Question of the day.

   Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, what are some annoying things that the opposite do? 

   My answer: 

   Well I’m an introvert, and what I’m going to say obviously aren’t things that I think ALL extroverts do, just what I experienced with quite a few of them. 

   The most annoying thing imo is how a lot of extroverts see introversion as something weird, abnormal or pathological, something that is the worse option of the two and that you should at least try to change, or else you’re crazy, strange or something. I think if it’s something pathological, it’s not introversion but anxiety or other things like that, and introversion is just a totally neutral trait. Sure, there are more introverts than extroverts who have social anxiety or are shy, but that doesn’t mean that introversion alone is something that is deemed to make you pathologically shy and socially crippled, or that extroverts cannot develop those things (I actually wonder if something like social anxiety wouldn’t be even more painful and frustrating for an extrovert to live with). It’s kind of like being tall vs being short for example – each has its own upsides and downsides and potential risks that are more linked to the one but not the other, but none is inherently better or worse than the other. – 

   A lot of extroverts I know have a bit of an egocentric mentality, which sometimes really annoys me. They always readily assume that you must enjoy the same things as them, and if you’re not into partying or going out with their whole group of friends that you barely know, and if you politely refuse or something, they’ll assume you’re haughty/rude/cocky or that you don’t like them, alternatively they’ll keep trying to persuade you because they know that you want to do it and that you need company and someone who’d make your life less “boring”, you just don’t know it yourself yet, and even if you really do not want it, it’s the normal thing to do so you should. Speaking of extroverts assuming that you’re haughty or rude, that’s something that, to me personally as both an introvert as well as someone with AVPD and all that fun stuff that affects my peopling capacity, isn’t just annoying but also quite hurtful, because the last thing I want is for people to assume that I’m being deliberately rude towards them or don’t like them or consider myself superior in relation to them. 

   Insisting that you come in and stay at theirs when you just popped for a little while. Sure, it is hospitable to offer that, but insisting more than once when the invited individual already said “No, thank you”, to me it seems rather pushy and sometimes even threatening when someone is hellbent on having it their way. A lot of my family do that, and so does my Dad when people come to us. I always feel for them when they’ve come to, for example, just take their car back after last night’s party and my Dad invites them to come all over again and they’re like: “Oh no, no, thank you, we’d like to but we have this and this and that to do at home!” And he keeps going: “Oh but just stay for a cup of coffee” Guests: “Sorry but…” Dad: “I’ll make you a cuppa, come in, come in!” Guests: “But we really can’t stay long…” Dad: “Milk or sugar?”… That’s obnoxious! I totally get that he just wants to be nice and hospitable but, for flip’s sake, there’s a limit to everything! 

   And something that is objectively very minor but a real pet peeve of mine is how extroverts call introverted people “quiet”. I hate this word so, so much! Like, really? You see me for five minutes, during which I don’t really have much to say to you because I barely know you (and, as we’ve already established, I don’t know how to do peopling really) and you already know that I’m quiet? You should spend a minute in my brain. 😀 I can be very quiet, but I can  talk up a storm just as well in the right circumstances, and I think many introverts are like that, it depends how comfortable they feel in a given situation and how much they have to say on a specific topic. Some people, in addition to quickly labelling others with the “quiet” label, say it in a way that sounds as if they perceived those so-called “quiet” people as pretty dull and boring. And I do get that a lot of introverts seem like that at  first glance indeed. Sometimes even at second, too. And that group of introverts absolutely includes Bibielz too, perhaps even in the top 5! 😀 But if you label someone as “quiet” right away, you can’t expect them to ever open up to you. We’ll let you see what you want to see, we wouldn’t want you to get a shock from finding out how intense it can get when we go “loud”. 😀 And even those who are truly  quiet and very careful with how much they say at all times, they can be extremely deep people in their inner peace and balance, even deeper than those of us who hide intensity behind quietness, and in my experience can be really wise and anything but boring, but it takes time to get to know them of course. 

   So I think these are all the things that I find particularly annoying about some extroverts. 

   You? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   What’s the best thing about being an introvert/ambivert/extrovert? 

   My answer: 

   I wrote about introversion/ambiversion/extraversion and the advantages from it that we get in the society in a bit more detail in the past, so you can read that post as well, and the comments under it. 

   I quite like being an introvert and I don’t understand how so many people, even introverts themselves or introvert-leaning ambiverts think about it as a problem, something that is only a burden in life or something abnormal that you have to at least try your best to change. I think if it reaches a burdensome/abnormal level, it isn’t the introversion that is the actual problem, but anxiety/shyness/other people-related issues. It really irks me when people look at introversion as something pathological or inferior in relation to extroversion, and it’s weird since I guess the distribution of introverts vs extroverts seems pretty equal, extroverts  just make a bit more of a screamy impression usually as a whole, even if not all of them are necessarily screamy as separate individuals. So, since I like my introversion, it’s hard to say what is the actual BEST thing about it. 

