I am an introvert not because I don’t like socializing with people, but rather because I can’t shake the impression that they don’t like socializing with me (and I have been proven right in this notion).
In order to become more likable I’ve had to adopt an extremely perceptive and self critical mental framework to analyze every thing I could be doing wrong to annoy or offend people. It has worked, and people seem to like me more, but the mental exhaustion it induces has led to me often yearning for alone time.
I wonder if introverts like me are common: those who enjoy socializing very much when they feel socially safe, but rarely feel socially safe.
I do wonder how much is extraversion vs introversion, and much are other factors like shyness/social anxiety, or as another commenter mentioned, being non-neurotypical. I feel like these discussions are full of mislabelled terms and people who may not be fully self-aware of where they sit.
In social media I often see terms like "Introverted Extrovert" get thrown around when sometimes they just mean that they're an introvert who's good at masking. On the other hand, my energy level goes up in a group, but I definitely need time to warm up to new people before I can be comfortable around them.
I see "introverted extrovert" as a kind of frustrated extrovert who doesn't have compatible people around to socialise with so feels the need to mask and work hard to socialise with incompatible people. Which is of course tiring.
what is an introvert then? because these arguments also apply on introverts
someone who is drained by interacting even with compatible people whose company they enjoy
You might be a bit autistic, common enough in the software world. Lookup something called “autistic masking”.
Source: All the autistic people in my life. I really like autistic people! Find your people and you won’t have to pretend around them.
Right now, we increasingly like to stick labels on things, and I'm not sure it's helpful.
Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. Very few people in your life are likely to be autistic. As with many such things, it's a spectrum. Unless those cross a pathological threshold, it's not autism. Few SWEs are over that threshold.
We used to call people "nerdy," "quirky," or other things (and it was okay to be that). That's in the natural spread of human personalities. If you're 5% of the way towards dyslexia, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or whatever else, it's in the range of human personalities, not disorders.
It's helpful to understand how different people work. Most SWEs and introverts share some characteristics with people with autism, and reading about autism can help understand oneself by interpolation. However, the label is not fair either people with actual autism, or to people without autism who believe they have it.
Footnote: My experience is that extrovert versus introvert is mostly a function of whether you're invigorated by interacting with people or tired by it, and especially by people you don't know well. Yes, social skills are helpful, a skill one can develop, and important to one's career, but so are math or medicine. A good strategy for an introvert is to partner with an extrovert.
> Right now, we increasingly like to stick labels on things, and I'm not sure it's helpful.
All models are wrong, some are useful.
I don't think OP is neccesarily saying the poster has autism, just that the thing they are describing is similar to something a lot of autistic people describe, so maybe reading about it would be helpful. That can be true for everyone. We can all learn from the experiences of others.
Ironically, my experience with people close to me is that obsession with labels is actually a pretty decent hallmark of autism. One family member, upon receiving a new "diagnosis" (usually self-diagnosed) actually changes their affect to become more like the textbook examples for that label. (And has done this more than once.) It can be very frustrating to deal with. This person has been diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and the best explanation I've heard for their behavior is that it's masking gone rather wrong. This is an extreme example, but the general map-territory-label confusion is something I've seen a lot in people I know with a neurodivergence.
> Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. Very few people in your life are likely to be autistic.
The autistic people in my life are all diagnosed autistic, do not presume to lecture me on my own situation. Autism has a strong genetic component, as you should be aware if you’ve taken more than a cursory glance at the topic. I am not, but I’m close enough to the “diagnosis” criteria to understand and empathise with people who are.
To suggest that all autistic people are “introverted” shows me your complete ignorance on this topic. Many autistic people are extroverted, just bad at social interactions (bad at reading social cues, body language and a host of other things). The two spheres do not overlap in the way you imply.
Also, yes autism is classed as a “disorder” and it comes with many challenges; however the way you are categorising it is demeaning and incorrect! It also comes with many strengths. I think of it more as the world was setup to make life easy for the neurotypical, and hence hard for the neurodiverse. Using words like “pathological threshold” are, regardless of clinical meaning (are you a clinician?), demeaning. I much prefer the framing of “differently wired”.
Software Engineering has a much higher than average number of autistic people. It’s welcoming to such, and most larger companies go out of their way to be accommodating. My own company has a proud autistic contingent.
It frustrates me to see such a comment as yours, reinforcing bad stereotypes and implying I am insulting someone by talking about autistic masking.
also, OP's experience also may be affected by the location/field/clique of people who are around you. For example - say, the fashion creative world in LA and NYC w/ value based on exclusivity - people actually ARE opposed to befriending/hanging out with you. Also apparently the entertainment world, if all social connections are managed by PR as seen by the recent Baldoni/Lively broughaha and the respective millions being spent associated firms.
I supposed the "find your people" recommendation above is apt
The DSM is tragicomically bad for neurodiverse people. DSM III & IV were basically useless for most of the formative years of genX and millenials, and 5th edition is over a decade out of date. Citing the DSM V for psychology is like trying to win a philosophical debate by using Merriam and Webster’s. The map is not the territory.
> Citing the DSM V for psychology is like trying to win a philosophical debate by using Merriam and Webster’s.
This, the whole x is/isn't a disease because how the DSM describes it debate is basically worthless. I get that it's helpful for some people to finally have a diagnosis that's recognized, but ultimately it's a spectrum of symptoms and behaviors and needing a label isn't strictly necessary for treatment and can often come with additional baggage that is less helpful.
> Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. […] Unless those cross a pathological threshold, it's not autism.
There is a natural category in the world that shares many members with those-who-meet-diagnostic-criteria-for-"autism", completely unrelated to any "pathological threshold". It absolutely makes sense to describe people as "autistic" whose lives are not suffering.
Beyond that, you really shouldn't be treating the DSM as some kind of authority: that's like treating a particularly unreliable dictionary written by a non-native speaker as an authority on a different language. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_the_DSM for more information.
The idea that the APA's claims are any kind of authoritative is quite insulting. They're systematically wrong, in quite horrible ways, and probably always will be. The DSM-V is a tool for coordination among (American) practitioners, and should not be considered anything more than that: it certainly shouldn't be consulted or quoted by the laity, who do not know the caveats.
Fairly solid take. And you haven't even mentioned the reproduction crisis and similar issues in the general field. That doesn't make the accumulation of knowledge in clinical psychology any easier either.
This rings true for me. I have an autistic daughter and I'm not nearly as severe as she is. But social interactions stress me out, even though I enjoy interacting with people when I have the energy for it. Add to that my sensitivities to sound, light, taste, touch and smell, and it's pretty clear that I am at least on the spectrum. It may be just a label, but helps me make sense of many of my quirks.
Please don't try to diagnose people based on a couple paragraphs, on an internet forum, who didn't ask for a diagnosis in the first place.
I think it is meant empathically and non-judgmentally.
Depending on the person having it, autism isn't all bad, especially not high functioning autism. Some high functioning autistic people actually excel in society, but compared to other autistic people, they seem to be in the minority. The same seems true for high functioning ADHD (again a small minority).
So I don't really see the stigma when someone on HN is called autistic. Given that they are undiagnosed, the likelihood of them falling into the small minority is really high as their problems are mild enough (also, one could be subclinical). At the level of being high functioning, it simply suggests that they process things in a different way.
> In order to become more likable I’ve had to adopt an extremely perceptive and self critical mental framework to analyze every thing I could be doing wrong to annoy or offend people. It has worked, and people seem to like me more, but the mental exhaustion it induces has led to me often yearning for alone time.
I get why he stated that he might be autistic. When I look at the autistic people I know that are socially well-liked, most of them would say a similar thing. The other route I know that some autistic people have taken is mindfulness meditation.
If OP is autistic, I personally would recommend mindfulness meditation as there's a chance his insula is smaller [1]. And mindfulness meditation targets it [2].
Background: did a bachelor in psychology, have studied it informally way before that and I happen to know many autistic people. It's a biased sample, but it paints a picture nonetheless. I'm subclinical myself, according to my therapist I don't hit all the criteria but I have some of them. The biggest one I'm missing is that my life actually goes quite well (friends, married, healthy, I have a job, etc.). If it didn't, there'd probably enough reason to classify me as autistic (e.g. no friends or severe difficulties in finding a partner).
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02785...
[2] There are scientific sources of it, but I find the comment that Cheetah House has made to be more insightful. They research the adverse side effects of meditation and help people with it.
They said: Britton explained to me that it’s likely that my meditation practice, specifically the constant attention directed toward the sensations of the body, may have increased the activation and size of a part of the brain called the insula cortex. “Activation of the insula cortex is related to systemic arousal,” she said. “If you keep amping up your body awareness, there is a point where it becomes too much and the body tries to limit excessive arousal by shutting down the limbic system. That’s why you have an oscillation between intense fear and dissociation.” - See also: https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad
why? because you don't think we're fully-capable adults here, able to weigh information and accept/reject it with full agency?
That's exactly correct. An IQ 130 HackerNewser with solid critical thinking and reasoning capability and access to the psychological literature is far less qualified than the (average) 105 IQ psychologist who has been "educated" on a pile of studies that consistently fail to replicate.
Welcome to the world of gatekeeping.
> might
I found their post helpful, and not an attempt to diagnose.
You might be autistic is an attempt to diagnose.
What nonsense. I was doing no such thing.
My suspicion is that many people who think they have autism or ADHD really have
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypy
Myself I learned to outperform extroverts at their own game temporarily (can do cold calls all day with zero fear) although I use a lot of tricks based on dissociation (I have a fox that comes out when I need it, in fact it just told me I have to get in better physical shape to be a better host.)
Same with ADHD. People with ADHD often experience social friction because they may be perceived as rude or bad listeners. Plus of course there's significant overlap between people with ADHD and autistic people (as well as an overlap in symptoms). ADHD doesn't have to present as being fidgety and hyper either, inattentiveness (i.e. not being able to control your focus well) is another big aspect. If as a kid you kept hearing "you're so smart, if only you would apply yourself more" while already working yourself to exhaustion (especially if you have a high IQ and used that to compensate for "forgetfulness" or "procrastination"), that may have simply been inattentive type ADHD.
I used to think I was very autistic until I underwent a thorough diagnostic process and learned that while I am indeed autistic, most of what I had been experiencing was actually crippling ADHD I was committing most of my mental capacity to compensate.
>Plus of course there's significant overlap between people with ADHD and autistic people (as well as an overlap in symptoms).
I'm honestly surprised more people with ADHD and similar don't push to be considered as part of the autistic spectrum, it's seems somewhat obvious that there it too much overlap to pretend otherwise.
Great description, my experience with inattentive ADHD was identical to what you describe.
I try to just adopt the perspective that people like me, often more than they might even think they do.
It's not easy to do but when I do it, it makes it a lot easier for me to want to interact with them.
And if you want, ive built tools and tricks to help me with this that I could share.
I am not OP, but I am interested in those tools and tricks.
You can check out the demo of iFeelio[0] (app is currently obsolete because I got tired of coding and other reasons), which has a format for micro-journaling, basically answering "How do I feel?" with comma separated emotional words or phrases and "What is happening?" with 140 characters. Basically it helped me get better at identifying emotions (including mixed ones) and contexts.
You can check out both Emotional Self-Defense[1] and emōkō[2], for some theory and drills to practice dealing with emotional attacks. One of the main principles is what I call the three steps: 1) truth, 2) fair play, and 3) love. Or telling the truth about how I feel, telling the other person how I imagine they might feel, and saying one thing to connect to them with love.
The emōkō site has quite a few audio reflection drills I created to practice these three steps, with a variety of emotions and contexts.
Lastly, checking out my podcast, The Jim Kleiber Show[3], especially the segment the DailyJim, where I do 5-10 min reflections most weeks Mon-Thu about a lot of these topics.
I want to better organize these tips and tools I've built, as I have a lot more, but that's what I have for now.
If you want to talk more about this, please reach out to the email in my bio, id love to share more.
The further up I get in my career and especially when I fell into consulting in 2020 and more so after Covid lifted, I’ve had to “act like I like people”. I’ve studied how to talk to and deal with people a lot over the past few years. I’m good at it. But it is tiring.
I was also an only child. While I have four friend groups including my cousins I grew up with, there are plenty of times I enjoy just being alone or even sitting alone in a crowd where I don’t have to talk to people.
My wife knows that about me and she can sense when I just need some me time.
> analyze every thing I could be doing wrong to annoy or offend people
Is this a "you" problem or a "they" problem?
Why would it matter? OP is experiencing an undesirable outcome, and assigning blame for the problem seems besides the point when the main goal is to change the outcome.
Because you can reverse the situation and criticize them for being offended by everything and difficult for you to work with.
you can, only if you have the critical amount of self confidence, appetite for conflict, lack the fear of losing them, and/or have another group of people who you can substitute after their loss. Thats a big ask for all but the most socially endowed of us.
If one can't figure out the causes of certain outcomes, how does one change the outcomes?
In the context of work outings and socializing, this is doubly so if you are older or unattractive. If you are at a company with a lot of young 20 somethings, they largely really have no interest in being around you, and attempts to socialize with opposite sex can easily be misconstrued (by them) as unwanted.
So it's frankly not worth it, and not sure why I'd even want to put myself in those situations.
And before you reply "well maybe you are being creepy", well QED
[dead]
This author is deeply deeply misunderstanding other humans. They are applying a "it worked for me, therefore it works for all" mentality. And worse yet, coming to the wrong conclusions.
You do not need to be an extrovert at work to get ahead. Full stop.
Does it help in some ways? Sure, but you can be equally successful as an introvert as long as you are able to communicate clearly when needs demand it. Plenty of excellent engineers speak to almost no one, but write excellently.
I've been in this industry for decades, I'm extremely introverted (autistic), I make 750k+ a year and run large projects. I never once "went extroverted at work".
This whole introvert/extrovert label drives me a little crazy, just like almost anything that attempts to put people into boxes.
