Simply Me: Hell Week

If you have ever done any theatre, you know that the week before the production, tech week, is called "Hell Week" and for good reason. This is the week that the house completely falls apart, kids are up til 2 and sleep til 11, all meals are consumed at Dairy Queen with large groups of people still in smeared stage makeup. It is the week where I drive, drive and drive some more & have to explain to the very gruff manly macho football coach that Wolfgang will be missing football practice due to his theatre schedule. OyVay! This is the week when poor Hank gets dragged around & I ask myself why I ever let my kids sign up & swear we will never ever do it again. In a moment of desperation & mental exhaustion I made Wolfgang an offer earlier this week. If he agreed to never audition for another play or sign up for another sport I would buy him his very own boat. I would teach him how to use it, how to be safe & then turn him loose, free to come and go on the river as he pleases. He turned me down. How did a woman who would be perfectly content to float around in the river all day long or sit in the same chair and read a book for hours hiding from the world could have turned out this bunch of energetic talented bohemian babies? I don't understand it. This Saturday morning I pick up Tallulah from BWI where she is coming from an audition for another professional acting internship. Jim Caviezel's (as in Jesus's!) acting coach had good things to say! She has been traveling thru the midwest visiting theatre friends the past two weeks. Then my Clyde-Pierre has The Night with his band & youth group, surrounded by dozens of people and loud music, happy as can be, playing his music. He and his band just released their first CD! I haven't seen him for more than 4 minutes at a time in the past 3 years. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opens at the Old Opera House with Wolfgang playing (appropriately) a wolf. When I get tired and grumpy and resent being forced to drive at night and having to leave my quiet nest, my friend Lucy reminds me that she loves my family because she says we are rainbow, neon, plaid, textured and smooth...all mixed together. Sounds like a mess to me. I just want us to be plain. I want them to be still. But it was nice to be reminded to try to see all the color my kids bring & to appreciate their talents and their energy. My friend also reminded me to not allow anyone to suck the color out of my kids. I realized that I am probably the most guilty of that. My friend has always had a way of viewing my family through a lens of love that somehow makes us look much more interesting & I love her for that. Thanks Lucy. Thanks for the fresh perspective. I will try to remember to always be my kid's biggest fan. After all, the show must go on. After my nap.

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2003

DO YOU KNOW someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren't caring for him properly. Science has learned a good deal in recent years about the habits and requirements of introverts. It has even learned, by means of brain scans, that introverts process information differently from other people (I am not making this up). If you are behind the curve on this important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

I know. My name is Jonathan, and I am an introvert.

Oh, for years I denied it. After all, I have good social skills. I am not morose or misanthropic. Usually. I am far from shy. I love long conversations that explore intimate thoughts or passionate interests. But at last I have self-identified and come out to my friends and colleagues. In doing so, I have found myself liberated from any number of damaging misconceptions and stereotypes. Now I am here to tell you what you need to know in order to respond sensitively and supportively to your own introverted family members, friends, and colleagues. Remember, someone you know, respect, and interact with every day is an introvert, and you are probably driving this person nuts. It pays to learn the warning signs.

What is introversion? In its modern sense, the concept goes back to the 1920s and the psychologist Carl Jung. Today it is a mainstay of personality tests, including the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Introverts are not necessarily shy. Shy people are anxious or frightened or self-excoriating in social settings; introverts generally are not. Introverts are also not misanthropic, though some of us do go along with Sartre as far as to say "Hell is other people at breakfast." Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring.

Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone. They often seem bored by themselves, in both senses of the expression. 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. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn't antisocial. It isn't a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto: "I'm okay, you're okay—in small doses."

How many people are introverts? I performed exhaustive research on this question, in the form of a quick Google search. The answer: About 25 percent. Or: Just under half. Or—my favorite—"a minority in the regular population but a majority in the gifted population."

Are introverts misunderstood? Wildly. That, it appears, is our lot in life. "It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert," write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. (They are also the source of the quotation in the previous paragraph.) Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.

Are introverts oppressed? I would have to say so. For one thing, extroverts are overrepresented in politics, a profession in which only the garrulous are really comfortable. Look at George W. Bush. Look at Bill Clinton. They seem to come fully to life only around other people. To think of the few introverts who did rise to the top in politics—Calvin Coolidge, Richard Nixon—is merely to drive home the point. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, whose fabled aloofness and privateness were probably signs of a deep introverted streak (many actors, I've read, are introverts, and many introverts, when socializing, feel like actors), introverts are not considered "naturals" in politics.

Extroverts therefore dominate public life. This is a pity. If we introverts ran the world, it would no doubt be a calmer, saner, more peaceful sort of place. As Coolidge is supposed to have said, "Don't you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?" (He is also supposed to have said, "If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it." The only thing a true introvert dislikes more than talking about himself is repeating himself.)

With their endless appetite for talk and attention, extroverts also dominate social life, so they tend to set expectations. In our extrovertist society, being outgoing is considered normal and therefore desirable, a mark of happiness, confidence, leadership. Extroverts are seen as bighearted, vibrant, warm, empathic. "People person" is a compliment. Introverts are described with words like "guarded," "loner," "reserved," "taciturn," "self-contained," "private"—narrow, ungenerous words, words that suggest emotional parsimony and smallness of personality. Female introverts, I suspect, must suffer especially. In certain circles, particularly in the Midwest, a man can still sometimes get away with being what they used to call a strong and silent type; introverted women, lacking that alternative, are even more likely than men to be perceived as timid, withdrawn, haughty.

Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts. Also, it is probably due to our lack of small talk, a lack that extroverts often mistake for disdain. We tend to think before talking, whereas extroverts tend to think by talking, which is why their meetings never last less than six hours. "Introverts," writes a perceptive fellow named Thomas P. Crouser, in an online review of a recent book called Why Should Extroverts Make All the Money? (I'm not making that up, either), "are driven to distraction by the semi-internal dialogue extroverts tend to conduct. Introverts don't outwardly complain, instead roll their eyes and silently curse the darkness." Just so.

The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it's not a choice. It's not a lifestyle. It's an orientation.

Second, when you see an introvert lost in thought, don't say "What's the matter?" or "Are you all right?"

Third, don't say anything else, either.

5 comments:

jblieu said...: Plain is boring.; Thursday, July 24, 2008
Kathie said...: I will come over and we could read books while we let our children run around and be social. OR I could stay here and read books and we could let our children run around and be social. Which if I heard correctly that is what they are doing right now, so I'm going to go find a book.

I love your multi faceted family too! I find a lot of similarities between yours and mine.; Thursday, July 24, 2008
Shasta said...: Love the description your friend gave! It is perfect and I agree with jblieu..plain is boring but it sure is nice to be plain once in a while!!; Thursday, July 24, 2008
Mary said...: Can you come raise my kids now...I want a rainbow house....; Friday, July 25, 2008
justjuls said...: I just saw this post that has been up for days - and I have to say I LOVE that picture. Did you take it? It is terrific perspective. Very artistic.

Plain is boring and I miss the color you have brought to our lives, that have turned a bit cyber gray. But, we are working on it.

I love the theater.
You'll always have Hank.; Saturday, July 26, 2008

Simply Me

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Hell Week

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