   But I guess it’s the fact that introverts can be more self-sufficient emotionally is the best thing in strictly practical terms. I guess it must be quite difficult, especially for people who are very strongly extroverted, when they don’t have people around for a longer period and can’t really control it and feel lousy mentally as a result. As an introvert, I don’t need other people to make me happy, to provide me with things to do or meaning to my life. Sure, people can have an enhancing (or diminishing just as well, depends on a situation and specific individuals) impact on those things and make things even more interesting sometimes, but I can manage without that as well, sometimes even better because I’ve already mentioned on here a lot how I often have this thing going on when I’m around people where I can feel all the more lonely and kind of disconnected the more people there are around me, and it’s an extremely tiring feeling, way more difficult for me to tolerate than the normal aloneness. I feel all the more appreciative of that self-sufficiency that Sofi is the opposite, and so I can easily observe how difficult it can be for a pure extrovert when they don’t have that external stimulation from other people or when it’s greatly reduced, as was the case for Sofi during the pandemic, for example. I feel also really grateful for it because I am not very independent in other areas of life, so if I was also very emotionally dependent on other people on top of everything else, life would probably be quite shitty for people around me as I would likely turn into a proper parasitic being. 😀 

   How about you? 🙂 

Question of the day.

   Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, what’s a nightmare situation for your respective personality type? 

   My answer: 

   Well for those who may be very new here I am an introvert, and based on my personal experience, the winner of The Introvert’s Nightmare Situation Contest would be First Communions! Except I don’t mean the actual First Holy Communion celebration at church when the child receives the Sacrament of Eucharist for the first time, as a Catholic, I think it is amazing, as long as the child has actually been prepared well and knows what it’s all about and so does their family, because these days this is so often not the case, as people focus on everything else except what’s actually important – whose child will be best dressed, or if all are to be dressed the same than what they should be wearing, how to take the hugest amounts of photos possible during the ceremony, which child should recite a poem, which Mum should thank the priest, which child should thank the mums, whom to invite, what presents should family members get a child, and the poor children are stressed out about loads of little details and excited about what presents they’ll get etc. etc. etc. – which is why I think children should receive Holy Communion individually rather than in large groups like based on grade or age, that Communion age should be younger for most children and the whole Communion party thing should take place the day before or after or whatever makes sense in a given situation but not on the day of the actual Communion. – But that’s a whole different pair of rain boots, as we say in Polish. 

   Communion parties are usually quite nightmarish though. They usually take place in some sort of a restaurant, because who wants to do that sort of thing at home and prepare all the food or even if they get catering who wants to play waiter and dishwasher all day. My Mum did that with Sofi and ended up with a badly strained leg. Such events are usually a lot more introvert-unfriendly when they take place in a restaurant vs at home, because usually the place isn’t very familiar to you or not at all, so you can’t just sneak out somewhere less peopled as you likely would in a family member’s or friend’s house, you can’t help out in the kitchen or something like that, or even lock yourself in a loo for very long. Taking a French leave may also be more tricky. There are no pets that you could talk to and focus on instead, like when I’m at people’s houses I usually play with their cats or dogs or something but at a restaurant there’s just nothing to do. You can probably go outside for a little while, but soon there’s going to be another course or dessert or something, and you just don’t have such freedom as you could during a similar celebration in a private house, where there may be some sort of a backyard, garden, lawn or whatever where you could de-people a bit. But generally you’re supposed to sit at the table and talk and either keep loading food into yourself or wait for the next delivery. The whole thing usually also takes a lot longer in a restaurant than it does at a house, but even at a house, for some odd reason it tends to take way longer than a birthday or stuff like that. There are usually  more people around you, as it may be some sort of collective party for more than one child, or there may be other guests at the place so even if you don’t interact with them, it may also contribute to the whole situation feeling overwhelming. Oh yeah and food. Well I don’t know if this is actually an introvert thing, probably not, but for me eating out is generally a problem for quite a few different reasons. Most importantly in this particular situation though, that I just don’t like to eat in social situations, and that I can’t get quite as much food into myself in one go as most other people seem to be able, so having a two-course lunch plus several different desserts plus snacks plus a huge dinner… I mean how do people even do this?! 😀 

   So yeah, if you’ve never been to a Communion, trust me, they’re pretty bad on brain batteries. I suppose wedding receptions must be even worse, but I haven’t been to one in a very long time so thankfully don’t have the experience really. Olek (who is also an introvert, though more functional than me and he claims that he just “doesn’t like people”, which I’d say is something different because while I’m very much an introvert I certainly wouldn’t say that I dislike people) has been to a wedding reception last weekend though , and, judging from how he slept pretty much til late afternoon after it, it must have been extremely rough. 🙃

   I just asked my Mum this question and thought I’d share her answer too. My Mum is kind of a curious case because I’d say she’s very much an extrovert, whereas she says she feels more like an ambivert and usually a more introvert-leaning one. So I guess she knows better what she is. ANyways, I asked her this and she said that for her as an ambivert, such a nightmare situation would be to be in a group of stranger people that she’s never met before, like the parents-teacher meeting that she’s going to go to tomorrow at Sofi’s school, and having to speak to them all, like introduce an idea that she has and thinks is good, and then if everyone was against her idea and she had to defend it publicly. Or, alternatively, if she had the idea but ended up not sharing it at all for fear of speaking publicly and her idea being criticised, and would then really regret it because, after all, she knows that it was a good idea. I think it’s interesting how there seems to be that sort of dichotomy or inner conflict when you’ve an ambivert. Because if I were in the same situation as an introvert, there would be no dilemma. I am just not going to share the idea, no matter how good it is, and I’m not even going to regret it, because I never share my ideas with stranger people, so I’ll just entertain myself watching them and chuckle internally at how weird they are that they haven’t come up with the same idea as me yet. Whereas here you have this weird push and pull in both directions, although of course it’s not all just a matter of ambiversion but also my Mum’s sensitivity to criticism. 

   How about your nightmare situation? 🙂