Humanity really needs to get past this foolish notion that things are black and white instead of the real shades of grey.
I probably straddle the line of introvert/extrovert. People tire me out, and I recharge in solitude like an introvert, but I'm also quite gregarious, and need to be around people getting a regular fix. I could never work solo on anything. I couldn't cope in a role that doesn't involve at least a handful of meetings a week (though they have to be legitimate, because I hate wasting my time in meetings and get easily bored in them).
I'm probably close to what OP was talking about, and it has certainly been integral to my progression to staff engineer, but like you I disagree with the premise that you need to be particular ways to make progress in your career.
While all of the staff engineers I work with operate at the same kind of level, I'm surrounded by staff and staff+ engineers of every stripe. From extremely introverted specialists in particular fields, all the way to extreme extroverts focusing on cross org collaboration and consensus, and every possible combination of behavior in between. That diversity is essential to our effectiveness.
The introvert/extrovert concept was developed by Carl Jung and is both a continuum, and is logical and clearly defined. It also is just one dimension of limitless ones that can describe a persons personality. Yours and most other criticisms of the concept apply to popular misunderstandings of the idea, but not the original concept itself.
Like you I am an introvert that is very social and friendly, enjoys social interaction, and does not have much social anxiety… but too much social interaction is exhausting to me, and requires me to recharge. People tend to confuse introversion with social anxiety and antisocial attitudes which are both distinctly different.
Are you not generalising in the same way? Because you are introverted and successful, does that mean extroversion is bad advice for all?
He is providing a counter example, which is not the same as generalising.
Apart from the line "does it help in some ways, sure" the overall message of their post is that the author is wrong and that you can be equally successful without being sociable, which is a general statement.
It's not really supported by the anecdata that OP is a skilled, unsociable, successful person. That only tells us that this person, in their particular line of work, with their particular set of skills, can be successful. It also doesn't consider whether a version of them that was more sociable would be more successful.
That an introvert can be successful is a generally true statement if at least one introvert is successful.
Given parent is an introvert and succesful the statement is true.
Yeah but the statement in question is (quote) "you can be EQUALLY successful as an introvert" - and we're talking about whether people should, generally, strive to be more extroverted at work. That there exists a successful introvert is not in question and isn't a good criticism of the article to me.
Equally to what?
The maximum success of extroverts or the average or the mean?
What exactly is meant by succesful? What's the measure?
Is it really not clear from context? "If introverts made an effort to be more extroverted, would it make them more successful?" Success I don't know what OP meant, but pay, seniority, I don't know that it changes the answer much.
By that logic there exist introverts who are more successful than extroverts.
If they become more successful if they act against their self is questionable, like asking straight people to become a little more gay or vice versa.
I agree with you, but how do you know to use “he”?
If you don't mind my asking, what do you do?
Success is about the skills, contributions and value you bring to the table, not about how much you talk
This sounds naive. Most companies have some degree of 'politics' which is essentially people working in their own interests over the company's. This is somewhat unrelated to skills and value.
Also particularly in large organisations, work is not a perfect information game - there is no easy way to assign a fair / public a "value" to people to let you compare two employees. Most people will need to sell themselves or have other people sell them to get noticed, and some degree of social bonding can go a long way with this.
> Most companies have some degree of 'politics' which is essentially people working in their own interests over the company's. This is somewhat unrelated to skills and value.
as someone else put it: there are sides in office politics, and by choosing not to play you are picking a side by default, which is often the losing side.
"you can't be neutral on a moving train"
I think that depends on the company and the circumstances it finds itself in. Office politics can be more complex than what you are describing.
I think career success is purely whether people like you or not.
Your skills and contributions don't matter at all as long as they are not so bad that people absolutely can not ignore it. Companies are mostly build on diffusing individual responsibility. Even if you majorly mess up as long as the right people like you you will be fine.
Doesn't mean one needs to be an extrovert. Just have good social skills in general. It really depends on what your superiors prefer and the general company culture. Sometimes being quiet and not sticking out can be an asset as well. Sometimes people will like you because you have (or pretend to have) deep technical knowledge, sometimes they will hate you because you make them feel inferior and it is better to play dumb. Know your audience.
I think this is wrong. Career success comes from providing value to people (who have power over you). Getting them to like you is the easiest but not only way.
Isn't being liked by someone and providing value to someone basically the same? At least in a corporate context, a healthy way to think about this stuff this way in your private life.
I only examples I can think of where you are valued but not liked is maybe when you are valued as a scapegoat or something, like abusive stuff but generally being liked and providing value should be ideally be the same.
Of course you can be liked for different aspects, be it for performing well and so making your superiors look good to being a yes-man who validates their ideas or plainly being quiet and low maintenance. Depends on who is managing you.
They are applying a "it worked for me, therefore it works for all" mentality.
And then you do the same thing in the next line...
That's not what they did at all.
no, they are applying the "I found one counterexample therefore the whole message must be incorrect for the general population". A distant relative of the semantic argument: "the sky is blue", "nuh-uh, not all skies are blue. once there was an atmospheric event, and the sky was a color other than blue. hence you are wrong..."
This is a terrible article that reads like an AI generated LinkedIn post.
Nevermind the fact that the author isn't using the terms introvert and extrovert correctly; the message is quite ableist. Not everyone can achieve this level of communication in a productive manner. Telling people that management will "prefer" one over the other when it's "budget time" is also dead wrong. I've fired more extroverts than introverts in my career, and it's likely only a coincidence.
The author sounds like one of those "proud extroverts" that they made up into existence.
"Nevermind the fact that the author isn't using the terms introvert and extrovert correctly"
Is there a correct use? The most social, outgoing people I know universally declare themselves introverts because they, like every human in history, occasionally likes some alone time to "recharge". It's similar to how everyone has OCD because they like a tidy desk.
Make being an introvert a positive trait somehow and suddenly 100% of people are introverts.
There are sort-of clinical definitions (e.g. "have a limited social bandwidth and need to recharge") but they're so broadly applicable they are worthless.
There are other traits like social phobia or anxiety that often get intermixed with those, but they are very different qualities even if they manifest in a way that might get categorized.
I do consider myself an introvert. At a young age I would see stories where someone broke the rules (in prison, military boot camp, etc) and would be relegated to solitary. They'd get outdoor time, books, often even craft materials, etc, but they were all alone all day long. I could never understand how this was a punishment. It seemed absolutely magical.
The author straight up says that being an introvert or an extrovert is a choice.
They clearly have no idea what it actually feels like being an introvert.
There's a choice for an introvert to put on a front once they know how, but that's nowhere near becoming an extrovert.
It also seems to assume that just because you don't want to socialize in some specific setting means you are an introvert or extrovert.
Everyone has people they like and people they don't. I've had co-workers i don't particularly like. Of course i am professional and polite to them at work and can work with them fine, but would i specificly go up to them at a party and chat? Probably not (i'd still be polite of course, just not specificly seek them out).
I think you have good points in your middle paragraph, but I disagree with your first sentence. I can see a growing trend of dismissive "this reads like it's AI-generated" when I frankly think it has been written like that. Author has a similar tone to me. That's my writing style.
> Not everyone can achieve this level of communication in a productive manner.
Correct, and it sucks. I feel like it's ableist at times too. 9-to-5 days of small-talk are so strangely exhausting t me. It's very frustrating I feel it's a mandatory part of my career if I don't want to be forgotten about.
But? I don't disagree with the author. In my interpretation, they aren't saying "I'm an extrovert and I'm great", they're saying "hey, this is a thing you can choose to do or be, and you may find it benefits you, and the introvert/extrovert thing is a stupid distinction, but being extrovert in the right way is a means of making yourself visible".
Because, let's face it, it is. There is some entrenched ableism, in a way. Last I checked like 10-20% of western population is some form of neurodiverse and a proportion of that just do not click with the predominant communication styles used by the majority population. It sucks and we are left feeling like we are not accommodated for and can easily fall into that exhausted feeling of resentment.
But? So what? You can help make things incrementally better for yourself in the system whilst still "playing the game", if you consider it as something you are choosing to expend your energy on.
I held back a similar comment about AI-generated. I think the "AI-generated" accusation is overused. This article was incoherent nonsense, but not all incoherent nonsense hallucinations are AI-generated.
People underestimate how old incoherent writing is. For that matter they underestimate how hard it is to write coherently.
> He said, with a smirk, “I am not an extrovert”.
In this likely fabricated scenario, our initial introduction to the introvert has them also coming across as a dick.
Funnily enough, the part that made me suspicious is it didn't end with the last section titled "In Conclusion" - for a while now human bloggers have gotten so bad/lazy they don't seem to know how to tie together a long-form post at the end, and instead just use that title to repeat a couple of earlier points.
I regularly say yes to work dinners and such that I don’t personally want to attend. That sort of thing is far outside my comfort zone, and that’s exactly why I do it.
It’s good exercise to pretend to be outgoing and chatty for an evening. Like any other skill, you get better at it with practice! And the author here is so right: almost everyone else at these things besides the salespeople are probably also introverts. I can promise you that you won’t be the only one there. I never am.
Ever since I stopped doing this I’ve been much happier. Now that I’m old I don’t feel pressure to conform to social norms, I just do whatever I want. If that means I don’t see anyone else for weeks who cares. In my youth I felt so much pressure to be social and it’s just not what I want to be doing.
FWIW, I feel no pressure at all to do this. I want to get better at it purely because I want to get better at it. One practical benefit is that non-work social settings get easier, too. When I’m around a bunch of my kids’ friends’ parents, who are perfectly nice people who probably have a lot in common with me and I’ll probably enjoy being around, it’s nice to have some practice making conversation with a roomful of strangers.
I’m not doing this for work. I do it for me.
Pressure to be social is like pressure to stay fit. If you don’t put any effort it atrophies.
if you're staying fit because you are being pressured, you probably aren't having any fun. Staying fit by doing something you enjoy (hiking, sports with friends, whatever) you are probably going to have more fun, and stick with it.
If you only socialize with people you don't like because you are "forced"/"pressured" to, you aren't going to have a good time.
Socializing is supposed to be fun, if you turn it into a job you hate, you aren't going to get the benefits of being social
>if you're staying fit because you are being pressured, you probably aren't having any fun
Not everything in life is about "having fun". Pushing yourself beyond your own comfort zone, or being pushed, is by definition not going to be enjoyable in some superficial sense, but it's the only way you'll ever actually engage with anything new or unfamiliar and grow.
Nobody who is grossly out of shape enjoys showing up at the gym the first time, but even though they don't enjoy it, it will benefit them all the same and eventually they may very well come to like it. It's the same with education, decades of trying to make education "fun" have resulted in large amounts of people being unable to absorb anything that isn't in some trivial sense gratifying.
And further, you never know if you'll like something until you try it. That's kind of universally true. The idea of going to a gym isn't appealing at all if you describe it objectively: you're going to go to a large room filled with heavy hunks of metal and sweating strangers. You're going to lift them up and down until you can't do it anymore. Then you'll drive home. That's not exactly appealing. And yet, despite everything, I love the way I feel when I'm working out.
It's perfectly A-OK not to like going to social outings with others. But until you've tried it, you don't actually know whether you like it or not.
Unlike being fit, being social doesn't have any inherent benefit in terms of health. It's merely a preference.
That's not quite true, social isolation has been shown to be correlated with an increased risk of dementia and cognitive impairment in older age. And I reckon there are other studies that show correlations with other health outcomes.
I suppose it depends on the person but the older I get, the less patience I have for people and the more I rather focus on myself, hobbies and quiet time. I don’t have time for fake social gatherings or pretending like parent does.
If I meet someone genuine I will engage with them, otherwise I much rather to keep to my own devices..
I'd hazard that's exactly why it's inportant: mental exposure to uncomfortable and novel situations.
As a thought experiment, jumping back to the parallel with fitness, is your statement the same as saying "I suppose it depends on the person, but the older I get, the less patience I have for eating healthy and exercising, and the more I'd rather focus on eating food I like and spending time on my sedentary hobbies."? As in, it's 100% your choice to live your life that way, but you also have to accept that there are health repercussions associated with certain life styles.
Side note: I'm not sure what you mean by a "fake" social gathering. But for me, I've been taking part in a debate society, and some French meetups lately to socialise more, and I've loved it. Everyone is genuine in that they're there for a specific shared interest. And I've found that my thoughts/ideas are greatly improved from the ability to debate with others. Sometimes I'll realise I have a huge blind spot, and need to reject an idea. Sometimes I'll realise my idea had a short coming and that it needs to be adapted. Either way it just improves my thinking.
I don't think this is true, unless perhaps if you use a very narrow definition of 'inherent'. e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3150158/
Reduces mortality, increases happiness, cardiovascular health, etc.
That's probably not true. Lonliness is linked to both physical and mental health issues.
However being social and not being lonely is not the same thing.
Loneliness and being alone aren't the same thing either.
If you have a family already what’s the payoff though. I never get any great feelings from social visits, I just do it to be an upstanding member of society and so my daughter has friends.
It might be nice to have a social safety net when you age and your children leave you.
Why? What would be nice about it?
Not being alone.
But what if I don't mind being alone? Or even prefer it?
Wife should still be around.
That’s not guaranteed.
It’s not but very likely atleast in my case.
[dead]
As a person who was very introvert at social gatherings, and the polar opposite now, I'm now convinced that being extrovert is not a skill or an "area" (outside the comfort zone), but rather a state of mind.
It's certainly an art and a science to be a good conversationalist, but being in that certain state of mind is "a lot %" of what's needed, and it actually takes no energy or comfort - although as other state, natural introverts enjoy this state for a certain amount of time. It can also take a lot to "get there", though.
The core problem is that introvert/extrovert has little or no bearings on someone's social ability.
Introvert/extrovert is the method that people use to recharge their energy. It has nothing to do with social ability despite the terms getting hijacked for that.
Signed, an extremely introverted person who talks and interacts a lot in social situations.
I don’t think it’s so simple. Brains are complicated and everyone is different.
