The wonderful thing about being an introvert
Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 06:44AM The wonderful thing about being an introvert is that you don’t need anyone else to have a good time.
In last Saturday’s arts section of The Melbourne Age, there was a review of a book by one Susan Cain, Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. Quoting extensively from introvert Virginia Woolfe, the reviewer (and, presumably, the author) argues that Western society in this ‘era of shrill narcissism’ – I loved that – rewards extroverts.
‘Cain believes that contemporary capitalism has mistakenly seen extroversion as the path to betterment; a road of fire-walking Anthony Robbinson-reading actors, their bleached teeth lighting the way to love, happiness and wealth. Exemplified by Dale Carnegie’s How to win friends and influence people, the extrovert ideal grew alongside an industrial, urban society in which the manipulation and management of massed strangers was necessary.’
Despite coming from a fairly reserved family, I felt inadequate for years, on account of my deep introversion. The fact that I had no idea what this was or that I possessed it, made it no less guilt inducing.
As a small child I dreaded parties. As a teenager I went on summer holidays where I spent my time reading on deserted beaches, trying to escape the crowds of my more sociable peers. As a young wife, I felt terrible about dreading the parties my husband so enjoyed and resentful of him for coping so well with what I experienced as an ordeal.
It wasn’t till we had been together some years that we worked out that he was an extrovert and I was not. Suddenly we realised that no one was at fault here. We were just different.
As a teenager and young woman I probably came across in company as an extrovert. I was capable of projecting a bubbly personality. I can still turn this on when required – at social functions, with strangers, in front of a crowd, public speaking. And introverts often love being with other people, just not too many. One of my favourite things is having deep one to one chats over coffee, or to have two or three people for a long dinner complete with rambling, intense conversations.
But the cardinal test for extro/introversion is whether you replenish your inner resources by being with others or by yourself.
I am such an introvert, I get tense when I have to walk past people in the street and will cross the road to avoid doing so. It’s as though there’s a force field emanating from other people that depletes me. I love travelling on my own. I love going to the movies on my own. For exercise I walk on my own – why would you sully perfectly good time alone by exercising with others? Needless to say, I have never participated in team sport by choice. If I were in gaol and they wanted to really punish me, solitary confinement would not work. They would have to put me in a room full of talkative people to really make me suffer.
When I do have to do the party thing too much, and I can do it reasonably well, it takes its toll. I feel a profound, bone-deep weariness that is beyond anything I experience from physical effort. I grow not just irritable, but downright nasty. I am in good company: speaking of Virginia Woolfe, the book review writes, ‘…this false extroversion often had a price: exhaustion, depression, illness’.
With the increased confidence of middle age, however, I am learning not only to manage, but even to rejoice in my introversion. I try to pace myself – not that this is always possible, but often it is. People actually understand the excuse of not being a party person more readily than I have given them credit for in the past. Recently I went to a do where no less than three separate people greeted me with the words, ‘Clare, what are you doing here? It’s a party!’
There are great things about being an introvert. There’s so much going on inside my head and heart that I don’t need much external stimulation. I can spend days and nights alone and be perfectly content. As long as I can sleep, walk, read and write, I am happily occupied. Even without books and a computer, I can stare out a window for a long time without getting bored. I suspect it’s much easier for introverts to be contemplatives.
Some of my best friends are extroverts. I love the way they are and the excitement and colour they bring into my life. But it’s liberating, in my middle years, to feel I am fine and have something to offer just being who I am.
Reader Comments (2)
Amen to this Clare!! How serendipitous that I should today read your beautiful piece about introverts.
Last night I was reading an essay by Julia Baird in the Sydney Morning Herald News Review from last Saturday entitled 'Where creativity blooms'. To quote her, 'The internet is where the rise of the introverts began, and was fermented'. I read this whole article which quoted from Susan Cain's book and felt SO much better about myself :-). For years I told everyone that I was an introvert in a family of extroverts, now I know that I WAS! My husband could never understand my need for quiet and solitude and fear of large gatherings of strangers.
Keep up the lovely writing.
What a daring admission to make in these days when extroversion rules! For many of us who were taught the extrovert way as the road to successful selfhood it can take years for the introvert within to dare to emerge. In my own case, my introvert self has taken decades to emerge and only now at the end of my sixth decade is beginning to be comfortable in his own clothes.
Spot on Clare!