If a Party Were Held For Introverts, Would Anyone Show Up? (Or Would the Extroverts Crash the Party?)

From your own descriptions of yourself, I'd say you're an extrovert by nature, but with a central nervous system that can't handle the strain for long. And when you're too flippin polite for your own good and let people run over you, it puts more strain on your CNS.

Mom appreciates Dad for his deep and thorough thinking about things and knows and trusts his conclusions because she knows he's a better thinker than her and Dad appreciates a lot of things about mom, but he's the introverted one so he doesn't talk as much about what those are.

Lol...

Lynx and I have this long-running argument.

He is constantly trying to define me within his own terms. (Just wait 'til we get to the "Nerd Vs. Geek" argument.)

And I keep telling him, "I have the right to define myself!"

Goodness knows I've put the work into it.

Lol...

Lynx and I have this long-running argument.

He is constantly trying to define me within his own terms. (Just wait 'til we get to the "Nerd Vs. Geek" argument.)

And I keep telling him, "I have the right to be wrong in how I define myself!"

Goodness knows I've put the work into it.

Introversion is a real thing, and a lot of the things you said in your post are common misunderstanings / accusations that extraverts have toward introverts. I think much of it comes from the fact that extraverts are absolutely miserable when alone and so assume that being alone must be miserable for everyone and so people would only choose to spend time alone if there were some other issue (like fear) hindering them from wanting to interact with people. So they often equate introversion with fear, shyness, social anxiety or something similar that is a problem to be solved.

This is a really good analysis, More. I know it was written for Going and I'll be looking forward to reading his reply, but this summary applies to me very well, too.

Another good example of my "recent" (in the past few years) discovery of myself as an introvert is that I question myself more often about what I should and shouldn't share. In the past, I would just write whatever came to mind, but these days, I seem to be a little more reserved.

The reason why I wonder if people can change from one thing to another is because I think before my divorce, I was more of an extrovert and perhaps grew up as one. I had always lived around family and other people, so I didn't even realize introvertedness existed. Looking back, I think my then-husband was more introverted than I was and maybe that was part of what drove him towards someone else.

After he left, I would come home, throw my keys on the empty kitchen counter, and listen to the hollow echo of the sound ricocheting off empty walls (and, what it felt like my empty heart.) I went from always being around people or a husband to lying on the couch literally listening to the clock ticking on the wall. At the time, I was dying to be around someone.

For the first several years, I thought it would kill me. I hung on to the hope that he would eventually change his mind and we would get remarried. But when that didn't happen, and the years turned into decades, something happened to me that changed the isolation from draining my life away to starting to restore my energy (I just didn't know it at the time.)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I think a lot of other things came into play, such as co-dependency, depression, and the extreme fear of being alone forever. Now I think I have a fear that even if I did find someone, he might not understand that I might need to lock myself in a room for a day just so that I can read and write in an attempt to organize my thoughts.

As Sole adeptly pointed out, most people seem to see being an introvert as some kind of sickness that needs to be cured.

I see it instead as the way God made me. As long as I'm following what He wants and making the effort to be around/reach out to people in the doses that He prescribes for me (and not what others try to dictate), there is nothing to be cured (improved upon, yes, of course, but nothing to be forced into being like anyone else.)

Ben, I do understand in that sometimes it CAN be a matter of people being afraid to talk to others and needing to face their fears, but for some of us, we just do much, much better if we have more alone time with God and less time around people.

Yeah and I also know a lot of married people who think that way about single people. "We need to fix that poor person's problem and help him/her find a nice spouse, the poor miserable soul!"

@BenFTW -- I want to give you major kudos for being willing to listen to others' explanations of how they define being an introvert. Do you see yourself as an extrovert? And did you grow up around extroverts, introverts, or a mix?


@cinder -- Really enjoyed your explanation of your parents, and how an introvert and extrovert can come to a compromise. Very useful information, so many thanks for taking the time to write that out.

@cinder @seoulsearch Forgive me for my ignorance and just entertain my inquiry, please.

How do you reconcile this idea of introversion, and God’s word that says to not forsake the fellowship of the brethren? Do you find your introversion to be an obstacle to walking in love towards others? Walking in obedience, even, to the Lord?

