one who will complain about being bored if he hasn't seen or talked to his friends for five minutes, who does like to read, but only to relax, and is deeply, deeply puzzled by my tendency to just hang out in my room. (As he sees it.) We get along wonderfully, it's not that, it's just that - well, he has this need to be with people. And I don't. Not at all in the same way - and here I'll disagree with the author of the article, because I never have gotten that. Sure, other people are fun and lovely, but you can't be with them all the time! It's that simple.
I'm probably weird because I grew up in an environment where there were almost always people around, whether I wanted to or not. (We lived in a... not a commune, really, because "commune" implies a certain kind of philosophy, but - my family only had our bedrooms, a bathroom, and dad's office, all the other rooms (including the living room with the TV, and the kitchen) were ones we shared with other people.) I spent my summers in an international conference center. So, always had to deal with other people in my personal spaces, growing up. I spent a lot of time socializing by default, and I really liked having conversations with people from all around the world, and having fun people over to play with when I was little.
As I started growing older, and participated in everything as an individual and not just as my parent's kid... I started needing naps. In the conference center, after a morning's work with the stage crew (we had a theater! I was on the stage crew! It was awesome ♥), and lunch together, I would escape to my room and more or less pass out. I've never been one for naps, really, but working on the stage crew was pretty physical, so I never saw my exhaustion as something purely mental. Now I see that those naps, and the fact that I would choose to just stay in my room and read my books rather than go to movie evenings or the bonfires where my brother and his friends were socializing, are dead pretty clear signs of an introverted personality.
Essay, part 2~
And then we have the whole thing with how I've never enjoyed going out to bars or clubs or whatnot (to the point where they're all "whatnot" to me - I have no clue what people do when they "go out", really), and how I'll be perfectly happy to see my friends one day a week - two at the most. Especially when working a full time job, one day of the weekend spent being social is... fun, but then the other day I need for me. And I'll turn down offers to do things I like, such as watching a good TV show together or go to the movies or whatnot, just because I... err... "don't feel like it". (I'll try to come up with a better excuse, but... yeah.)
I do find it really interesting that introverts can be perfectly happy living in a relationship with another person, though! You'd think that'd be a contradiction in terms, but with someone who respects your need to be alone and do your thing, it can really work. At least that's my experience of it. Though I'm thinking that it needs to be a relationship with another introvert... or?
How do you find yourself relating to work? Is working with other people as draining as being social with them? Though I guess that must depend on the kind of work you do with them...
Re: Essay, part 2~
...with someone who respects your need to be alone and do your thing, it can really work. At least that's my experience of it. Though I'm thinking that it needs to be a relationship with another introvert... or?
That's exactly what makes my marriage work -- we never talk to each other! *g* Seriously ... right now, I think it's been hours since we've said a word to each other; he's off doing his thing, and I'm off doing mine. It's not that we don't get along or have conversations; it's just that we both really enjoy focusing on our individual projects, computers or books for hours and hours, and neither one of us feels neglected.
In college and afterwards, I had quite a number of different (platonic) roommates, some of whom were very social and some who weren't; you definitely *can* live with an extrovert when you're naturally introverted, but I absolutely HAVE to have somewhere to go, to get personal time. There was quite a bit of time spent in my room with the door closed! And even now, when I have guests, or when I am a guest, I usually need to find time now and then to go off by myself and read, or write on my computer, or surf the net for a little while.
My time estimates above are really just rough guesses, and it *does* depend on the person; I can spend hours and hours talking to some people, but in a social group situation with a lot of people, I do wear out pretty fast. I wish I felt free to take a computer or book along when I go visiting, because all I really need is a little time every now and then to retreat into my own head and recharge, so I can go back to being social again...
Actually, reading the article and looking at it as more of a sort of mental orientation than just a strange "me" thing makes me feel a lot less weird, and a little better about all of my odd little coping mechanisms to get along in a social people's world.
How do you find yourself relating to work? Is working with other people as draining as being social with them?
It's interesting -- I kind of "gear up" into a higher-energy state when I'm at work. Luckily, my job involves quite a bit of hyperfocused time where I can retreat into my head and work on individual projects (I build advertisements for a newspaper), which is easier on me than if I was dealing with customers and salespeople ALL day rather than just part of the day -- but I've had customer-service jobs, and I know that I can do that, too. I just deal with it. I don't really act shy in public. There are days, though, when I come home from work so mentally exhausted (both from dealing with other people, and from general work-related problem-solving) that I'm utterly unable to THINK -- all I can do is surf the net or read something until it's time for bed.
What I really don't get, though, is hanging out with other people as a cure for this feeling. It just doesn't work that way for me! I know that a lot of people get to the end of the work week and then what they need to relax is to find some people to hang out with or talk to on the phone. Me? No. I'm lucky if I can scrape together enough social energy for one evening with friends or the weekly phone calls to my family. And this is where I feel sort of guilty, because it's hard to find a way to explain that it's not THEM -- it's just that my social batteries are all drained and I have to refill them before I'll really enjoy *anybody's* company again.
