Day 24: Quiet

Until about a year ago, I had spent a good deal of time wondering what was wrong with me. I felt I had been misunderstood by most people my entire life, and by no one more than myself.

I would look at the people I knew, the ones who seemed so confident and complete and happy with their lives and their families, and I couldn’t understand what was keeping me from being more like them. I saw so many things I thought were parts of normal life that were missing from mine. It’s not that I sat around for months and years at a time neck-deep in reflective self-loathing or anything, but I didn’t understand why things were the way they were. Eventually I decided there was probably something wrong with me, and for whatever reason I was the only one who wasn’t able to see it. I figured I could either continue to passively beat myself up over this (as I had been on and off for several years) or just accept how things were, and move on. I moved on.

And then I read Susan Cain’s book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. It’s not overstating things to say this book changed my life.

Suddenly everything made sense. There wasn’t anything wrong with me; I was just something of an outlier in what had, until recently, been an under-recognized category, at least in terms of how dominant of a personality trait it could be.

The book described introverts as people who find their energy internally, and have a need for a certain amount of quiet and solitude to recharge and feel comfortable. Being in a crowd of people, whether that crowd is a concentrated group of four or an informal group of fifty, becomes overwhelming very quickly and difficult to internally manage. Introverts aren’t anti-social misfits who avoid all social interaction; they just don’t have a need for it, and are highly reactive to too much stimulation all at once. And since there aren’t as many of us as our extroverted counterparts, the world can sometimes be an uphill battle for us.

Reading Susan Cain describe her own experiences and share her extensive research and interviewing with other introverts made me feel like I had discovered a support group I hadn’t even realized I’d needed. It was like living a life where I was sure there was something chronically wrong with my body until, by chance, I encountered a medical specialist who was able to assure me: “No, that thing you’re worried about? It’s actually totally normal. You just weren’t aware of it.”

It explained so many things: How I often hesitate or openly refuse to put myself in a position where I’d be the center of attention without any control over what happens; why it’s impossible for me to feel comfortable if I’m sitting with my back to anyone in a meeting; why the mere act of having to sell fund raiser items door-to-door as a child or a teenager was physically and existentially painful; why I had a short list of go-to generic excuses to talk my way out of social engagements I see as overwhelming (and then would rationalize afterward that my absence wouldn’t even be noticed); the way I can throw around one-liners to a social networking audience, but come across as much more guarded in real life with people, unless I feel safe enough to trust they accept me; why following through on a blind date set up is something I’d procrastinate into oblivion. A fishing trip with the guys? I’ve never had a group of “the guys” to take a fishing trip with, and even if I had, that kind of concentrated proximity with casual acquaintances for that much time would be absolute torture for me. Even my typical gaming strategy of carefully observing my surroundings before taking action screams introversion.

I remember my mother being concerned that instead of riding my bike through the neighborhood looking for new friends, I was more than content to explore the woods behind our house alone, inserting myself into first-person adventure stories the whole time. I know there are people on the staff at my school who are convinced I’m arrogant and aloof and either don’t like them or just won’t give them the time of day, when the truth is much closer to me not knowing them well enough to have that level of trust and safety and connection to be comfortable with them. One of my closest friends at school is probably the most extroverted person I know. If she hadn’t made it a mission to bulldoze her way through every guarded wall of defense I usually have around me, we would never have gotten to know each other the way we do now.

The more I read, the more it reminded me how introversion had usually been a component of different personality inventories I’d taken as educational experiences during college and my post-grad work. Curious, I found an online version of the Meyers-Briggs personality test and looked it over. I’d seen enough of these tests and inventories like them in my professional life to recognize it was likely more reliable than a quiz trying to pinpoint my favorite fictional snack at Hogwarts, so I went through the extensive question list and answered it all as truthfully as I could. My introversion score came in at 100%.

I think of my work in school, and I’m glad I have a strong team of people I work with and that I have the level of trust I need to work with them effectively. But that hasn’t always been the case, and it won’t always remain that way. It’s not exactly a secret at my school that I’m not a fan of most meetings. I see them as a part of the process, a convention in a work environment that wants to prize collaboration. As an introvert, I don’t have the same need others do to talk things out and bounce around ideas. I’m usually more successful with a strategy of “Just tell me what you want me to do and let me go figure out the best way I can do it.” Historically, a lot of my better ideas have come from having the chance to work something out independently and then pursuing my own vision, and I’m confident that if these bigger projects had been brought to committee before I had a chance to realize them, they would not have been as effective. 

I don’t see “not collaborating” and “working alone” as being either/or prospects. Different people just need different approaches to do their best work. I will commonly give my students the choice between either working in small groups or working independently when the opportunities come up in class. For me, that’s just as important of a differentiated learning accommodation as providing a variety of experiences to meet various academic abilities.

It seems like since Quiet came out, there have been all kinds of memes and groups and quizzes all about introverted people. I know of extroverts who are very bothered by this, like this fad is all about “Oh, these introverts think they’re so special all of the sudden, and I’m tired of seeing this crap painting them as multi-dimensional saints while the extroverts are labeled as little more than thoughtless, blathering annoyances.” Well, I would agree with that point if it were true, but I don’t think that’s exactly the case. I’m sure it is for some people -- after all, we introverts have all made our way through lives where we have been absolutely steamrolled into nonexistence by some of you extroverts, and, yeah, there are times we’ve probably been a little pissed about it. But everyone has been made by different experiences. And remember: We’ve been misunderstood for a long time. Coming into our own is not necessarily something we’re going to do with boldness and immediacy.

Everybody’s viewing the world through their own personal lens, which is something it wouldn’t hurt any of us to remember. I now know that if I go out to a happy hour some night after school (even if, to be frank, the place where I work doesn’t seem to have a lot of people interested in such things these days), I know I can manage it. In fact, I want to go -- I really do. I like a lot of the people I work with, and hopefully I’m comfortable enough with myself to make sure they understand that. I enjoy spending time with them, and if I have the chance to sit down with someone and get caught up in a deep and personal conversation, I know that’s a reward for me and hopefully for the other person, or people, as well. But I also know if I don’t find that and I wind up with people where small talk and bantering surrounds the table all night, I’m probably going to leave early and not feel the least bit guilty about it.

Because if I do that, it’s not a judgment about anyone else. It’s just finally being able to acknowledge who I am and take care of that.