Granted people may be introverted for different reasons maybe you don’t struggle with social events but as you described it, you find it draining. If God made you to be this way, drained from the presence of others and thriving alone, what role do you suppose you are to serve in the church? An intercessor? Where have you found your introversion to not impede yourself from serving others?

I fixed it for ya.

Thank you for being so patient and polite, Ben. And thank you for not saying, "Well this is just the way it is, and you're wrong!"

One of the reasons I'm trying to be more reserved in my posts is because I've written about these things in my life several times on CC, and I get concerned about boring people.

I understand that if one is an extrovert and enjoys being around people, it might seem like an introvert is somehow handicapped at serving God and people, and this is a very valid point. As I gave in the example earlier, God recently convicted me of an incidence of being selfish and staying home rather than going out and listening to people, so as Cinder said, each state of being has its own challenges and pitfalls.

And also like Cinder, I also tend to be seen as a listener but what really happens is that I'm usually trapped by an extrovert who doesn't realize that conversations are 2-way exchanges because they only know how to talk and not listen in return. So of course, both introverts AND extroverts can be prone to selfishness and have to find a balance between giving and taking.

Please don't disregard introverts or think that they are somehow less useful to others or to God. Here are the typical things God seems to call me to do:

1. Cleaning and tasks that others don't want to do, often because they think the work is below them.

* Have you ever seen a church pew covered in ink stains? Some of us come along and try our hardest to see that they're removed.

* If you appreciate a clean toilet in the restrooms at your church (and especially in the children's church), it might be one of us introverts who scrubbed it out before your arrival.

* One of the teams I was on took turns going into the nursery and cleaning/sanitizing all the children's toys every week to lessen any chances of the kids getting sick. One of the introverted mothers was concerned about her own and others' kids health, especially during the winter months, and started this ministry on her own, while recruiting some of us to help.

2. Behind-the-scenes work -- an introvert's specialty -- things such as stuffing/preparing bulletins, typing things out, setting up stages/props, washing dishes, and all the things that are somehow "magically done" but no one thinks about how they got done or who got them done.

3. Correspondence -- I have literally written thousands (probably closer to tens of thousands) of letters over the years in all kinds of settings. It's amazing how much difference an exchanges of letters can make in a person's life... Friends, family, people from college, co-workers, and people on websites or in mission fields, but my most favorite was when I was corresponding with people in extreme situations, such as those in the military and those serving life without parole sentences in prison.

Nothing brings your faith to a new level (for me at least) than receiving a letter from someone who witnessed a shooting or stabbing and is wondering where God is in that situation.

I actually get cravings for this kind of work (it keeps my brain challenged in a way that nothing else does) but have felt God has put me "on hold" for that type of work (too dangerous for a single gal), and I miss it TERRIBLY.

So in the meantime, I try to use my love of written correspondence in any other way I can to serve God's purposes in my life.

I think that's another interesting contrast between introverts and extroverts. Extroverts are used to being out and being seen, or will see others, while doing their work for the Lord.

Introverts like myself thrive on being hidden and doing all the background work that extroverts often don't see, because they often crave the limelight. Just because you don't see an introvert next to you or out and about among the people, PLEASE don't ever automatically judge him or her as someone who is not serving the Lord.

Thank you so much for being willing to listen a bit more as to what being an introvert is like! <3

@cinder @seoulsearch Forgive me for my ignorance and just entertain my inquiry, please.

How do you reconcile this idea of introversion, and God’s word that says to not forsake the fellowship of the brethren? Do you find your introversion to be an obstacle to walking in love towards others? Walking in obedience, even, to the Lord?

Granted people may be introverted for different reasons maybe you don’t struggle with social events but as you described it, you find it draining. If God made you to be this way, drained from the presence of others and thriving alone, what role do you suppose you are to serve in the church? An intercessor? Where have you found your introversion to not impede yourself from serving others?

Extroversion:
the real positive for extroverts is that they are interested in other people. And other people feel that enthusiasm towards them.
Extroverts usually have good listening skills? Well case by case perhaps. The stereotypical "small talk" extrovert is not so pretty. If thats all they are interested in, i mean. Extroverts who prefer more in depth conversation, are far more useful to society imo. Counsellors being one of their jobs by choice.