Re: Essay, part 2~
I can spend hours and hours talking to some people, but in a social group situation with a lot of people, I do wear out pretty fast. I wish I felt free to take a computer or book along when I go visiting, because all I really need is a little time every now and then to retreat into my own head and recharge, so I can go back to being social again...
That's what was so great about the set-up we had with the gaming group. Obviously we all know each other really, really well, and acted more as a family group than as friends when we were together... but together with them, if it got a little too much, I'd pull out my laptop and take a moment to read my mail or browse LJ or something. And it really wasn't because I was bored with them. Maybe I'm reading introversion into everything right now, but... It's interesting to me that you should mention wanting to bring a computer along!
But I really do have a high tolerance for other people, if they're the right people - when I visit
What I really don't get, though, is hanging out with other people as a cure for this feeling.
I should quiz my brother on this! Poor thing - you can literally see him wilt if you leave him alone for too long. He needs other people around to energize him when he's down, or relax him when he's stressed... It's so, so strange. We're siblings, and I still don't get how he does it.
There are days, though, when I come home from work so mentally exhausted (both from dealing with other people, and from general work-related problem-solving) that I'm utterly unable to THINK -- all I can do is surf the net or read something until it's time for bed.
I know that feeling too... I'm so glad I don't have the kind of job that leaves me that exhausted anymore! The library is the perfect place for me to work, because I get to be friendly and helpful and talk books with people - and then I get to spend time doing shelving, or just waiting for someone to come ask me a question, and in that time I can do whatever I want. Nobody ever complains about finding a librarian lost in a book, and since we have computers right there for work-related stuff, it's perfectly natural for me to be focused on the screen...! (This will change if I get a full-time position, and get my own area of responsibility and such - but I can't imagine it will ever get as bad as it did when I was working in the post office, or the foreign exchange place... *shudder*.)
Re: I'm essaying again - sorry!
Being around people all the time -- well, my childhood was both very isolated and utterly lacking in privacy, because there were no other people around for MILES other than my family, but the five of us lived in a one-room 20x20 foot log cabin with a loft, so there was absolutely no individual privacy, even for things like taking baths. I used to deal with it by being hyper-secretive about the few things I *could* control -- like spending hours and hours drawing with my left hand cupped around it to block anyone else from looking at my drawing. In fact, I'm pretty sure that one reason why I'm still fairly secretive about my creative works-in-progress because of habits picked up as a kid -- it was the only kind of privacy that I *did* have!
Alaska tends to have a much higher-than-average proportion of extreme recluses, as you might expect *g*, so I've seen some really good cautionary examples of how far it can go when you let it get out of control! My natural inclination is to just hole up with my computer and books and dogs and not go anywhere, but I really do try not to be that way TOO much -- I have noticed that the less I go out, the harder it is to mobilize myself to go out, and I don't want to develop genuine agorophobia. I *do* love my friends and I *do* enjoy going out and doing social things ... it's just a little bit difficult to overcome the inertia of huddling comfortably at my computer -- with my tea! ♥
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But this was really interesting to hear - the way our childhoods really do shape us, in so many ways, and how those habits picked up in your early years can be almost impossible to shake! I can absolutely see why you started hiding what you were drawing... Our circumstances were very different, but I definitely took to hiding what I was watching. Which was difficult, when there were always people walking through the TV room on their ways to their bedrooms, or sitting down to watch the news and stuff. A lot of the time, it'd be people I didn't know, and some of the time, they'd take it on themselves to comment on my viewing choices. So pretty early on, I started taping my shows, and then watching them late at night, when nobody else was around. Some shows just aired at bad times - too late, or when I was in school - but I'm sure it was more than just the timing that made me save the shows I loved for when I was alone.
It spilled over into other stuff, too - I never wanted the people in the bookstore to see that I was buying tie-in novels, because it would mean they knew what I loved, and might judge me for it. Not that I ever thought things through that far when I was still a kid, but looking back on it? I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
And I was more solitary on the internet, too. At least when I first found it, the thought of sharing the kind of things that other people were sharing... It was really strange to get used to fandom being a social thing. Strange, but cool.
Now the internet doesn't feel like socializing - it's not at all draining in the way RL being with people is. Actually, like I mentioned - I've used my computer to get a little alone time, even with people still in the room... Which is really weird, but I think it works, for me? If my attention is on something I want to do, and not on the people around me, that can help me relax...