That’s fine but how people term introvert to be reclusive is inaccurate.
I strongly agree with that. I like being around people when I’m not expected to engage with them. I’ll go to a ball game or a crowded holiday mall any time. I like the throngs busily enjoying themselves around me. I’m an introvert but I’m not even a little reclusive.
this is like saying you know all about how it is to be an orphan because you read Oliver Twist
When I first met one of my friends, I had assumed he was very extroverted from observing him at work. It was only when I really got to know him that he is, in fact, just as introverted as I am, if not more- something he even told me after we got to talking one night.
The parent post is correct: extroversion and introversion is about how you feel being in groups, not how you act.
> but being in that certain state of mind is "a lot %" of what's needed, and it actually takes no energy or comfort
Your mileage may vary but it certainly takes energy to maintain a state of mind which doesn't come naturally to you. This is bound to affect your comfort eventually. Since there are degrees of intro/extroversion, it may be easier for some people to will themselves across that divide.
It's like floating on water. Some do it naturally, effortlessly, they even rest and relax while doing it. Others have to flail around under the surface to do it, putting in effort and consuming energy.
This is an important point. Most people who I interact with would probably characterize me as an extrovert because I'm often super talkative and energetic, but the only reason I act like this is because I get time to "recharge" every day by spending time without interacting with anyone (other than my wife, who is the one person that doesn't take "energy" for me to spend time with). Even spending time with close friends and family members is something I need occasional breaks from to maintain my sanity.
I often describe this concept to people as a social "battery"; I need time to charge it (almost) every day in order to have anything to spend the next day, but it also can ruin the capacity if I charge it for too long while it's at max. Figuring out the right balance is key, especially when other circumstances can affect how much energy it feels like is expended by socializing (e.g. ambient stress level from other parts of my life.
> Like any other skill, you get better at it with practice!
Johnny Carson was an introvert. [0]
If he could be a professional-calibre conversationalist, then I refuse to believe most introverted people can't at least reach the passable cocktail party level.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Carson#Personal_life
No one is claiming that it can’t be done. Just that introverts don’t like to do it and generally don’t find it worth it.
I did and do, and I have several introvert friends who also found it an incredibly useful and fulfilling life skill.
Introversion is not the same as shyness.
You might be surprised at how many salespeople are also introverts. Through years of being an (introverted) sales engineer, I've learned that outgoing socialization can be tough even for salespeople. Some of the most successful sales people I've worked with need to go quietly recharge for a day after a ton of meetings, just like I do. The biggest differentiator there is that the ones who can't manage it with a smile don't last long.
Relationship building in sales, like all skills, can be learned, even if it's draining.
New jobs I accept all social invites for the first year to give off the impression that I’m friendly and outgoing and you should totally give me the benefit of the doubt when you’re unconsciously evaluating me as a teammate! Then I start weening myself off social outings, and by end of year two I’ve always got something coming up. Darn! Wish I could make it!
I have to keep my worksona turned on 40+ hours per week already, please no more…
That's just smart career management, is what that is.
i treat it like exercise or eating salad. i do it because i know its good for me. also noticed that it seems like a lot of people there have the same idea.
just like exercise, i dont push it too far. ill take a break. ill excuse myself and say, "i need to cool off" then go outside for a minute. most people seem to get it.
maybe the nature of the people i hang out with, but the salespeople type stand out sore-thumb-style and their compliments and shallow conversation often come across as awkward compared to the genuine interest in listening and sharing what we have learned in work or personal life.
It sounds like you want to attend them. You've clearly laid out the reasons why you find them valuable to you. That's something you "personally want to attend."
Some amount of social anxiety has to be a pre-modern survival trait. Strangers from another tribe or clan were often extremely dangerous. Even travel used to be fraught with bandits and highway robbery.
Many modern activities will put someone in close proximity to lots of strangers. Airports, public transit, busy streets, college parties, even big grocery stores all have lots of strangers. A person who doesn't want to be surrounded by strangers is probably feeling an ancient survival instinct. Now, if that feeling prevents them from visiting family, living a happy life, or accomplishing their goals, it's a problem. But I don't think feeling uneasy in a location filled with strangers is inherently unhealthy.
Likewise introversion isn't a bad thing. Some people would just prefer to be alone, and that's okay. Maybe it's a muscle they could strengthen, but I've known enough introverted folks who constantly practice social skills but never increase their inbuilt number of "social hours". They love people, love entertaining and meeting people, but as soon as that number is hit they go off into their room and don't come out for a few days. I don't think this is an issue, they've got a fixed amount of social energy and that's that.
It’s a modern survival trait too, particularly for women, from whom we are all descended.
This is repeated often, but recently i found out that men lead all categories (except sexual assault and domestic violence) of being the victims of crime. You are safer if you are a woman.
That’s a pretty big exception. And do your stats control for risk-taking behavior, which is higher in men? [0] For example, do we see a higher rate of violent crime against men because that rate includes gang violence and men are much more likely to be involved in gangs than women? Or because it includes car theft, when car ownership is higher amongst men than women? Or because men are more likely to be employed outside the home where crime is more likely?
None of this helps women who have to decide whether to cross the street to avoid a group coming towards them. The GP point about a form of social anxiety being a survival instinct is absolutely plausible.
[0] https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/16315-men-are-more-...
> risk-taking behavior, which is higher in men?
My point, be a woman and you'll be safer. Being a woman helps because then you don't have the risk factors you just listed.
My point is that when you normalize for risk-taking behavior, women will come out worse. When a woman goes out at 3am in her Chrysler 300 to sling dope through a bad neighborhood, she will face additional risks than the ones she chose.
If you take all men and all women, that's probably true. By the same token, men are also more likely to die on the front lines of a war, but that doesn't mean that you're safer there as a woman, it means there are far fewer of them there!
In order to come to your conclusion ("you are safer if you are a woman"), you'd have to control for where the crime takes place, who committed it, and why. For just one example: gang-related violence is a large category of crime that affects mostly men because mostly men are involved in gangs. But that category of violence does not contribute to the risk of most of us here falling victims to crimes because most of us here are not involved with gangs, so that falsely skews the numbers towards men as victims.
The real question you have to answer to come to your conclusion is if the typical woman on HN is safer than the typical man on HN.
> By the same token, men are also more likely to die on the front lines of a war, but that doesn't mean that you're safer there as a woman, it means there are far fewer of them there!
And this is why? Women don't get drafted. Proving my point.
The rest of your post is victim blaming.
> The rest of your post is victim blaming.
Nonsense. It's simply stating the reality that HN users (the "you" in your comment) are not average males and average females—in fact, no one is. For the vast majority of audiences, gang violence should be excluded from tallies when trying to judge whether men or women are safer, and you're not doing so, which leads to an inaccurate judgement of relative risks for the people on this forum.
It's not victim blaming, it's pointing out that you're applying stats wrong.
I feel like a lot of these debates boil down dealing with discomfort. We seem to be creating a society where everyone feels they have the right to not feeling stressed and uncomfortable. The danger to never feeling challenged is that you don't grow. You get stuck in a rut and everyone passes you by.
Part of dealing with discomfort is learning what your limits are. No one should put themselves in a situation with you have a breakdown. I find that a small amount of stress in my life is good and results in growth. But a huge amount is overwhelming which leads to burnout.
A convenient take, when you consider that (generally) extraverts will be less outside their comfort zone day to day than introverts, because our modern Western society values extraversion more. The article is giving vibes of "extraverts are great and inherently good people, introverts are bad and need to grow up!"
"extraverts will be less outside their comfort zone day to day than introverts"
This is a grass is always greener take, and definitely not true.
"because our modern Western society values extraversion more"
Everybody throughout humanity has valued extraversion more. This isn't something new. Humans are social creatures and people that are more social will be more successful at life. This will never change.
"introverts are bad and need to grow up"
This isn't necessarily the case. However, introverts need to figure out how to navigate the world, even when they aren't interested in socializing.
I've worked with lots of introverts (I am a mix of both introvert and extrovert) in tech and it usually goes along with passive aggressive behavior (because introverts usually don't like confrontation) and other behavior that makes collaboration (which is needed in almost all business settings) a nightmare.
> I've worked with lots of introverts (I am a mix of both introvert and extrovert) in tech and it usually goes along with passive aggressive behavior (because introverts usually don't like confrontation) and other behavior that makes collaboration (which is needed in almost all business settings) a nightmare.
I could just as well say that extraversion goes along with overly assertive and aggressive behaviour and other behaviour that makes collaboration a nightmare - such as refusing to write documentation or write proper tickets because "we can have a meeting instead". But I don't - because everyone is different and you can't just generalise like that. Being an introvert doesn't mean you're bad at communication or avoid confrontation.
"I could just as well say that extraversion goes along with overly assertive and aggressive behaviour and other behaviour that makes collaboration a nightmare"
I don't really see this very often. If someone isn't writing documentation or writing proper tickets, I don't think it has anything to do with being an extrovert/introvert.
"because everyone is different and you can't just generalise like that. Being an introvert doesn't mean you're bad at communication or avoid confrontation"
I've worked with lots of introverts over the years and although you may see it as a generalization, it's just my experience. In another way, you could call it my truth.
"Your truth" is very condescending though. It may be that the reason you're having trouble with introverts is your attitude towards them.
Also how do you reconcile what you're writing here with what you wrote less than a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42341572 ?
But who are you (or anyone for that matter) to decide that everyone should "grow" in areas X,Y,Z? I hate blanket statements like "We seem to be creating a society where everyone feels they have the right to not feeling stressed and uncomfortable".
For example - I hate the modern office workplace 9-5 in-office bullshit. I know exactly what I want. I don't need to "grow" any more in this area. Can I do 9-5 in an office? Yes - but I fucking hate it and no amount of growth will change that. Why should I be forced to come into an office, for a job I do better at home, because Bob from management needs to be around people? I say to this - fuck Bob, Bob can go shit bricks.
Another example - I am very comfortable with living without any social media, or a smart phone, or a Tv, all at the same time. But, you don't see me going around forcing people into this way of being, and then when they find it horrible/stressful/uncomfortable saying "well maybe we are creating a society where everyone feels they have the right to not feeling stressed and uncomfortable, fuck your tv"
Instead - We are creating a society of non-thinkers, conformists, average-results-for-all, and dumb opinions like "well, I can deal with it - why can't you? Are you lazy/introverted/mentally-handicapped?"
I think challenging yourself is great, FOR SHIT THAT MATTERS. And only you can dictate what matters, fuck Bob or anyone else that tries to impose "what matters" on you.
The problem is, your statement sounds generalised to "challenge yourself in everything". I don't care for that, I care about challenging myself in a select few things of my choosing, I am my own man. I forge my destiny, I plow my path where I want to, not where society or Bob tells me.
------
And you know what the result will be for Bob and I?
Bob will not really grow as a person at all, his life will be all soft smoothed edges, not unique in any sense. Bob will be the same as everyone else with slight variations here and there, Bob will be boring, and at the end of Bobs life, on his deathbed he will say, "well, at least I didn't rock the boat!"
I, and others like me, will grow, in a unique sense, jagged edges, sharp incline and deep depressions. I will say when I die "I wish I leant even more into rocking the boat, capsizing it, just to see what would happen"
I agree. While some people are uncomfortable in social settings and/or talking alot, especially "small talk", other people are uncomfortable sitting in silence. BOTH types of people need to work on be more comfortable being uncomfortable. However, it's seen as rude to tell overs to just "be quiet for a bit and enjoy the silence" vs "you're socially awkward because you refuse to talk to me"...
My father in law seems unable to sit queitly in group settings. He performs too much small talk in my opinion. And it seems merely to fill the silence since they are often the same questions day in and day out. Either his memory is very bad, or he's not actually listening, just wanting to make noise. I've given up wasting my breath (re)answering the same questions. It seems he doesn't truly care about what others think, say, or feel... otherwise he might work on committing answers to memory. And even when folks start talking, he interrupts a lot... I truly hope it's not poor memory.
Maybe he's trying to "give" as per https://www.experimental-history.com/p/good-conversations-ha...
This is the sort of take that just sounds entitled, because the person giving it is doing so from a position of not having discomfort created for them by the actions of someone else.
Like let's put this in context: replace "being an introvert" for "your friend flies you out to the forest, and then happily announces we're going to be hiking 20 km back to town. You really need to challenge yourself!"
>We seem to be creating a society where everyone feels they have the right to not feeling stressed and uncomfortable.
Huh? What a strange thing to say. Yeah, sure, you can't have that right exactly, simply because life is too unpredictable and from time to time stressors will come up, but surely someone has the right to build for themselves the conditions that minimize their stress and discomfort. Not wanting to be purposefully stressed and discomforted by others seems perfectly reasonable.
>The danger to never feeling challenged is that you don't grow. You get stuck in a rut and everyone passes you by.
Perhaps, but surely the choice of whether to live like that is the prerogative of each person.
> While the reality is, it takes effort to communicate and drains energy for everyone.
This is a low effort take that depends on the ambiguity of language to sound true.
"Drain" for the author apparently means literally using up a finite amount of human energy, concentration, and willpower. That's a truism.
"Drain" for an introvert can mean anything from starting a muscle tension clock that will eventually cause a headache to a straight-up panic attack that could take hours/days to recover from.
It's probably even worse for young people who are introverts and haven't been taught how to say no or set boundaries. (I remember explaining to some college-age people that saying no is a skill, and they looked at me like I had just revealed to them that, with enough practice, humans can actually fly.)
> haven't been taught how to say no or set boundaries
For more than a few of my friends, assertiveness and confrontation are incredibly unnatural and stressful for them. For some people saying no and setting boundaries isn't easy for them to learn: I'm not sure I've ever seen it taught. One socially skilled friend got a swor serious panic attack from having to try and be assertive.
You are implicitly accepting people can be introverted, but imply that people can just learn to say no.
