Simply Me: News To Me

As the name of my Blog implies, I am a simple soul. I am never on the cutting edge of anything. It runs in my family, I can't help it. When I was a child, my Aunt Clare (one of the crazy ones I am supposed to be a lot like) pulled me aside to excitedly share a delightful discovery. They had found a brand new kind of gum & she wanted me to try it. This was the era of chocolate Hubba Bubba & new watermelon Bubble Yum, so the possibilities were pretty exciting. She opens her dresser drawer where she kept her treasures...and hands me a stick of Juicy Fruit. Juicy Fruit had been around for like 80 years at that point but because they always bought spearmint, it was all new to them! So, it is genetic, I can't help it. We only just started watching The Simpson's this year, I still refer to CDs as albums & I think of flavored Pringles, Super Mario & Jay Leno as "new". So imagine my surprise tonight when I happen across a satellite map of a humongous hurricane about to eat Texas....specifically Beaumont. So being right on top of the ball I urgently email my friend Jewls in Texas to share my findings and tell her I think it is probably a good idea to head, I'm thinking, North. Imagine my surprise (yet again) when she immediately emails me back from a diner in Mississippi where she is sitting with my son! Clyde-Pierre is having dinner with the Forsythes. Wow. Of course I think she is lying, so I check her blog...and she really is there! I run into Wolfgang's room to tell him the breaking news about the gimongous hurricane trying to eat Texas & about them all sitting there with his very own brother Pierre & he just looked at me as if I had just offered him a piece of Juicy Fruit. Apparently my son has escaped the genetic oblivion & actually knows how to use a phone and has been talking to Kullen all evening. HA! Oh well. I will try to go to sleep & stop trying to understand how she emailed me from a diner and can write blog posts while driving. I am guessing her blackberry is not the same as "my" blackberry. Some mysteries will always be too big for my little brain. Happy Evacuating Forsythes! Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on that weather for you. IHOP... is that new??

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.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: An expression often used that may offend some has become one of my favorites and one I am not in the least bit offended..."ignorance is bliss". I've found through years and experience, the less I know, the less I have to worry about, the less I have, the less the less I have to keep up with and the less I do, the less weary and tired I become.

"Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before, that you may walk honestly toward them that are without and that you may have lack of nothing. I Thessalonians 4:11,12

Ever since my trip out West and I missed seeing our friend in Texas, I've been meaning to ask you exactly where in Texas she does live. I thought of it again yesterday when I heard about the storm on the radio and I still forgot to ask you. Anyway, how cool that is that two of your favorite people are dining together and yet so far away.

Juicy Fruit will always remind me of my mother (also sitting in church peeling the aluminum off the paper wrapper) and I remember waiting a couple years after Hubba Bubba came out before I could actually enjoy it, because I had braces on my teeth for about FIVE years. The day I got my braces off, that was the first thing I bought on the way home. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Luna; Friday, September 12, 2008
Mary said...: Hahahahaha, you crack me up. Is this anything like forgeting to buckle a car seat in?? Hahaha, I won't go their. I still call cd's albums too. Coming from a Mom like mine, we were always one of the first to have it...whatever "it" was at the moment. I am like the complete opposite then my Mom. We are usually the last or just never have "it".

I sure wish I could have met some of these relatives of yours. I would have enjoyed them....; Friday, September 12, 2008
Dwayne D said...: LOL you always bring a smile to my face Keet. BTW I still call them "albums" too :D; Friday, September 12, 2008
justjuls said...: This makes for the BEST memories though. I had attempted to call you and tell you what was happening and that we were going to see Pierre - but ya know - it was just way more fun this way!
We all know how that phone thing goes.
Love you -
Thanks for watching my back.; Saturday, September 13, 2008

Simply Me

Friday, September 12, 2008

News To Me

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