I is for Introvert

The first time I ever had one of those Meyers-Brigs scores done was back when I worked at the pharm. They were using it as some kind of team-building exercise, and it was decided that based on my answers I was an INTP. Little bit "P". Really "T". Little bit "N". Really really really holy-crap-lookit-that-score "I". The "I" of course, stood for Introvert.

And nobody I worked with would believe it.

I got told I couldn't possibly be an introvert because I had purple hair and a nose ring. Because I had a lot of friends and regularly went to clubs and parties. One woman even told me I was too smart to be an introvert.

My absolute favourite reaction was from the director - herself a strong extrovert - who proposed that the test be administered during the interview process so that potential introverts could be weeded out before they got hired. To this day I have no idea whether or not she was joking.

All that was a long time ago. Now it's the twenty-first century and introverts are kind of like gay people - most folks who have a net connection have at least heard of us. Even if they don't know any themselves they have friends who have friends who are "innies" and the general consensus is that we should mostly be treated like normal people.

Because there are websites on Absolutely Everything there are even sites that talk about introverts. What they're like and how to take care of them. I've read a few. And eventually even the smartest ones, the ones written by introverts themselves say something stupid. Something like: "An introvert will prefer a quiet night with a few close friends than a loud party." Or "will prefer an evening of television at home over a crowded concert."

And I'm here to say in response to these pearls of wisdom, "Malarkey." I'm about as introverted as a human can get without actually turning into a hermit crab. And I love going to loud concerts and crowded parties - when I feel like going out. The only difference between me and some E-to-the-extreme extrovert like say, the_axel is that for him being around people is energizing. For me it's exhausting.

So while I can honestly say that I love being around people, my love bears certain similarities to how I love say, hiking. Or working out. Or really athletic sex. Because no matter how much I love it and no matter how much fun it is, eventually I'm going to get tired and I am going to have to stop. (The other similarity is that no matter how much I know I'm going to enjoy it once I get there, I still often have trouble getting off my ass to leave the damn house. Or that might be one of those other little-known personality traits like "lazy" or "addicted to Warhammer".) And it's also the case that when other things are going on, like depression (hello) or stress, my people-energy is the first expendable resource that my brain will jettison.

bcholmes is an introvert like me. the_axel, on the other hand, is a major extrovert. People recharge his batteries. He's never happier than when he is presiding over one of his pig roasts like an indulgent King in a Hawaiian shirt. When I would go through one of my never-leave-the-house phases he used to try to stay in with me and be The Good Boyfriend. Over time I could watch him visibly wilting from lack of stimulation. Eventually he couldn't take it any more and would drag me out to some social event - and then I wouldn't be able to get it together to go to work on Monday.

It took us a while but we finally managed to figure out that yes; he should go out dancing with our friends every week without me. He would get his much-needed social time and I would get THE ENTIRE HOUSE TO MYSELF omg bliss! for a night. Both of us are happy and it means when I have the spoons available to do social events I end up enjoying them a whole lot more.

But what's really funny? He's the shy one of the two of us. The one who hesitates when it comes to walking into an environment where he doesn't know anybody. I can think of multiple occasions where we've sat down at a bar together and I've ended up dragging us into a conversation with the strangers sitting next to us and afterward he's said, "How do you do that?"

So, me and Axel are: shy/extrovert + outgoing/introvert. Put us together and you get a whole person.

(I would classify bcholmes as a shy/introvert. Now we just need an outgoing/extrovert to complete the set. I'll just have to send them out with the_axel on a regular basis so they don't drive me nuts.)