> "Drain" for an introvert can mean anything from starting a muscle tension clock that will eventually cause a headache to a straight-up panic attack that could take hours/days to recover from.
Unless you are being hyperbolic with your usage of the word "panic attack", having one during social events is not "being an introvert," it's a medical condition.
I am an introvert and have also had unrelated panic attacks. Panic attacks effectively paralyze you, you feel a deep and uncontrollable sense of doom, often accompanied by palpitations. Sometimes you feel like you can't breathe.
If caused by social interaction, that's not a normal thing to experience, even for introverts. That is in the territory of actual medical issues: panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, etc.
Absolutely bizarre that you're being downvoted. Having panic attacks is not a normal reaction to any normal human situation, gp absolutely should look for medical and psychological help.
I have them, I'm autistic. It happens and I have support infrastructure in place to make it less intrusive.
It's a disability, but I sorta reject the framing that I'm "not normal". Mostly because it feels a bit more culturally loaded? I can't articulate it effectively, but like, what I experience may actually be extremely normal ... for folks with autism. So, maybe "not neurotypical", maybe?
Sure, but I'm commenting on the fact that gp believes that having panic attacks in social interactions is just an introvert trait. Parent comment and I are arguing that it's not.
It's a normal reaction to trauma, a psychological condition - not medical. I'd guess that's where the strife is driven. You make a better point to cover the gamut
So if the person has, let’s say, autism, and will not be able to endure this for longer than a few hours before becoming completely overwhelmed.
What do you want these people to do, since they aren’t allowed to respond how they might do? When and where are they welcome in society?
Hello, person with autism here. If I am tasked with social interaction for too many hours I may no longer be able to focus on people. I may zone out and in order to get into focus someone may have to bother me in an uncomfortable way. This could, depending on the person who is on the autism spectrum, escalate to physical violence in an extreme scenario.
I don’t think this describes “a panic attack”. I think “completely overwhelmed” is a real thing to be accommodated and is separate from a social anxiety triggered panic attack
Absolutely. Just wanted to point out that having difficulty being in a social and potentialy rowdy and loud environment for hours can still remain after the "seek psych/medical help" advice that was thrown out!
> No matter what role you play, you will always have to communicate and collaborate with others. If this is something you disagree with, you should go back to the drawing board and think deeply.
Sounds good, that's what I wanted.
> you should check out Thinking Fast and Slow.
I checked it out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow#Replic...
It was discovered many prominent research findings were difficult or impossible for others to replicate, and thus the original findings were called into question. An analysis of the studies cited in chapter 4, "The Associative Machine", found that their replicability index (R-index) is 14, indicating essentially low to no reliability.
Seems like you just did the most cursory of searches, found a negative pull quote about some studies in one chapter, and called it day. Much like reading the negative google reviews for a bar you were invited to instead of actually accepting the invitation and going, I'm not sure this qualifies as "checking it out"
It’s quite treacherous to identify yourself with labels: introvert, extrovert, conscientious, conservative, liberal, empathetic, neurodivergent, etc.
The act of putting a name on some traits that you have can seem liberating: I finally know what I am, and why I’m different from others, and that’s fine.
On the flipside, once you commit to a label, you lock yourself inside it, and instead of describing, it begins shaping what you are.
It doesn’t help that other people often try very hard to pin us down and assign labels to us forcefully, without considering if we’re OK with that.
The trick is to describe your behavior and separate that from yourself. Instead of being an introvert you can just say that my behavior was introverted, and that was a function of my internal psychological state.
Also, be open to experimenting with what affects that state, and reflect on it. That will remind you that you’re not a constant, you’re a function :)
Or, labeling yourself helps identify communities and systems that enable you to develop and grow more efficiently.
I'm autistic, I discovered this partway through my adult life. Labelling it has done incredible things to build support infrastructure. I have more energy and less stress now.
I'm queer, I discovered this as a young adult. It's connected me with whole communities. And most importantly, it's helped me discover and embrace the concept of a found family.
I'm a leftist. (Not a liberal, I don't vote Democrat). This label has helped me find opportunities to engage in mutual aid I genuinely find more rewarding than any charity work I've done.
Every time I add a label, I discover wonderful communities who help me explore myself, help me figure out what it means to be that label, and whether it's one I want to keep or shed.
There's nothing wrong with building an identity. You have to have introspection and periodically evaluate it, but labels are fine.
Hmm, maybe you’re just a labeler and I’m noncommittal? Just kidding, I’m glad it works for you.
I was diagnosed with dyslexia in my 40s. It's helped me understand why I struggle with certain tasks. Overall having a label has been a net positive.
I'm hesitant to share my diagnosis with colleagues. I've been able to develop coping mechanisms and I feel like it doesn't impact my day-to-day. I don't want to cause disruption for those around me. I do have a friend with much more severe dyslexia and she does get the help she needs to be productive.
I wish we could discuss these labels at work without baggage. It's all about consideration. Forcing everyone around you to change their behaviour around you to make yourself feel more comfortable is not being considerate. On the flip side enforcing strict working policies that prevent people from participating in the workplace is also not considerate.
Regarding labels: <https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2015-05-23>
Didn't expect to see EGS used as a reference here...
There's a kinda funny extra level to labels and preconceived notions in that one: "sister" is a cover story for his female duplicate who was created from a tech/magic mishap early in that comic.
Absolutely! The labels some may seek to feel a deeper sense of community and understanding end up becoming shackles.
People don't need to just be one thing. We are fluid. And can and should have opinions and stances that wane over time.
Neurodivergence is a really useful concept in that it recognises that "typical" just means a certain cognitive profile. The problem I expect is that in certain fields (STEM?) it's actually more normal to be divergent from the mainstream. If you understand how your particular neural profile makes you understand and experience the world, you are in a good position to understand how it might be different to others.
In a sense, attaching a special label to a particular neurodivergent profile is as problematic as assigning special significance to the "neurotypical" profile.
As I've grown older I realize I'm all of the labels at different times of the day, different days, with different people etc. The more I take this to heart the more I grow and allow myself to have new experiences that a self label would have stopped me from doing because I'm not "that" kind of person.
I think that one of the major issues is that people will use certain labels to help justifying behaving in a certain way, or avoid specific tasks and situations. E.g. a ton of people hate talking on the phone, for reasons that are beyond me, and they will justify this is being introvert or having some sort of social anxiety, while at the same time being outgoing and extroverted in pretty much every other situation.
As I grow old I've stopped trying to put labels on my behavior. They rarely fit and society expects that I act or believe in certain ways depending on how those labels are generally perceived.
I hate talking on the phone, because of the missing body language and often bad lossy connections/bad microphones.
Video calls I also almost never enjoyed, but maybe also because of technical reasons.
That’s like saying it’s treacherous to lock a door. After all, you might lose the key!
I label myself in many ways. These labels are heuristics that define me to myself as well as others. These labels simplify the management of my life in a way similar to choosing a particular type of computer or a particular email client does.
I am free to change my labels, but there is a cost to that. There is also a cost to avoiding labels.
I wouldn’t say it is a treacherous matter at all. It’s a matter of personal economy and finding a comfortable way to relate to the world.
I have sometimes used your heuristic of labeling behavior rather than identity. That can be useful, too. But however you try to do that, an implication hangs in the air: “You are obviously the kind of person who does things like that.”
At the risk of sounding like a jerk, the Ram/Shyam story -- it sounds like one of those people is good at getting their job done and works well to solve hard problems independently... and the other person over-relies on other people via collaboration, and compensates by making excessive "high visibility" noise. One of those people is solving critical bugs, the other one is... doing demos for other teams. It's sort of telling Shyam prefers work broken down into small, digestible, predictable chunks.
It's a shame management (in my experience) seems to consistently value Shyam's style. Too much of either working style leads to problems. Excess in the first leads to overlap, duplicated work, and incogruent pieces that don't fit together. Excess in the second leads to a lot of people talking quite a bit about work while nothing tangible or truly difficult gets done.
One thing to me is fairly obvious: people who are introverts can be social, but only for limited amounts of time.
For example, I like talking a lot, but I can only do it for limited amounts of time. Maybe only a few hours a week. If I'm pushed past that point, I just don't want to chat any more. It's like I'm full of food, but with socialization. After that I find socialization immensely distasteful and irritating.
That's why a 9-5 workplace environment never worked for me. It was forced socialization past my limit. Maybe that's what happened to the guy in this article: they go into defensive mode because they are pushed past their limit.
Extroverts don't understand this concept of limited capacity for socialization.
Or not just limited amounts of time, but limited types of people.
I have some friends who I have no trouble talking with all day. But with the overwhelming majority of people I meet, even if we get along well, I feel exhausted after too much interaction.
Dealing with some types of "extroverts" is particularly tiring due to not caring about the weird formalities and talking around things that a lot do to seem "friendly". It's like dealing with an MBA--using pointlessly fluffy language to say pointless "pleasant" things and being so afraid to step on any toes that their statements are just boring and void of any substance. But there are also some extroverts who know how to gauge your personality in an instant and know whether you're the type who likes the fluffy stuff, or you want to jump right into talking about specific subjects.
Then there are fellow introverts, and unfortunately, it becomes obvious how bad my own personality and conversation skills are with them. Lots of super brief answers and not engaging in any discussion. But I guess when you're the one talking to an introvert, even as an introvert, it's easy to come across as one of the aforementioned annoying extroverts.
Even as an extrovert you get people who just ramble.
In a social setting you can just tune out or move on, but in a work setting... It's extremely tiring because you're trying to catch what's important and distinguish from the unnecessary fluff.
I've never been able to distinguish this from simply being shy. More shyness means more stress in certain social interactions and stress is tiring.
Moreover, I'm pretty sure you could take the most extroverted person around and take them out of their social element and they too would tire out.
And vice versa, some of the most introverted people don't get tired out by their spouse.
The difference between introversion and shyness is the difference between exhaustion and fear. They can influence each other (being afraid all the time is exhausting, for example), but they are ultimately separate emotions that need not coexist or have any relationship to each other.
My sister is fairly extrovert, she gets energy from being with others. I'm a fairly typical introvert.
Before kids she used to have parties with her ever-increasing circle of friends. She'd invite me, and I'd often say yes but as the day approached I had to force myself to go.
One day, after one of her parties, she told me "everyone really likes it when you come, you're so good at making people feel seen".
I hadn't thought about it before, but realized that I do tend to chat with most people. And I do ask perhaps non-typical "party questions", as I love to learn about new stuff so I like to find out what others are interested in and talk about that.
Almost always I enjoy these events. However after such an even I'm so exhausted, and need a day or three on my own. If I don't get that then things don't go well.
> Extroverts don't understand this concept of limited capacity for socialization.
Othering >50% of your audience isn’t the best way to make a point, and plenty of extroverts understand this concept perfectly well (myself as an example).
You are right, but it doesn't take many extroverts not understanding this concept to make it feel like it's everybody :)
My mother, for example, is a serious extrovert. When I explained to her that socializing seriously drains me and I need to, for example, spend time alone after attending a party, her response was to ask if I'd seen a therapist about it.
my own experience as someone who used to be very extroverted:
extroversion was meeting a social expectation. i had good social skills and people relied on me to carry social situations. i could entertain, organize and predict needs. i earned that expectation to feed my ego and then became trapped in a vicious cycle.
then i had a fresh start after moving to a new city for grad school and have done my best to avoid any vocal leadership for anything because i know what can happen. organizational, behind the scenes leadership is ok. i wonder how many extroverts would rather be introverts given the opportunity and some introspection
> i had good social skills and people relied on me to carry social situations. i could entertain, organize and predict needs.
Exactly how were you doing so? Were you able to predict these needs with "tells" or some other reference point? Did you get assessments wrong?
> i earned that expectation to feed my ego and then became trapped in a vicious cycle.
What caused you to think it wasn't worth it anymore?
> Exactly how were you doing so? Were you able to predict these needs with "tells" or some other reference point? Did you get assessments wrong?
tells is a good way to put it. had a close friend from my hometown who lived for manipulating people and hanging out with him for 4 years taught me a lot. if he pulled some slick move or long setup on someone (including me) hed discuss the chain of tells and decisions if i asked him. boiled down mostly to confidence, conditioning, in group/out group. ugly stuff. the hook was his ability to manufacture novel, cheap thrills. this was enough to keep everyone interested in sticking around. he liked having cronies and i could do a b- version of him.
ive made many wrong assessments. i ignored the mistakes and focused on successes to keep feeding my ego. to abuse an analogy id burn a bridge without thinking of it because i was already making a new friend to fill that spot.
> What caused you to think it wasn't worth it anymore?
after leaving that environment i noticed how relaxing it was to hang out with my own thoughts. i realized how i was just playing part i had cast myself in for attention and no other real benefit. i happened to take an Excel VBA class my senior year and became obsessed with programming. became more interested in learning to code than anything else. i noticed the benefits of avoiding attention. introverts probably learn these lessons early but i learned them late.
Saying what some outliers do doesn't refute a statement about what most in a group do...
I agree that making an absolute statement like that is not great. But surely, if you understand the concept, you also know that it's way too common for extroverts having zero understanding that some people need to be alone to recharge. They'll call you boring when you don't want to go out after being at the office for 8 hours already, for example. "Come on, it will be so much fun! What will you do when you get home? Play games lol? Come on get out in the world and meet some people!!" It's also very common for extroverts to assume that just because you need to recharge by not being with people that introverts don't like being with people in the first place.
Social energy for me is a bit like physical energy. I love working out, but then I get tired and need to rest. In this analogy the extroverts somehow gets more energy while working out. That part is very hard for me to understand.
The pandemic was a total eye opener for me. I always thought that (ever since I started working) I didn't like to go to after works, nor parties in the weekend. What I realized was that I really love those things, but that my social battery drains completely at the office so I needed the evenings and most of the weekend to keep running. Hybrid work has complete changed my ability to socialize outside work.
> Extroverts don't understand this concept of limited capacity for socialization.
