I’m not alone.
There are others out there, but we’re a formless group with no T-shirts, no password, no secret handshake. We don’t have a 12-step program, a 10k run to fund research for our cause or celebrity endorsements.
We live among you, as unseen by others as we can be to ourselves. We’re misunderstood, often misidentified, occasionally misdiagnosed.
I write of what I know, but it’s taken me years to come clean and declare my true self. And now that I’ve come forward, the liberating relief is heady and delicious.
I’m talking about transverts: self-denying introverts who have lived their lives as extroverts. And who could blame us for crossing over or masquerading in the E camp? In our culture, it’s Extroverts R Us. The bogus associations afloat go something like this: Extroverts are charismatic; introverts are mousy. Extroverts maneuver with social ease; introverts withdraw from social encounters. Extrovert = sexy, confident. Introvert = neither of those.
“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,” wrote Jonathan Rauch, a fellow transvert, in a 2003 Atlantic Magazine essay. “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. ”
We can’t blame Carl Jung for the way his century-old notion of personality classification has been corrupted. We’ve relegated introversion and extroversion to opposite ends of a measuring stick, even though most of us are more like theme parks–complex and messy–and have qualities and behaviors from both camps. (That exotic bird, the ambivert, is said to be solidly in the middle of the scale, but sightings are rare.) Most of us lie in the vast grey spaces between the two poles and have a mash-up of qualities from both, but our culture relishes labels and shortcuts. And there’s an odd certitude to those descriptors, isn’t there? Just as I know I am right-handed and female, I’ve known I was extroverted.
I started early. As the oldest of five children, I was the bossy big sister pressed into semi-adult service from an early age. I was trained and rewarded when I could make people laugh, speak with ease to grown ups and rally the pack of neighborhood kids for afternoon games of Kick the Can.
And on it went into adulthood. I continued to be rewarded for the classic extroverted behaviors, never noticing that they didn’t get my gas tank above empty. Those behaviors got me recognition, but they never got me recharged. Public speaking? Not a problem. Working a party? Piece of cake. Talkative, optimistic, attention-seeking? That’s me. Those are hallmarks of an extrovert, right? Well, not exactly. Defining as either isn’t about a catalogue of personality traits; it’s about our electrical systems, about knowing how we are wired on the most fundamental level to process social stimulation.
I’ve lived with the idea that because I could do it–all those outwardly directed things associated with extroversion–that that was who I am. But when I stand still and dig deep, I know I’d rather recharge with a book of poetry than an invitation to a party. Introversion isn’t about being shy; shyness is fear of judgment in social situations. Introversion isn’t about being socially maladroit or withdrawn. Introvert, extrovert: It’s about where I get my juice. I know I can move among the extroverts, speak their language and pass for one of them. But it comes down to this: Do I refill my low battery from a plug into the outside world or from plugging into a socket inside myself? Turns out, I’m an innie.
I had dinner with six very good friends a few nights ago. Red wine, laughter, stories. At one point a dear friend told an anecdote about foregoing a party because she wanted to stay in and gather herself. I get so drained just talking with people, she said. Sometimes what I really want is to be alone, taking a walk and rolling thoughts around inside my head.
But you, she said. You wouldn’t know about that.
Oh, yes. I would.