I recognize the natural inclination to hole up, and I agree - it is bad to let that kind of thing go overboard! And it's so easy and comfortable to allow you to do it, too. After all, it takes effort to go out - it doesn't take any effort at all to stay put where you are. And I'm very guilty of letting the inertia take over. Japan was great, because I knew I had a limited time and was living in an awesomely cool place, and so I did go out and do things. I was social with my fellow geeks, and did a lot of exploring the city by bike. But once I got back to Sweden, I turned into such a couch vegetable... It's something I know I'm going to have to be careful not to overdo in the future.
This is when it's probably good to have a partner or friend who is willing to give you that extra nudge you need to go outside and have fun. (It was one of the great things with being in the US - M actually did that to me! I would never have spent New Year's eve listening to an 80's cover band and dancing around if it had been up to me, but I had an absolute blast, and I'm so glad she made me go!)
Re: I'm essaying again - sorry!
Yes, for me too! I think it's because I have total control over the pacing of social interaction online. Answering emails or LJ comments can be done at my own speed, while I listen to music and sip tea. If I want to take off for an hour or so to walk the dogs or make dinner, or switch back to writing fiction for a while, I can do it without having to interrupt a conversation or feeling like I'm inconveniencing someone else.
The chats we've been doing kind of fall in the middle, I think ... it's less socially/emotionally tiring than talking on the phone, and it's much easier to interrupt and run off to do something, but I do feel the need to do something solitary for a while when we're done.
(Speaking of which ... have you written anything more lately? Tomorrow's a workday, but if you *aren't* writing on it right now, I was thinking about taking the document along and seeing if I can get some writing done if it's slow.)
Re: I'm essaying again - sorry!
The chats we've been doing kind of fall in the middle, I think ... it's less socially/emotionally tiring than talking on the phone, and it's much easier to interrupt and run off to do something, but I do feel the need to do something solitary for a while when we're done.
I usually go to bed when we're done. *g* So... I couldn't really say! But I'm glad that you've got a feel for what it takes out of you. And hopefully, you don't push yourself to chat or so when you don't want to! I mean, I haven't gotten that impression, but - just so you know that I won't take offense. ♥
(Writing - no, nothing really substantial... Go ahead, if you're still awake and in the mood to write! Sorry I didn't answer sooner - woke up later than usual today.)
Mail problems?
Basically I was just asking you to send the doc back if you do work on it, because I hope to have time & focus today, but. Bouncing mails? This is not good, is it? I'm not spam~! (Well. Sometimes, maybe, but I didn't think spam filters would judge me. *g*)
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I've been getting emails today, though, so maybe try sending it again? If not, I'll go into my spam filters and see if I can figure out how to allow an address. (I've never actually tried to do that before, so ... it would be an adventure!)
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Err. Have sent again - no bouncing yet! I should send you the error message, too, so you know. (That's the thing - it sent a long error message back, so if that was happening to ficathon people, they'd probably be all over your comments...!)
Huh. Maybe it was just a one-time glitch in the system?
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Oh, hang on, I think I just got your email! Guess they decided you were a real human being after all.
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... oh, and I really hear you on this, too! This is the only real trouble with me and my husband being on the same page where these things are concerned -- it's *really* easy for us to turn into couch-lumps together. Just as an example, I took two trips last summer, one to Newfoundland with my husband, and one to the Eastern U.S. and Quebec with my sister. My sister is a high-energy, extrovert type, and we packed in an incredible amount of DOING into our vacation -- we were exhausted by the end, but we saw and did a lot of things. Whereas the Newfoundland trip was more like downtime; we spent a lot of time hiking along the coast in a leisurely sort of way, or relaxing in the hotel room. And while I really enjoyed the mindless time off, looking back on it now, I wish I'd taken more advantage of the opportunity to see the island, since I may not be back.
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And of course I don't mind; I can't remember off the top of my head how I came upon the link, but I'm sure it was via following a chain of links from someone else's journal in the first place.
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The biggest thing that spoke to me in that article was the frustration with small talk. OH GOD YES. When I was a kid I was considered to be painfully shy. I don't think of myself like that anymore, but put me in a party with people I don't know and I'll still find the quietest corner - not because I can't talk or I'm scared to talk, but I really don't want to. I'm a very chatty introvert - with the right people I will happily talk for hours - but only conversations I care about with people I care about. Talking just for the sake of talking drives me mad.
And that needing to recharge, too...yeah. That was what killed me my first year in Japan. Teaching conversational English 5 days a week, 5 days a week spending hours engaging in small talk at various levels of competency - yeah. After work or on weekends I never went out because I could not handle being around people at all, I needed "me time" so badly. Working part-time now I can handle it a lot better.
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Especially the point that modern Western socializing is really not set up for us, even if we're a very large minority.
That was so neat, because I'd really never thought about it like that, and yet thinking about it -- yeah, there is no reason at all why small talk should be the default, or why it would be considered rude to turn down an invitation to go out on a Friday night, or go off and read a book for a while at a social event. And yet it is very much that way; it's the extroverts who make the "rules".