I think there's gotta be a middle ground where someverts are more tolerant of socializing for long periods of time. It still becomes draining, but they don't have some terrible allergic reaction. More like just mild sneezing!
Introversion level is really just a measure of how much social stimulation you require on average. Everyone has some level above which they feel exhausted and below which they feel lonely/bored.
It’s a spectrum - most of us are ambiverts.
The whole concept of *verts is an early 20th century psychological concept from an era which produced practices and ideas which are now mostly antiquated.
It has become pop psychology and never had much meaning.
It seems relatively true that some people gain energy from socializing, while others expend energy to do so; extrovert vs introvert; which is what I been told is the difference between extroverts and introverts. It's not that introverts _can't_ socialize, it's just that they have a limited capacity to do so (with the caveat that there are people who have social anxiety that cannot socialize, who _also_ fall into the category of introvert).
Given how obviously true it _appears_ to be when talking to people about their experiences, why do you say that?
> with the caveat that there are people who have social anxiety that cannot socialize, who _also_ fall into the category of introvert
Interestingly, I know people who say they are socially anxious extroverts—they need to be with people to draw energy but have high levels social anxiety. This usually means they need to spend a lot of time with people they know well and trust.
The field of personality psychology continues to believe it has meaning: extraversion is a factor in the five-factor model.
the five factor model suggests nothing about "gains energy/drains energy", it simply measures tendency toward extraversion and identifies it as a highly explanatory factor in personality. There are 5 factors because those 5 are the factors that when measured appear to be independent variables, and explanatory.
> There are 5 factors because those 5 are the factors that when measured appear to be independent variables
This is not correct; they are not independent.
the goal is for them to be independent variables in the statistical sense. science is a process of refinement so there will undoubtedly be improvements, but they are as independent as they can be based on current knowledge, they can be measured separately, and people exist in every combination (the scales of each measure are not dependent on one another), and we can't describe what we know about personality without including all of them. Myers-Briggs comes to mind as a comparable metric which has more dependence among its variables, and essentially ignores neuroticism.
> the goal is for them to be independent variables in the statistical sense.
No, it isn't. The goal is for them to have high explanatory power. They aren't independent variables, and the fact that they aren't is a frequent criticism of them. But it's not relevant to whether they are useful descriptors or predictors.
Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Li... :
> In many studies, the five factors are not fully orthogonal to one another; that is, the five factors are not independent. Orthogonality is viewed as desirable by some researchers because it minimizes redundancy between the dimensions.
I'm not convinced it's a single dimension, either. I suspect it's less a spectrum and more of a blotch.
Considering we're talking about real people and the real conversations you have with them, definitely. The 5 people I talk to and the patterns I've come to expect from socializing with them, and the way that those patterns interact with my own behavior, don't really have a neat apples-to-apples comparison with your 5 people and their patterns and how you interact with those patterns, etc. We could both be calling ourselves introverts and extrapolating wildly different chains of observations and predictions about how those hypothetical conversations would be affecting the other one's energy levels, etc.
People say "spectrum" when they mean "1-dimensional ranged value". But a real spectrum is a bitfield of attributes.
Most people would understand, some play dumb, and some people just have low IQ...
It's a spectrum of multiple things here so I agree that this is too simplistic. You might even label some of these things as features, not bugs.
But the flip side is that the ability to mingle and talk to people is something that doesn't come equally naturally to everyone and some people feel uncertain of themselves when put in situations where they have to mingle with a lot of especially those type of people that are really good at that. Avoiding such situations is a natural response to such negative feelings. I've worked with an autistic colleague who explained to me the notion of these situations being mentally, emotionally, and physically draining. You'd think they'd be hermits! But the opposite is actually true. As it turns out this person had a rich online life that also spilled over into a personal life.
As it turns out, being autistic also means that these people are on the receiving end of a lot of care and training. And some of that stuff actually works. I'm not saying it's easy. But this was a hard working person that was one of the most coacheable people I worked with and in many ways a lot more senior and mature than other people I've worked with.
Socializing is a skill, that's actually something that you can work on and something that can be useful in professional situations. Or even in your personal life. Once you get better at it, you get to talk to nice people, meat new friends, etc. And once you build a relationship with such people you can meet them on your terms as well.
There's also the related trait that some people need to be talking to people all the time in order to feel comfortable. They become uncertain when having to spend time with themselves even. That's probably something that they could work on as well. A lot of these people might be equally unhappy as some lonely people are.
The best description I’ve heard is “introverts are recharged by being away from people, extroverts are recharged by being around people”. As an ambivert, I experience both… sometimes I really need to be in big groups and talking to lots of people, sometimes that exhausts me I need time away.
This is me. I've noticed that I generally shut down after about 90 minutes of being at a social event.
This is only true for shallow connections. Introverts can talk for hours in deeply interesting and satisfying conversations. People they love and trust or people with whom they share a deep connection. Your task is to define and identify your tribe and work to surround yourself with those people. (Check in on your emotions regularly, identify who you connect with, identify how to replicate that) And then actively grow your tribe. One trick you will learn is that changing the way you perceive others changes your ability to connect with them.
I also find that switching between introvert and extrovert mode takes effort. If you like being in an introvert mode, then in social environments you move a lot of times between both modes (because you fall back into introvert mode, until someone starts talking to you), and this can be tiring.
It seems to me that everyone has a limit
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> people who are introverts can be social
not if they have social anxiety or are not NT
> but only for limited amounts of time.
but yes, this is true. And it is not something you can build up like a muscle or long distance running. In fact I think trying to build up the amount of time you socialize actually diminishes it
> not if they have social anxiety
I have (frequent) crippling social anxiety, am definitely an introvert, and I can be social -in the right circumstances-[0] (albeit for a limited period of time[1].)
[0] eg. small group of people I know well, familiar surroundings, ideally without a lot of external noise.
[1] 3-4 hours tends to be my limit even under the best circumstances.
Everything is true except for the edge cases where it's not; pointing this out I think is unnecessary.
if something is true everywhere except the edge cases, it is not true everywhere.
Yes, extroverts do understand this limited capacity. It's like when you live an ultra sedentary lifestyle, and one day you realize you can't catch your breath after walking up four flights of stairs. Like any capacity, socializing requires exercise. We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. It's only in the last decade or two that it became possible to live a productive live by text, alone, without the intense realtime, full mind and full body experience of being with other people. Use it or lose it. And don't assume socialization is easy for some class of "extroverts" who are dominating "introverts" into being full members of the organizations which they work for. It's hard, worthwhile work for everyone. Socialization capacity is like any trait. You have to use it or you'll lose it. I say this because I think modern life is depopulating as people decide they have a condition that's some kind of innate disability. I wish y'all would accept that it's just hard, but worth it.
> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. It's only in the last decade or two that it became possible to live a productive live by text, alone, without the intense realtime, full mind and full body experience of being with other people.
Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis.
Sure, we spent a lot of time with those 30 people in the past, but calling that "extremely social" is pretty misleading in the modern context—today that kind of wording evokes a very different image than the small-scale village life that dominated our ancestors' lives.
I'm a hardcore introvert by modern standards, but for me that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy spending time with my small circle of friends and family, it means that when I branch out beyond that small circle socialization is actively draining. I'd have done just fine in village life, it's the completely unnatural modern world that is overwhelming to my social limits, and I get rather tired of extroverts telling me that it's just because I don't try hard enough to "exercise".
> Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis.
I would be surprised if this is true. Ancient civilizations were complex. When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there. Having the chance to walk around part of it. Everything was dense and close and there were large city centers and markets. I'm sure the rest of Rome is just as big and same for the other cities and empires going back thousands of years.
> When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there.
And Rome (the city) had a population of 1 million or more, but that doesn't change the fact that demographers estimate at most a 10–20% urbanization rate in the Roman empire—meaning at least 80% of the population lived outside of cities in rural areas. And that's Rome, which had a notably high urbanization rate compared to periods before or after, not matched in Europe until the industrial revolution.
Compare that with an 80% urbanization rate in the US today and we're looking at almost exactly the inverse from where we were 2000 years ago in the Mediterranean. And it's even worse if we're just looking at the US, which had a 5% urbanization rate in the 1790 census and didn't even get to 20% until 1860. Where we're at now is simply unparalleled in history, and there's ample evidence that we're not well adapted as a species to this kind of density.
Rural doesn't mean your living secluded away from the world though with two other families to talk to. There was still a society and economy to be part of, governments that rule, wars being fought, religion etc
None of those things required social engagement with large numbers of people on an ongoing basis. Occasional contact with the broader world for business and religion is not the same thing as the intense, frequent, and large-scale social expectations that are a burden for most introverts.
There's a huge difference between going to church on occasion (or even weekly, which was not always the norm) and living in a city with a population density measured in the thousands per square mile.
How else would you live?
I think this idea of villages of 30 people where you don't talk to anyone is just a fantasy. Even the Mayflower had 130 people to just set up their new town.
> idea of villages of 30 people where you don't talk to anyone is just a fantasy
I didn't say that—I said you'd regularly interact with only ~30 people (give or take). You'd probably be on good terms with a few dozen more, and it's been demonstrated that we really lose the ability to have relationships entirely by about 100-300.
The average city today has about 8x that number of people per square mile. That's entirely unlike anything that evolution equipped us for, which is why I object to OP's assertion that we all descend from extremely social people. By modern standards we absolutely do not.
todays world gives you so many opportunities to not talk to anyone. if you needed to get something done in the past you need to talk with other people, people were specializing in their abilities. today you can get food delivered to your door, look up repairs on youtube, buy anything you want or need online, do your job remotely, get directions from an app.
in what way do you feel like your expected to talk to anyone in our modern world? even here online, there's no expectation for you to respond to anything I said here
Socializing is a skill and requires exercise, but everyone has its own unique limitations and skill levels. Not everyone throughout history has led an exceptionally social life filled with constant conversation. There are plenty of references to quiet and seclusive people in the bible, for instance. In the Middle Ages, you could join a monastery or convent, which provided a community more suited for introverts. Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if many introverts feel there is no escape from the extrovert modern life.
Yep.
It's notable to me every time this topic comes up on HN that an extrovert invariably comes on and straight up tries to argue that introverts are just people who don't try hard enough. When that happens to people with other biological differences it's immediately and rightly decried—even other mental differences have become increasingly recognized and protected from that kind of condescending judgement—but the combination of the hidden-ness of the difference and the fact that those with this difference are less prone to speak up to defend themselves means that it's okay to tell a whole class of people that the difference between them and the average case is that average people try harder.
> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives.
This is an incorrect rationalization of your own prejudices, nothing more.
> I wish y'all would accept that it's just hard, but worth it.
You need to accept that your personal experience is not universal. It's one of the most basic realizations a thinking human needs to have.
None of that jives with any of my observations.
In my immediate circle alone - my sister is a strong extrovert and always has been. She thrives on large groups. If she's stressed and wants to relax she'll go to a party or downtown dance club or hang out with a dozen acquaintances. She's been that way since tween. I bring her up because she's very upfront, and I trust and believe her, that social engagements alone are NOT, and never have been, hard work or effort. They're natural to her, she gains energy from them, she enjoys them tremendously, and gets recharged through them. This is not my external observation but her convincing expression. I know others like that.
Then there's me :-). Lot of that, such as parties and dance clubs and even large groups of friends, sounds awful to me. Easy on assumptions though : As per my parallel comment, I've been a client-facing consultant for 20 years. I practice and teach soft skills and emotional intelligence at fairly high level at work. Having started as a hands-on techie for the first decade of my career, I haven't written a line of code since 2018 - ALL I do now is talk to and manage and coach and mentor people, meet with clients, etc. I spend about 7 hrs a day actively engaging people professionally.
And it's still as draining as it is rewarding and enjoyable. 20 years of active practice and daily high level socialization has not meaningfully moved the needle on whether I gain energy from people, like my sister always has, or drain energy even with people I enjoy doing activity I like.
Absolutely there's detail and granularity to this - I love teaching and have been a visiting professor for 3 years at local college. I love mentoring and coaching and do it daily. But at the end do the day I strongly crave alone time to recharge after social activities (which is what I call "being an introvert"), whereas I know people (I call them extrovert) who simply don't need that, at all. The notion that simply practice can change that, hasn't been the case for anybody I know.
You can gain skills and that's indeed worthwhile! But that does not automatically alter the energy management situation.
So my apologies, but your post is the most literal proof that some extroverts don't understand this, at all, and like Freud, make wild assumptions based on limited internal experience :-/. It's less of a capacity thing, which I'll agree may get expanded, and more of what does activity do and how does it draw on that capacity.
> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives
Do you think the hunters who were huntering kept chatting all the time? Or the gatherers looking for berries/mushrooms just talked and talked and talked and judged anyone who went by themselves?
Did the goat herder have people walk up the hill with them to prattle on about their family life or could they perhaps be alone in there? Or any craftsman for that matter. The cobbler could just spend time making shoes, they didn't need to talk to customers for 12 hours a day constantly.
Extroverts also need to work on sitting in silence, IMO...
Is anyone else like me? A little socializing goes a really long way for me. I don't hate it, it's not exhausting, I can do it well, and I'm generally seen as a fun person to talk with.
I'm an introvert but not because my "social battery" is discharged by socializing, but instead because I need to discharge in solitude
I have unlimited social stamina and can do it forever, if by forever you mean that if I'm left in socializing without that necessary solitude I will spin off into mania and eventually get in serious trouble
That's definitely me. I'm generally not social, but I love clubbing, dancing and raves. Not just the music (top reason) or the physical aspect, but all the chatting with randoms too. I love the bullshit we talk, the temporary friendships and the places you find yourself at 5am. (and if anyone's wondering, nope, just alcohol)
But I can go once and be good for months. See friends a few times a year as well, and I'm sorted.
