Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash
Being an introvert means being misunderstood.
I’m an INFJ myself — the most rare personality type on the planet. It sure feels that way sometimes.
Often people look at me funny when I tell them I REALLY DON’T WANT TO GO TO THAT NEXT BAR, or that I actually just took an Uber home so I could sleep in my bed.
I’m a little moody, I get that, but with these 10 things in mind, maybe you’ll start to understand introverts a little bit more.
1. Our Personal Time Is Everything
We’re all for going out and possibly even being the life of the party on occasion, but after all the hooplah dies down we need loads of time to recharge. No, we probably won’t come out for mimosas tomorrow.
You probably won’t even hear from us until next Friday when we’re ready to come out again.
Extroverts NEED the company of others, but us introverts don’t.
No, there’s nothing WRONG with us, maybe you just don’t understand the joys of being alone.
2. We Love When Extroverts Do The Talking
It’s nice going out with an extrovert. They take all the conversational weight off my shoulders and bounce around to everyone at the bar/party while dragging me along.
It’s wonderful.
That’s why I’m such great friends with extroverts. Well, that and because..
3. We Assume Things Way Too Much
I’m hypersensitive as all-get-out. I love being around extroverts because they always let me know exactly where their feelings lie.
Communication is ESSENTIAL.
Without communication, us introverts basically shrivel up and start assuming that everybody hates us.
We get WAY too far into our minds sometimes, and because we’re constantly searching for the deeper meaning behind things, we take silence for disgust.
In the end, we’re just assumption machines. We need someone who’s good at communicating to reassure us from time to time.
4. We Don’t Pay Attention To What Everybody Else Is Paying Attention To
At a baseball game, I sometimes watch anything BUT the field. I notice the aisle greeters showing people their seats. I notice that one couple a few rows down who seem to hate each other’s guts. I notice that one little screen way up in the top deck showing how fast the pitcher’s throwing.
I can get pretty focused on something once you give me the chance, and I oddly thrive at this in big-moment situations with tons of distractions flying my way.
From the outside, somebody might take this for boredom, but really I’m just soaking in everything — and having quite a lot of fun doing it, I might add.
5. We’re Wrong A Lot, But Sometimes We See What Nobody Else Does
Loving to be alone with our thoughts means we think about things about 10 times more than anybody else.
This leads to a helluva lot of overthinking, but it also leads to us seeing things that nobody else can on occasion.
It also leads to us not being taken seriously sometimes, and even being called a little crazy.
This is a life that we live as introverts. Sometimes nobody believes what we see because we aren’t exactly the most demonstrative about our opinions.
But we DO see…
6. We’re Easily Hurt (And We Want An Apology Without Mentioning It)
My best friend hasn’t called me for weeks. We used to talk on the phone once every 6-7 days, and I’m hurt by that.
I know he’s got a busy schedule — but he did seem to end our weekly talks cold-turkey because of a rough time we went through recently (a time, in all honesty, that WASN’T my fault).
I wish he’d say sorry for our little disagreement, but if I tell him that I’m hurt and he apologizes because I told him, will that even be a legit apology?
7. We Get Flustered
The easy definition of an introvert is one that recharges their batteries when they’re alone. This means that every gathering we go to slowly strips away at our social endurance until we need to be by ourselves.
We get flustered pretty easily because we’re taking in everything that our environment is giving us. I like to compare it to how kid Superman was in Man of Steel when he couldn’t focus on anything because his mind was picking up everything.
That’s right, we introverts are like Superman. Never forget it.
8. We Can’t Explain Things As Well As We’d Like
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt helpess because I couldn’t explain something the way that it was in my mind. Yeah, I can write up a storm, but in the moment I can’t think of much to say that’s going to back up my point.
This is because we’re still working through so many things in our mind at once. But when the dust settles in our thoughts we’ll have a whole lot to say — the problem with that is it’s already too late most of the time.
9. Once We Let You In, We’ll Do Anything For You (To A Fault)
I have a handful of friends. I don’t have many because I like to funnel most of my time into the one or two relationships that mean a lot to me.
I’d rather be an AMAZING friend to a couple people than a mediocre (but forgettable) friend to thousands.
This leads to us being trampled on sometimes, though. It’s only natural for someone to be ungrateful after we’ve extended ourselves so far. It leaves us wide open to get screwed.
10. We’re Best One-On-One
My favorite memories of my best friend and I involve us hanging out alone watching movies and bullshitting about life. That’s where I’m at my best.
Yes, we love to be alone, but sometimes we love being alone with one or two other people just as much.
Being an introvert isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Often it seems like I’m misconstrued a handful of times per day, but when the opposite party knows what they’re working with, it might make things a little bit easier to understand so they don’t, in turn, overanalyze your quietness for something else.
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