The blog of a happy introvert!
From the category archives:
Sometimes we’re accused of being snobs or disliking society in general. “OK, just be that way! You’re antisocial!” We’ve all heard that when we say no thanks to the fourth lunch invitation that week or to yet another party with coworkers. Of course there’s nothing wrong with us, any more than there’s something wrong with [...]
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Most of us introverts are conscious of how we have to be careful to allocate our days and people-energy to the people and things that we care about most in our lives. We want to spend time with loved ones and other friends. We need to give our very best to our job, [...]
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Since childhood, I have never understood the people I uncharitably think of as “chameleons.” From the time we were teenagers, I’ve known two people who seemed to completely change themselves several times, based on who they were hanging out with. As teenagers, they started out in a relatively rough crowd in high [...]
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Although some introverts are calm, or appear calm almost all the time, I’m not that type. When I’m under pressure to think and get something important done, I’m calm and analytical, unless there are humans talking to me while I’m trying to think. Actually, I’d always thought I was the type to get [...]
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Unless we seriously have nothing to do, introverts hate interruptions when they’re trying to work. Interruptions not only temporarily take us away from the task we’re trying to complete, they destroy our concentration and may set us back hours trying to get back to where we left off. Some interruptions are important, such as when [...]
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As I’ve told you, I truly love being an introvert. I can’t describe to extroverts the elation I feel when I know I have a good long stretch of time where I can read, write, or do whatever I want. But of course I live in the real world where every day [...]
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I saw this bumper sticker on Zazzle a few weeks ago, and it caught my eye because it mentions one of our traits that many people don’t know about. Many of us take a bit longer to think before we speak than extroverts do. Oh we can come up with words just fine when [...]
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A couple of weeks ago we had an all-day staff meeting, where the folks in my department who usually work in other cities all came to our main office. Our boss is a super cool guy and wants the meetings to be beneficial and fun, so he had an action-packed agenda including an outside [...]
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I have been reading an awesome ebook, The Personality Puzzle: Understanding What Makes People Tick the last couple of days, and it has helped me to see another dimension as far as personality goes. I’m an introvert, and a lot of the people I work with are introverts, but some of them are so [...]
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When I get a big project at work, I usually jump right into the things I can do alone. I read the documents, look at everything online I can find about the subject, purchase any software that is needed, etc. What brings me to a screeching halt is usually something that I [...]
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“Aw, do I hafta?” You might hear me saying that to myself right before a friend’s wedding or a business dinner. I’m pretty strongly introverted, and although I love my friends and family and want to have great working relationships, I’d happily skip a lot of social events to which I’m invited. [...]
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Imagine you’re swimming along the bottom of a pool, tasked with analyzing a pattern of markings on the bottom. You’re finally starting to understand what you see and make some sense of it, when suddenly a voice transmits down into the water, “Hey! Come up now!” So you break away [...]
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It took me a while to like instant messenger. As an introvert, I despise the phone unless I am talking to someone whose voice I really want to hear, so I love email. Email offers a wonderful moment to think, even if I click Reply almost instantly. I find it much easier [...]
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I expend a lot of energy just going through the work day interacting with others, so I simply do not have the energy to defend myself in a pleasantly assertive way against a pushy person with no boundaries. I know I would NEVER ask someone for an unreaonsable favor, and I (unreasonably) expect others to live by the same rules I do! When they don’t, I am angry and I really want to avoid them.
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I had to learn the hard way that having to repeat myself is one of the things I detest the most. For a couple of decades since then I had thought the loathing of repeating myself was just an “ornery” trait of mine, but I’ve become more aware that it is a trait shared [...]
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There are many events that I can hear about a few months in advance and think, oh yes that’s something I should attend. But there’s one thing that keeps me away from those things just about 100% of the time: the unstructured “social hour” before the event.
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I got the two best jobs of my life because both times I knew someone who was in a position to help me and wanted to do so. I did all of this while still maintaining my status as an introvert who hates meaningless small talk and will never interrupt people or have a loud sales pitch. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned over the past few years.
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We introverts have a lot going on in these brains of ours! And if you’re like me, you’ll dig deep into your job, including all the details, and if you have a question or get stopped somewhere, you may send your boss an email. I do that all the time. I despise [...]
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There they are, talking so loudly, often interrupting each other in the meeting, all of them just full of great ideas and talking on and on and on. What’s wrong with the guy who’s in that seat nearest the door, doodling, looking at his watch, and looking as if he only wants to leave? Well [...]
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Why do people ask introverts, “Are you OK?” just because we aren’t yammering on all the time? Who are these people who’ve appointed themselves the facial expression police? I can be at my desk, deep in thought, maybe trying to figure out a complex formula, and someone walks by and says calls my name, shattering [...]
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