This is hard to explain, but I think it's about "who you are/how you see yourself". As if there's a tension in my head, "am I my thoughts, or am I how other people see me?" When I have been more social recently, I ruminate less and am generally happier, but I feel I lose a bit of "depth" in my psyche. I just feel kind of "thin", like a minor character in a TV show. Though writing that, maybe that's just depression trying to pull me back in.
So you seriously think that humans two, three decades ago were extroverted because they couldn't live a productive life by not being extremely sociable and introverted is an unnatural condition where you just need more social excercise? Is this the intellectual level of this community now?
> And don't assume socialization is easy for some class of "extroverts" who are dominating "introverts" into being full members of the organizations which they work for.
I don’t assume that - people tell me as much! I have close friends who assure me that socializing is not hard work for them, and they’d yap all day if they didn’t control themselves the same way that I would read or play games all day if I didn’t control myself.
Good counterpoint but I think there's definitely a variance in ease amongst the population. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I am the kind of person that will socialize because I know it's a good thing in general. But I do think some people can perform "socialization feats" just in the same way the best bodybuilders can get super jacked whereas there is no way I'm lookin' like Arnold. haha.
Or maybe "I'm introverted" i just the nice form for "You are annoying and i don't enjoy being around you".
Yes. I always thought this captured it well:
”I used to think I was introverted because I really liked being alone but it turns out I just like being at peace and I am very extroverted when I’m around people who bring me peace.”
As an introvert, no.
Socializing is always draining. I enjoy being around other people and I enjoy socializing, I like going to parties and meeting people and whatever else, but it's extremely tiring for me. No matter how much I like the person it's with, I'll be exhausted afterwards and I'll need a lot of time in solitude and isolation to get all that energy back.
It has nothing to do with how much peace a person brings me. Being social to any degree takes energy and I need to be alone to get that energy back.
That's introversion. Not "I don't like people".
Socializing is always draining. It's a physical fact that it simply takes a huge amount of energy to engage with other people, no matter what you think your personality type is. Dealing with socialization is a big part of why we have these huge energy-intensive brains.
I think the discussion here suggests it's an issue of perspective. Is socialization a fact of life, or is it something you are allowed to opt out of?
It's okay to be tired. A day that leaves you exhausted should be celebrated and followed up with rest to prepare for the next day!
Having known plenty of extroverts, I don't see how this is true.
The discussion here is wrong and at odds with the science I've seen and my anecdotal experience. You can't just decide we're all the same and that some of us just have an attitude problem. That's asinine and irritating.
He is right, its a physical fact that talking and doing something takes more energy (not the emotional, but the Joules thing) than sitting around alone.
So what you're saying is that extroversion is curable with a bit of a change of social behaviours and environment, and with a bit of practice, discipline and repetition we can turn them into mathematicians, farmers, hunters, philosophers, scientists, monks, priests and witch doctors and negate this artificial always networking and hustling environment that's only been created in the last 200 years with the industrial revolution, communication revolution and growth obsessed capitalism :)
This gives me hope: there's no silver bullet, but one day we can find a cure for our modern curse of excessive extroversion :)
FWIW, I'm "extroverted" in the terms used in this thread, but I'm also all of these: mathemetician, farmer, scientist. We can work on monk or priest but those might be mutually exclusive!
>We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives.
Just because something was a necessity for a greater cause in ye olde days does not mean that it is also a good thing in itself. Now that it's not a strict necessity, a not insignificant number of people are admitting they don't like it.
Personally I consider myself more intro- than extrovert. I find people dishonest (even the most honest ones) and dealing with that reality is extremely tiring.
I read about a quiet little girl at school that turned out to know all the other kids (eg preferences) better than any other kid. The intro/extro dichotomy has been taken far in mainstream writing, and I think the author is addressing people that have gone too far in the introvert direction, or rather made it a permanent part of their personality.
Also, for those of you who are afraid of being judged when speaking, start by convincing yourself that other people have something interesting to teach you, then ask questions.
These labels are quite obviously overused. Like most social characteristics, there is a spectrum. I can, and have, gone without seeing another person for months - and I've barely noticed. Now, I go into work five times a week. I do think I come off as odd to people; but I don't mind, I'm not proud of it, but I'm not embarrassed by it either. I am what I am. Earlier in life I put great effort into being "normal" socially, but with great effort also came enormous stress.
I've not struggled with work or partners. There are lots of people who don't seem to mind the occasional oddity or silence in a group. Although, I do occasionally run into some self-righteous lot who try to "fix" me; but I find this condescending. There are lots of ways to be a person, and I am truly fulfilled with the way I am. Most friction this has ever caused is by someone wanting me to be some other way, usually theirs.
This feels like the author has made the assumption that since they are an introvert, all introverts are like them.
However, I think that introversion, like most things is a continuum, not binary. Take the characterization of introverts in the article: "They would rather sit in front of the computer than go out during the yearly college social fest." For me it isn't just a matter of "I'd rather be in front of a computer", going to a big social encounter is extremely stressful. And the idea of approaching and talking to someone I don't know fills me with terror.
That isn't to say that I never go to such activities, or try to go out of my comfort zone, but it is much, much more difficult for me than even other introverts.
If I were Aditya in the introductory story, telling me I should go talk to people would not be helpful, ot would just reinforce my insecurities and anxiety. What would be helpful is if someone, especially someone I at least knew a little came and said something like, "Hey, I hear you like Open Source, can I introduce you to <person>, I think they would like talking with you?" And then introduce me, and initiate the conversation.
And there are also difference in how introversion manifests. One person might do fine in social interactions, but is terrified public speaking or giving presentations, and someone else is the other way around.
That's one thing I noticed - the author doesn't say "would you like me to introduce you to X who you could talk to about Y?". He says "hey, go talk to that guy" and thinks he's being kind. He's not. What Aditya could be hearing is "you're some kind of loser, there are so many obvious things any normal person would do, and you are doing none of them. Let me list some ways in which you are a loser. For example, you could be talking to that cool guy and you don't. And now that I told you that I'm going to leave you to soak in your loser-ness while I am going to have fun with my cool friends!". It's probably not what the author meant at all. But that's what it easily could become. Aditya clearly has some trouble connecting to strange people, for one reason or another. A kind thing would be to try to help him, not to label him "closed heart" and dismiss him. Of course, nobody owes him that, but if you proudly declare it's your job... If you think telling an introvert not having a good time "why don't you have a good time! go and have good time right now!" is going to work, you clearly don't understand how introverts work.
This doesn't seem to relate much to the parent comment. The idea of someone introducing you to someone else at a party is them helping.
This is also what stuck to me. The world is not as one wants and is up to the world to come to me with a fix. Self reliance replaced with self pity, will end up with sadness because the world will never be exactly as we want. I do find the idea of finding likeminded people good and you should do it. It is what I do and it is nice.
> The idea of someone introducing you to someone else at a party is them helping
Umm ... along the lines of "helping" someone to learn to swim by pushing them into the deep end of a swimming pool?
I've heard one way a parent can help a shy child is to have them look after much younger children. Even very shy children seem to be able to manage talking to less-experienced, less-intimidating, pipsqueaks.
Wonder if there's a way to take that tack.
shyness != introversion
What this guy describes is social anxiety, not introversion.
I mean, lets also avoid pretending there is zero overlap. I am an introvert largely because my brand of social anxiety causes me to function better in typically introverted ways. Introvertedness is a spectrum as opposed to something with clearly defined boundaries.
There is no overlap, it's two different traits, both of which are a spectrum. You can have full social anxiety while not having any introversion, and vice versa. I am introvert very much and yet I have zero social anxiety.
Would it be fair to say “You are an introvert by necessity rather than by choice”?
That's a strangely difficult question for me to answer, this being the first time I've been asked. What is your intention with it? You have me curious.
Thinking briefly on my answer, I would argue (mostly with myself) that it is a mix of both. For example, I consciously make choices about how to conduct my day or a specific task that will fall within the boundaries of my best operational parameters...which I understand makes me sound like a robot, but I am anything but (nor do I understand enough about robotics to pretend otherwise). It's just a matter of having enough self-awareness to listen to what my brain and body tells me works and does not work for me, noting what does work, then trying to accommodate myself for best results. In another comment, an introvert mentioned they can get up on stage and talk to a room of 500 people if they had to. I can do the same thing...so long as I know I have nothing to do the next day, because that action will cost me a ton of processing power and I will need to rest for a long time compared to, say, an extrovert. So, there's a consequence to be consider when making that choice to get up and talk to that room of people.
Alternatively, this also begs necessity. As someone who has actually been diagnosed and rediagnosed with anxiety and having tried different types of treatment to see what works and what does not work (choice, again?) I have learned one thing is for certain; this is not a thing that will just go away or be "cured" in the traditional meaning of the word, so it becomes necessary to learn to work around it.
In my experience, our choices and necessities are often the same, so it's a blurry question with a blurry answer.
Being an introvert isn't a choice.
Pets are another big one.
lol pipsqueaks funny word
I am an introvert and I can (and if necessary will) take over the microphone and address a room with 500 people in it. I might even enjoy that a little.
What makes me an introvert isn't that I am shy (I am not), what makes me an introvert is that I find all interaction with other people except a select few exhausting and draining. Don't get me wrong: That doesn't mean I am weird or bad at talking with people — in fact I am quite the opposite. It just means it costs me a lot of energy, while extroverts appear to lose energy when they are alone, I lose it when there is a certain kind of social interaction needed around me.
So people don't really see me as an introvert, because to them it is all about being shy and a little bit awkward. But that isn't what makes you an introvert, the energy part is.
I'm very much like this. I often compare social gatherings to activities like hiking. I might go for a hike from time to time and I might even enjoy it, but it will be exhausting and I will need some time after the hike to recharge.
It's one of those "healthy chores". Unpleasant to think about, usually not as bad when you're actually doing it. Also like hiking (or lifting) there is an element of risk.
The presumption that introversion equals shyness still pervades even with what seems to be a cultural awareness amongst people on where they stand on that trait.
I'm very much like you in that many people mistake me for an extrovert because of the opportune occasions where I display "extroverted" traits in social settings. However it's more of a decision (mostly based on energy) than a default mode I fall back on.
I agree and most psychology articles I have read describes it as such, that introversion or extroversion is about what recharges you and what drains you. What the OP article and most of the comments are talking about is social anxiety. I am an introvert, but I love get togethers and social situations. I just know I have a very finite emotional budget for those things and plan accordingly.
> take over the microphone and address a room with 500 people in it
I'm not sure this has anything to do with introversion.
Speech and debate clubs are filled with introverts. The notion of "stage fright" is completely orthogonal to introversion. You're speaking at people, with YOUR ideas, YOUR words - it's not a dialogue, with shared feelings, mood, etc, which is where introverts generally get drained.
That was my point, precisely because the clichè in popular culture equates introverts with a kind of recluse who would rather die, than speak in front of an audience.
The whole discussion here is about introverts and how the existing public perception of us is flawed, because it misses the point entirely. As playing musician I know many extrovert performers who are agued with stage fright, something which doesn't bother me as an introvert at all.
Maybe it is because being seen in a bad light by people I wouldn't enjoy to meeting in the first place isn't a threat. When I play, my biggest fear is that we won't perform to our/my own standards and thats it. If the audience digs it that is great, but I am not afraid of them hating it, because I am aware of how good/bad what we do is.
> However, I think that introversion, like most things is a continuum, not binary.
It’s a measurable scale from 1 to 100 in the big 5 model.
I'm routinely getting >95 in tests.
> And the idea of approaching and talking to someone I don't know fills me with terror.
I think this is social anxiety and not to be confused with introversion.
Sure, they aren't quite the same thing, but they are related.
And I used an extreme example. In general, among introverts, some have a high tolerance for social interactions, some have a very low tolerance and there are people everywhere in between. Or to use the terminology of introverts having to expend energy to interact with other people, you could say different people have different fuel efficiencies.
My SO and me are both introverts, and we've talked a fair bit about it. We both enjoy social events every now and then, but we do need to recharge afterwards.
The common theme for us seems to be that we expend a lot of energy when talking with others. We analyze what they say, in order to come up with thought-through responses or follow-up questions. We don't do "chit chat" as such.
Before such events I dread them, because I know it will feel exhausting. Yet when I'm at them I have a good time. Afterwards however it feels almost exactly like I've been programming hard for a whole day, my brain is spent.
I, unlike my SO, also has some social anxiety. I'm very likely somewhere on the spectrum, as I often feel difficulty getting social interactions right. So I spend some extra energy thinking about what the right response is to this or that, or how to interpret body language. Especially if it's a new setting or a lot of new people this can cause a lot of extra mental work.
This part however has gotten better with the years, mostly because I've stopped caring so much what others think and just let myself be myself more.
I think this is a root well worth understanding. Once I grasped the concept I found it much less stressful. I've even got into public speaking, which horrified me as a child.
I came to realize that I'm really not that important. People aren't watching me. People aren't evaluating or judging me. They forget me when I move on. I'm not profound etc. They don't hang on my every word.
All that are things I put on myself. Nobody really "cares" what I say though, I'm just not that important.
Once I leave my ego out the equation, talking to people is a LOT simpler.
I'm not sure about that. Friends and family members do happen to remember something I or someone else said or did even years ago. People DO watch and pay attention, and often judge.
Which reminds me that verbal and emotional abuse from parents and close family can have a severe impact reaching far into adult-hood. You can't help having internalized behaviors build around trying to avoid abuse. You can rationally understand that maybe most people aren't judging you like that, but you're also keenly aware that the world is filled with enough who are and with strangers you can never tell who's who.
yes, but that's people you know. Not random strangers at some random party. Talking to strangers is "easier" when you realize that what they think about you does not matter.
I’ll be nitpicking but I’m not sure they are really that related.
I’m an introvert and my wife have SA. TBH it’s pretty different : if I go to an event where I know nobody or where I don’t feel like I have something to say, I’ll just go and keep politely quiet. I’ll get more bored and lost in my own thoughts or just listening without talking than stressed.
