Recently I've been reading a lot about introverts and I realized that I fit the criteria (almost) perfectly. One of the things that I used to think was totally irrational for me to feel is how much I hate talking on the phone. It comforts me to know that a lot of other people are like this too and that it's an introvert thing. Whenever the phone rings, I tend to try to ignore it as much as possible unless I either know the call isn't for me (that way I can get rid of the phone really quickly) or if the person calling is someone I actually wanted to talk to at the time. Admittedly, I do have more reason for avoiding phones than just the introvert excuse, but still. Apparently even babbling is a sign of introversion which kind of surprised me because I thought introversion was the same thing as shyness but now I've read a few things that show they really aren't the same thing. I used to babble a lot; and I mean a lot, but I've gotten much better about it. Mostly because I now know that people don't really want to hear me talk. .
One article (An Introvert Offline is and Introvert Online) said that introverts are also likely to be those people that hardly ever post anything on Facebook and this completely applies to me too. Sometimes I do post something on there but then I delete it minutes or sometimes even seconds later. I worry that either it will be completely ignored by all 150 or so of my "friends" or even that someone will actually post on it. There's also the constant fear that someone on my friend's list might see something I post when I don't mean for them to or want them to.
I like being alone sometimes; probably more often than most people. This is pretty paradoxical to me because I hate thinking about life and stuff like that but being alone gives your mind time to wander and think about those things even if you try not to. At the same time, being surrounded by people is not somewhere I would want to be. I'd be way too self-conscious and have to think carefully about every single thing I said so as to keep up my standings with all of them. Even though I hate that saying about how you're different around different people, it's true. I don't think we can really help this happening though.
One of the few things that most introverts have that I don't is a good long-term memory. That's probably the best thing about introversion and I don't have it. Awesome.
Dude, it's so weird that we have like the same personality. I fit all the criteria for introversion so perfectly. I hate talking on the phone too and my heart rate speeds up when it rings.
ReplyDeleteI was reading an article in Psychology Today (I'll give you a moment to laugh at me) called Revenge of the Introverts and it described the difference between shyness and introversion as this: A shy person and an introvert are both standing in the corner at a school dance. The difference is that the shy person wishes they could join everyone, but the introvert is content to be there just watching. I thought that was a good way of describing it. It also said that introverts have a hard time talking to people because they think more than extroverts, so when they're having a conversation with someone, they take time to think about everything that person says much more than an extrovert does, so this makes conversations especially with extroverts kind of overwhelming sometimes. I liked that because that happens to me. By the time I decide how I feel about something someone says and the way I want to react to it, they're on to something else and I missed my chance.