Simply Me: mercurial

I am so totally susceptible to signage. I like to be told what to buy, what to eat, etc. I hate shopping & I like not having to decide. Just like I need for the cinnamon sugar to be in the little plastic boy & the chocolate syrup in the bunny, I need for pancake syrup to be in the Jemima or the log cabin & bubble gum should always be in chunks, never sticks. I can't have television as I am completely powerless over the commercials. If I see someone eating pizza, that's what we have for dinner. My kids tried to convince me that the documentary "Super Size Me" was actually NOT meant to be a commercial FOR Big Macs. It is impossible to not gain weight while watching Gilmore Girls, if Loralei eats Pop-tarts, guess who else is eating Pop-tarts. :) If I am reading a book about factory farms or watch the movie "Babe", I become a vegetarian. My friend JB got upset with me once because apparently I had managed to convert everyone around me by zealously sharing everything I knew about meat production in graphic detail, rendering her unable to touch chicken for over a year while I casually munched down on chicken nuggets a week later. One of Jewl's kids hasn't touched a hot dog since she was 9. Also my fault. I, however, am blessed with absolutely no short term memory, so while everyone else can't get the images out of their head, I have moved on to the next thing. The next pretty bright light. But JB sure got me back. When she announced she was expecting their third child I suddenly wanted one of those too! In elementary school the teacher asked me once if my friend jumped off a bridge did that mean I would too. I got in trouble because I hesitated before I answered. I was not being a smart ass. When you find yourself wondering why the companies bother to pay to have their products shown in movies because it is so obvious... what idiot would actually fall for that? That would be me. When E.T, first came out I bought more Reese's Pieces than any other human on Earth. Everything in the house is still cinnamon flavored from a Cinnabon billboard I saw over a month ago. Poor Gaston. He eats whatever I come home with & never complains, never asks, but this week he wanted to know about The Potatoes. He noticed them because he put all of them away which is because by the time I get all the groceries home I have gotten bored with them and lost interest and have moved onto the next thing. We have lost a lot of frozen food this way. The groceries live on the table and couch and counters until someone needs them. Once when Wolfgang's friend Curtis was over when I came home he asked me later why I had hidden the cereal in the hamper and was it okay to have some. Silly boy. Anyway. Saturday at Martin's when I went in for One Thing, I noticed a little tag hanging everywhere that if you buy a certain number of certain items you get 20 cents off every gallon of gasoline. Knowing that Gaston actually knows how much gas costs & that it freaks him out, I decide to be a good wife and buy the 8 items and thus save money on gas. Then the Brilliant Evil Plan began to be hatched. As that was the Last Day of this Fantastic Offer I decided I would buy the items, get the points, run over to the gas station and fill the car up with my cheap gas THEN drive home and get the truck and go back to the store, buy 8 more items, get more points then fill up the truck. Simple. (In my mind) There is no limit to my wifely devotion. Gaston would think I was absolutely brilliant! (And there is a coffee shop at Martin's.) I was basking in my brilliance until I got to the register and didn't have my smucking bonus card. The nice lady says just bring my card back later and they will apply the points from my receipt. I drive back home, find the card under the couch, jump in the truck with Wolfgang, drive back to the store, they scan my points, we get into the truck and go to the gas station but of course the special GAS points didn't work, just my normal points. (Only 10 cents off) So we go back to the store to the instant potato aisle and from behind the stack of potato boxes he was carrying I hear Wolfgang ask, "Does it work if you buy anything other than potatoes?" and I say "yes, but I can't remember anything else and we are in a hurry so grab more potatoes." So we buy more potatoes, get the points then go back to the truck, back to the gas station and get 30 cents off every gallon of gas, so I filled up the truck. With gas and potatoes. To quote my mother-in-law, "I spend more money trying to save money". And I now had no gas in the other car which was now empty from the first trip to town that morning. So I burned over a quarter tank of gas and spent $12.00 on instant potatoes to save $3.00 on gas. Whenever I try to explain these things Tallulah says I am doing Mom Math again. So when we heard the quote "susceptible to signage" on Gilmore Girls we both looked at each other & cracked up and I immediately adopted it as my motto. Unfortunately this trait of constant change is something my poor dear daughter inherited from me. Although she refers to herself as "mercurial". I like hers better. That sounds so much nicer than just being "susceptible to signage". Mine sounds so victimized and unintelligent while mercurial sounds so colorful and artistic. Hey! I want to be mercurial too!! I guess I am stuck with plain old susceptible. Little Hank asked me if he could have a candy bar at the store the other day. I picked one up and handed it to him but he said no. He needed it to be in a classic wrapper, like on Willy Wonka...and when he opened it, he needed it to say Hershey in big letters on the... Oh dear. No wonder Gaston looked less than enthusiastic when I explained that he didn't have to worry, Martin's was doing the gas offer AGAIN this week, but with different products! Oh well. At least the guy at McDonalds finds me amusing. After he showed me how they flip the menu sign from breakfast to lunch (at my request) he gave me an extra Batman Happy Meal toy. I guess that is one advantage of being me. I am very easily entertained. :)

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.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Susceptible To Signage

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