My wife on the other hand is like you said, terrified and exhausted by such settings and even with familiar meetings. Moreover, the SA doesn’t stops when you start interacting while introversion can disappear or become unnoticeable once you are integrated to the discussion.
Also I feel like introversion can somehow be controlled as you age while social anxiety don’t or can get worse.
I’m In my 30´s, I’m still an introvert but I learned how to interact with strangers politely without giving a fuck. My wife with SA clearly can’t do that at all and is always asking herself if what she just said was appropriate.
> I’m not sure they are really that related.
I would be very, very surprised if most people with social anxiety aren't also introverts.
There are actually many many people who are both socially anxious and extraverted. Really not uncommon. It doesn't look like that because introversion and social anxiety are so often mixed up - just like in this article. Keep in mind those psychological concepts are defined by the inner workings and motivations of people's minds, not by behavior observable from the outside.
Introversion: This person gets energy from being alone or with close friends in a routine situation. (Not the same as being lonely, mind!). They feel attracted by situations and environments promising those situations.
Extraversion: This person recharges by mingling with other people. From small talk at the water cooler to larger social gatherings. They feel attracted by social gatherings, and want to be part of them.
Social Anxiety: This person is anxious in social gatherings (of people not being close friends or family). They have feelings of inadequacy about themselves as social beings, and fear being devalued for acting wrong or - worse - being wrong.
Those concepts are related but not at all the same. Persons being both extraverted and socially anxious long for social situations involving new people, but at the same time feel inadequate of being in them. Or ruminate about their behaviour afterwards. Or actively try to get comments of positive validation from their peers during or after the gathering.
At the same time people can be introverted and not socially anxious at all. I have a colleague like that: loves working alone, doesn't need companions even for longer, more demanding projects, but at the same time has zero qualms leading a team, talking to customers, going in front of unknown audiences. It just exhausts them.
Introversion and Extraversion are concepts involving motivations: What situations do people feel attracted to.
Anxiety is essentially about fear of inadequacy, or perceived lack of agency about a situation. So not about motivation, but about a concept of self.
There are, of course, feedback loops enabling correlations like the introversion + social anxiety one. Children (adults too, for that matter) have multiple avenues of gaining validation and positive experience in live, e.g. social competency (as colleague, parent, friend, community member,...), physical performance (sports, crafting, ...), intellectual performance and so on. If they learn that they are good at a thing, they tend to do that thing more often, because the experience of competency feels good. They will experience these kinds of situations more, and thus gain more competency in these kinds of situations.
Now if a child is often ill, and can't go play outside with their peers, it won't do nothing inside, but instead probably be reading or drawing or crafting. So it will not learn social skills at that time, but will get better at drawing and crafting. If it already had a tendency to introversion, that tendency will probably get stronger.
OTOH imagine a child that was very socially active in early childhood, but then , around 12 years old, the parents moved and the child had to change schools, and got bullied in the new school. This kid probably was extraverted and now gained strong feelings of social inadequacy, of not belonging, of being somehow different or wrong as a person. They will still feel attracted to social situations, but thanks to their experience of being bullied, this will feel very stressful to them. Extraverted and socially anxious.
The most frustrating thing about this article and most of the comments is the refusal to separate introversion/extroversion from social anxiety. If you are an introvert, you will benefit from managing the amount of social interactions and to try to eliminate low value interactions so you can spend your limited energy on important ones, either in the workplace or with friends. If you have social anxiety, then you should probably talk to a therapist to try to reduce and manage your anxiety.
> If you have social anxiety, then you should probably talk to a therapist to try to reduce and manage your anxiety.
One of the difficult things about Social Anxiety, at least for me, is that talking to a therapist is just about the most anxiety inducing thing I could do.
But why use the same words for both when they mean different things?
There's clearly a high correlation though.
I wouldn't say so: introversion is to feel recharged when being alone.
So one could be really eager to socialise but find it terrifying to approach (social anxiety), especially if many unknown people are involved.
I think that it seems that way because we're not trained to see outgoing people as having any anxiety about the matter. It's a funny thing for sure.
It seemed to me that social interactions cause anxiety not only because you are an introvert but also due to the situation in which the interaction takes place. It seems to me that even if you are an "extrovert," you would feel anxiety when speaking at some seminar. It all depends on the context. But I might be wrong.
What I miss in these discussions is the "now what". OK, we are all born with different innate preferences, skills, interests, weaknesses.
We live in a world. In that world certain interfaces are virtually required to be implemented. Sure, some advocacy for the different is OK too, but meanwhile self-isolation is just not going to work for most. Also, we all are already learning tons that are based on our instance of the world, nobody would solve or create businesses if it were for pure intrinsic motivation.
How are we improving our weak spots? I sure as hell am going to put energy there, and not waste it all on moping, even further specialisation. Well, maybe those too, but after I spent some effort in addressing point I can identify are weaknesses for my functioning in the world I find myself in.
> the idea of approaching and talking to someone I don't know fills me with terror.
It seems you have completely missed the point of the article: this is something you need to work on. If you don't, it will negatively impact you for your entire life.
My point is that if someone isn't as good at socializing as you are, instead of assuming that they are too lazy or "closed heart" to do better, acknowledge that it might be orders of magnitude more difficult for them than for you, and try to be understanding and helpful instead of dismissive.
One thing I’d mention is that just because someone is good at socialising in the outside doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own issues. Demonising people who can colour within the lines in this area when they make a mistake or are pushed out of their comfort zone can be exactly the same for us as it is for you guys to be told “just talk to the person”.
I'll never assume that someone else doesn't have struggles that I don't know about.
But when a self-labeled extrovert (or introvert or whatever) begins to tell me to just go do X to help with my introversion, it makes me want to stop talking about the issue to anyone.
I could be wrong, but I think you might be misunderstanding someone's point from above.
They said "you need to work on this, or else ...", but they didn't use the word "just".
I.e., they weren't implying it would be easy. Just that it wouldn't go away on its own, but that working on it would (in their estimation?) help.
Kinda like when my doctor tells me I need to lose weight or else I'll have problems X Y, and Z. She knows it's not easy.
This is mental illness not introversion. You don’t get anxious about other things you don’t like. You might not enjoy playing board games or Russian literature. Does it stress you out and make you anxious? Probably not. You just don’t care.
I'll suggest to you that the boundaries between introversion vs mental illness are probably quite blurred in some cases.
And although it may seem ridiculous to you, there are people for whom board games and Russian literature are pretty stressful and anxiety inducing in the same way that public speaking is stressful for many people.
If you had also included math in your list of frequently disliked subjects, then it might be less ridiculous an idea
They said talking to another human being fills them with terror.
Blurry boundaries or not, either you're dedicidng to minimize what it means to feel terror, or I agree with who you're replying to. Bit weird to point the finger at someone and tell them they have mental illness, but it does look like it. Again, if you accept the description, I cannot see how terror would be an appropriate response to a conversation and would prevent someone from leading a normal life.
It would be nearly impossible to have a job for example.
It's important to remember that stress responses vary widely
Please do not impose the "mental illness" label on people over the internet. One of the foundational requirements for any diagnosis of a mental illness is a negative effect on the person's capacity to function, and you just can't evaluate that over the internet.
Its quite harmful to stigmatize peoples stories. Let people be different.
If someone is feeling deeply anxious over a social interaction, that’s a pretty clear negative effect on their capacity to function.
If someone never feels deeply anxious over a social interaction, that's a pretty clear negative effect on their capacity to function.
And how do you know that the Aditya from the story didn't have a mental illness?
I don’t know that. Why would it matter?
> On this one particular night, a lot of people were bonding, and it was amazing. But then I saw this young boy sitting in the corner by himself. Let’s call him Aditya. It was a bit dark and Aditya was trying to just get by, unnoticed. He looked overwhelmed and disinterested. I went up to him with a big smile and a lot of kindness, and said - “Hey man, what’s up? Why don’t you approach and talk to a few here? They are friendly, you know. You like Open Source, so maybe talk to that guy (pointing to a senior of mine) and ask him how he got started.”.
> His response that day still echoes in my ear. It felt like a voice coming out of a closed heart. And my words had fallen flat on him. He said, with a smirk, “I am not an extrovert”.
Maybe i am reading into this, but the author comes across as an asshole to me. You can see the condescension dripping from the prose.
To me it sounds like the author was being a busy-body and came off as rude. Introverted kid wanted him to mind his own business.
> “Hey man, what’s up? Why don’t you approach and talk to a few here? They are friendly, you know. You like Open Source, so maybe talk to that guy (pointing to a senior of mine) and ask him how he got started.”
This is completely wrong-headed on the part of the host of this gathering. The correct move is "Hey, man, it looks like you don't have a lot of connections in this room. Let me introduce you to a friend of mine... [Friend], this is Aditya. [Say something interesting about Aditya to justify Friend's attention.] You two have [X] in common. Aditya, I have known Friend for [Y] years. Ask him about [Z]. etc." The host mediates the introduction for a respectful amount of time, and then walks away.
That is the function and, truthfully, the responsibility, of a host at a gathering where not everybody knows everybody.
Whereas, some people would find it impertinent for a stranger to barge in on a conversation and introduce themselves as if they were important enough to deserve attention. Maybe they are, but they may be supposed to let somebody else do that for them. And likewise, many people feel slimy going around putting on an air of self-importance. It is hardly fair to characterize this kind of sensibility as "pride" or a feeling of "disgust" toward other guests.
Read some Jane Austen for more.
Fully agree. I read that intro section and closed the page. I didn't want advice from someone who could be so poor at this, and not even realize it. Instead of introspecting about his own contribution to the problematic interaction, he went ahead and made it the other guy's fault.
Honestly, I'm trying to put myself in Aditya's shoes, and I can't help but feel instant rejection at both the OP's and your approach. If I'm sitting by myself at a gathering it's probably because I'm overwhelmed by all the strangers in the room and can't (or don't feel like) figure out how to start a conversation with someone. The last thing I want in such a scenario is for someone to come and thrust me into a conversation with someone else. I can't see either myself or the other poor sap you involve in this enjoying the interaction. Now, if you want to come talk to me, by yourself, so I can get into a social mood, that's a different story.
As an introvert, I'd probably appreciate more of:
"Psst, there's a quiet room with a coffee maker if you're feeling exhausted or overwhelmed. Want me to show you the way?" and then not another word.
If I'm overwhelmed at a social event, I need at least half an hour of quiet time. Putting me on the spot at all just makes things worse.
(And if I'm not overwhelmed, I know how to play the part for at most 3 hours in a day, so you probably won't notice.)
I'm seeing a fundamental misunderstanding in both the article and a lot of the comments here, that to me seems closely related to the "some people have no inner voice" / "some people can't visualize things" findings: People making the assumption that how you act defines whether you're an introvert or an extrovert because only the external expression exists, not the internal state. And so all their examples reveal they think introvert/extrovert refer to how social a person is in the moment, instead of what it actually is - a measure of how draining (or not) social interactions are.
You really can't tell if someone is an introvert or extrovert in one instance in a setting, only in what happens later - it's totally possible to be a social introvert, for example, it just means you need alone time later to recharge before you can go again. When not given a chance to recharge it can come off in various ways depending on the person - often people describe it as getting tired, I've also seen snippiness, and I tend to get a headache.
Interesting article because it made me [1] think. But poor article because the author's apparent lack of awareness leads them to get so much wrong.
I suspect that the author is a straight-up extravert who thinks that introversion is the same as shyness (its not), and that their claim to be an "introvert in friendship" allows them to claim to be "deep" (wrong again, introversion is not a virtue and extraversion is not the same as superficiality).
Basically this reads like some think piece I'd expect to see on LinkedIn. Kind of like "How to Succeed as a Senior Staff Engineer", written by a 23 year old.
I wonder how the author of this piece will feel about it later in their life - perhaps as their awareness of the limits of their awareness becomes clearer.
[1] I identify as an introvert
I highly recommend the book "Quiet" by Susan Cain. It explores the trait of introversion in depth and makes many thought-provoking commentary about our cultural preference for extroversion. The poster can probably be described as an "ambivert".
At the end of the day, none of these terminologies matter... These labels are just "models" of how we see ourselves. I agree with the sentiment that premature self-labeling is dangerous. Because they tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. (e.g. I'm not good at math, I'm a nerd, I'm good at hockey, I'm INTJ, I'm an introvert).
That's a very long post to say "I don't understand extraversion/introversion"
“Hey man, what’s up? Why don’t you approach and talk to a few here? They are friendly, you know. You like Open Source, so maybe talk to that guy (pointing to a senior of mine) and ask him how he got started.”.
A very patronizing attempt at connecting people…
Being open with a select group of collaborators has gained me above average praise, promotions, etc. over the years. You don't need to be an extrovert to be an average or slightly above average engineer, you just have to pick your battles appropriately and understand the problems you are solving. OP is optimizing for a rat race that most people don't care about.
you don't have to play the game all of the time, just be social with the right people in the right places.
Wow. This is an incredibly insular, and empathy devoid take. The author's binary assumption that introversion and introversion are choices are incredible.
Go and do some research on neurodivergence, and then go and have a think about how harmful this advice is.
The emotional toll that it must have taken on Aditya just to be there without some grinning goon come lolloping towards him telling him just because they can do a thing anyone can do a thing must have been incredible.
Yep. Calling it an excuse is terrible.
Feeling comfortable to talk to an stranger depends on so many factors.
You could do 'extrovert' things because you're masking another thing. Because you're forcing yourself (and that can be exhausting). Because you feel in a safe or comfortable place. Or because it feels part of a duty or something like that.
A weird thing in my case is that it's quite difficult for me (although it doesn't like like that from the outside, I look quite outgoing) to go and talk to somebody that looks interesting to me, even when I'm on a place that is meant for that: a congress, workshop, whatever. I've been three years in a row going to PyConES, being part of Python Spain, knowing people there, and only this last year I've began to talk to some people. I can ask technical or specific questions, but I can't open a cold conversation.
But in the other hand, I can easily do a talk to a big audience or appear on a nation-wide TV show, and I'd barely get nervous.
Some people force themselves to do 'extrovert stuff' because social norms, or work needs, to fit somewhere, or because they want to get or do something very specific and 'that's the way to do it', but it's very taxing.
Some people (overlapping with that previous group) have identified that 'going extrovert' is tiring and taxing for them, and they rather don't do it unless it's really necessary. And they say it. And I really respect that, because they take care of themselves, and also helps the others around them to not step on their limits.
(I'm sleepy, haven't had my coffee, English is not my first language, please forgive my convoluted phrasing)
Sadly, the grinning goon is often the reality of the situation.
I grew up being treated as weird because I hated crowds and needed to rest after interacting with people. Externally, this got treated as me hating people and noisy places, which is not really true at all. I like people and when I have enough bandwidth available, I'll gladly interact with them even knowing that it will cost me some shut-down time later. There's a,"spoons" analogy for this that people seem to like, but I tend to think of it more in terms of how a computer allocates resources to process information.
The "noisy" bit is really more social noise, but some environments acoustically confound me. Coffee shops, for example, where the espresso machines make those god-awful noises at random intervals, only to bounce around in some idiotic open-ceiling aesthetic that has become fashionable for reasons I do not understand, since even extroverts like to hear who they are talking to. Thankfully, I have really nice earplugs.
Anyway, it was not until my 20's that I was diagnosed with Anxiety, which made things click. People that do not experience this have no clue, but I can't really blame them. The advertising and entertainment media I grew up on always displayed social interaction as healthy or some kind of key to happiness, which got pigeon-holed as "normal behavior", so who would want to be unhealthy or unhappy? You were supposed to just get out there and it would get easier with time, right? These people mean well, but again, they have no clue.
But the opposite is true. One of my best friends is a textbook extrovert, constantly needing social interaction and experiencing heavy mental and emotional distress when he's alone with just himself and his thoughts for too long. I have no clue what that's like, though I possess enough empathy to understand that's how he is wired, so his needs are different than mine (he also has enough empathy to return the same understanding toward my needs).
Empathy, as you imply, bridges that gap but also takes tremendous effort, hence why Othering is such a pervasive social issue.
This author does not seem to understand extroversion vs introversion - it relates entirely to your inner experience not your behaviors, and cannot be changed. An introvert can enjoy and be good at social interaction, and use it effectively at work- but they will still be an introvert, and as such will need to ration the energy social interaction uses. This is not “being an extrovert.” Many very successful people that are skilled at networking and social interaction are introverted.
I like to point out Captain Picard from Star Trek as an (obviously fictional but quite realistic) character that is introverted, yet renown for social and negotiation skills.
When people talk about “becoming extroverted” they usually mean developing social skills, overcoming social anxiety, and/or overcoming antisocial attitudes. All of those things are completely orthogonal to introversion.
My case is like this: I get no anxiety talking to people, I have nothing against talking to people, and I believe I can get my point across well enough and fluently when I need to get things done.
However, whenever there is a social gathering and such that I have to attend, my default, standard set of activities unless someone approaches me is to just look around look at my surroundings, get lost in my headspace while taking a walk around the place while tuning out others and greeting anyone who I happen to know. If I happen to be interested in having a conversation with someone, I will have it. But I'm simply not interested in people by default, or meeting people for the sake of it.
I have never spontaneously felt any inadequacy with myself when doing this. What inadequacies are there have almost exclusively have been pointed out to me by others, much in the same way the author does with Aditya here. I just don't ever feel a need to talk or force a conversation unless others (relatives and colleagues) are pressuring me to do so.
The mannerisms of the Author are what I've often heard from the management people in the companies that I've worked for and in some Linkedin posts. I'm not trying to deny at all that effective communication and networking has its benefits, but the way they talk, including the Author's article often makes me feel like they're masking an insurmountable amount of annoyance and vitriol for those who just don't want to talk. It's as if they will not accept anything other than the status quo of constant chatter and networking.
I'd imagine the keyword is "have to attend".
If you truly have no choice then who's to blame you but if you decide to show up to a party and then proceed to walk around and look at the furniture all night then maybe you could have put a minimum amount of effort to engage with others who could have stayed at home that day?
But if you are somewhere to listen to some nice talks and then they force you to "network" then I'd say it's totally ok to sit it out and avoid anything unwanted.
For me the "energy gain" / "energy drain" question depends MASSIVELY on who I happen to be spending time with. So much so that recently I'm doubting if I even am an introvert. With the right people it's all good.
I've always assumed people are largely the same, socially. I.e. we enjoy being with people we mesh with, and don't enjoy being with people we don't mesh with. The thing is, you can like people you don't mesh with. You might not have a single bad thing to say of a person, yet still have no interest in hanging out with them.
And then, surprise, being forced to do things you don't enjoy is draining. Especially when it involves long periods of politely choosing your words and facial expressions to pretend you're not bored/frustrated.
The only thing that makes an "introvert" is when the genre of person they mesh with happens to be more numerically rare. There is a ton of variety in humans. It doesn't mean anything significant that your "group" is small.
Yup, I've never bought into the intro/extrovert spectrum because it doesn't really seem to cover some pretty common cases.
This is me as well. For me it's not "socializing = energy drain" or the opposite. It's more about situations. In most situations I find talking with people, being in crowds, etc to be draining. But plop me into what is a relatively small list of "right circumstances" and it's the exact opposite.
> In most situations I find talking with people, being in crowds, etc to be draining
Then you are an introvert. They are talking about most situations, if there are some cliques you feel comfortable around then you are still an introvert.
Extroverts has a small set of situations where they get drained instead. It isn't like anyone loves all human contact, its just some have an issue with most contact and others like it most of the time.
Try framing it in terms of what you Need from people. Avoiding using "should" so much. It will help you become conscious of what your needs are. Confusing your needs with others needs is also a trap.
We can only talk in terms of our Needs and why those needs are important to us. Anything else sounds like passing judgement and the reaction will be negative.
> Avoiding using "should" so much.
I have two phrases I use often:
"Should is not in my vocabulary"
"Should is a lazy word"
People use words like "should" and "must" to get around explaining their perspectives.
I remember early in my career, I made a request for a feature to an employee in another team. Their SW was allowing users to specify parameters that made the whole model unphysical, and it was a burden on us users to always double check that parameter "X" was not negative. The SW wouldn't fail. It would simply not give correct results (and they wouldn't be wildly wrong that you'll quickly realize it).
I requested that they simply not allow a negative value. We didn't always put one there - sometimes it was the output of another process, and I didn't want to continually check that our automation wasn't putting in unphysical values.
The response? "The engineer should be diligent in making sure the value is not negative".
Should is a lazy word. He didn't explain at all why he's rejecting the feature request. I would have preferred "Low priority - we simply don't have the time."
Start counting how often someone uses the word as a way to avoid explaining him/herself.
I am going to borrow that "should is a lazy word" slogan. Thanks!
I don't find this convincing as an introvert. Dealing with shyness or being an introvert required me reading a few books and techniques how to deal with it. In the end that helped, but it was not as easy as just 'try harder' and took a few years. I also wish I realised earlier that it was an issue that needed addressing, but no one told me that. Overall the article seems to trivialize the issue in my opinion.
Can you recommend some books you’ve read? Struggling with the same thing
Not who you asked but:
- Quiet - Susan Cain (introversion in general)
- Cues and Captivate - Vanessa Van Edwards (business-focused social skills)
- The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense at Work - Suzette Haden Elgin (I actually didn't enjoy this one too much, didn't finish it, but I think that was a personal mismatch)
- How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dave Carnegie (a lot of the techniques are very, very dated and transparent when used today... but it's pretty foundational and worth a glance anyway)
Overcoming social anxiety and shyness by Butler was one of the books that was pretty good.
I don’t find article interesting at all. I agree with others that it’s full of gaps and „sound advice”.
Subject is interesting though and I, as person that naturally is introvert I can attest that avoidance doesn’t help. Negative effects doesn’t come suddenly, but after working remotely for 15+ years and mentoring many in similar situation I am sure that sooner or later bliss of solitude develops into non fun, hard to fix conditions.
But then what author describes at start isn’t an introvert/extrovert/shy or anxious person. It’s an obstructionist, a naysayer. Someone who always have an argument for not doing something.
I avoid such people and either remove from or leave teams where it’s impossible. Maybe they have reasons for being bad apples, but that’s not my job to fix it.
> They use introversion as an excuse to not grow.
As if people who the author accuses of this sin have the same definition of, or feel the same about "growing" as the author...
This article mixes up a bunch of different things.
Being a good communicator doesn't mean you have to be an "extrovert at work". There are many different styles of communication. I tend to be the guy who prefers async communication, will write explanatory comments on my own PRs, documents the WIP state on my tickets (especially before weekends or vacations etc.). Others are the kinds of people that'll happily go over a PR in a call. You just have to find modes of working that sort of work for everyone.
My impression is that (a) extraverts and introverts both have some mutual incomprehension, but that (b) this is greater in extraverts.
Am I just projecting my own introvert bias onto (b) here? Or is there something structural that is responsible for this? Or am i completely wrong about (a)? Thoughts?
If someone believes that they have nothing to gain from interacting with a group then who are you to tell them that they should do it anyways for growth? You could make the same exact argument about any form of interaction. Don't want to interact with the node.js ecosystem? Why not? You will learn so much and grow as a person. Will I? Really? How about a book on group theory? Sure I will probably learn something, will it be useful? maybe, more so than the class I already took on it in college? who knows, certainly not you more than me.
Also the idea that people just want to sit in front of the TV and not learn anything new or grow is completely insane and usually only comes up when they aren't learning the thing that you want them to know. If it appears like that it's only because they are stuck in some system, much like the one you propose, that wants them to learn unactionable knowledge
What is the Appearance of Interaction? Just because it's very obvious that you are interacting with some group doesn't mean that you interact with that group more than some other group that you don't know about. If you go to a new website your browser runs some interesting scripts, much like a TV show this attracts your attention, eventually you decide JavaScript is important and you should learn about it. You have entered the JavaScript fandom, it doesn't matter to you if gravity acts on you constantly or a krebs cycle complete in your body (~10)^~21 times a second, JS is clearly more useful to know about, right?
I think it's 90% contextual and depends on who you happen to be with. Just like the whole "alpha male" idea, or even the economic concept of value of goods/services (subjective theory of value).
People try and generalise too much to make these clunky mental models of the world and of people.
With the internet it's increasingly common for a person's preferred social group to be somewhere online, and the people you meet in your daily life IRL are not of this group, they are not "your people" and it's tiring to deal with them. Even if you were to meet those people IRL the dynamics would be different IRL. The whole thing is kind of cursed.
I’m not good with words, but I’m good at thinking. That leads me to listen more than I talk during gatherings. To listen is to concentrate, doubly so for crowded events. You need to think about what the person is saying, and you need to filter out the noise around you. No, try to talk instead of listen and see how that feels. Change the equation. Let others come up with good responses to your ramblings for once. Of course, this can feel a bit egotistic. The other way around it is to stop caring that much what the other person is saying. We're all here talking shit. At the end of the day, what matters is if you were seen, if the other person felt seen and validated. That's what's great about talking to another person. You got seen by an animal that can understand you the most: humans.
I'm not convinced introverts and extroverts even exist. All people have a need for company and a need for solitude. Depending on how well each of these needs is satisfied you may feel one or the other way. Most of the time I see people describe themselves as introverts they are describing shyness or social anxiety.
When you see me at social gatherings you would either label me as an introvert or an extrovert. It totally depends on the people i am around. Not like whether i know the people or not (i will happily socialize with strangers on the right topic), but rather what type of people and what the current topic is. I deeply dislike small talk, or people i know (or at least i think) don’t share any common interests with me. That’s why i am quite the talkative person at work but mostly quiet (and uninterested) in private.
These labels do as much to hurt ourselves as they do to try and help.
The truth (for me at least) is that whether I'm comfortable and energized by others depends on my level of comfort with the people, my familiarity with the situation, my mood, the general vibe, etc.
"Being" one or the other feels like a limiting belief that we can hide behind if we're not aware of what it's doing to us.
If I spend a lot of time socializing in a group of people I do not closely know, I will experience intense depression and loss of energy for about a day or so.
That's introversion.
I love being around people but it sucks the life out of me. I get energized through working on projects and reading. Inherently private pursuits.
> everyone should be an extrovert at work
No, we shouldn't. I'm not an extravert, and I don't want to be an extravert. I don't ask extraverts to be introverted, so don't ask me to be what I am not. Being introverted doesn't mean that I'm anti-social or incapable of cooperating with others.
Absolutely agreed. No one should be obligated to be anything at work. At work, you should accomplish things. You should be able to work with others but you shouldn't have any obligation for emotional or whatever other response.
It always bothers me how people frame it as a binary either-or thing.
I think the reality is way more subtle, with a wide spectrum that is highly context dependent.
I don't think labelling someone/one self as one or the other or trying to "be an extrovert at work" or whatever is productive or healthy.
What I learnt from this post is that no one else is going to wait for you. If you are introverted, doesn't speak up, doesn't volunteer for anything; why are you surprised that you are not growing?
I mostly don't see the point in these terms anymore. They were presumably created to categorize people but suck at it because nobody agrees where the boundaries of the category are, and the resolution on the term is so low for how many domains of personality it touches.
This is a general problem with language.
Yes, but some terms have more trouble with it than others, and if the term cannot converge on a clear, repeatable definition over time, questioning the utility of the term seems reasonable.
Eg the terms "red" and "green" have largely converged on specific, useful meanings over time. Even more abstract words like "freedom" have mostly clear definitions (although definitely also have variance!). Introvert/extrovert I would argue have a LOT of variance in meaning when people use the words. And if people using the words can't agree on what they're actually communicating about, that might suggest that other or new concepts/words might be more useful.
Language is constructive, basically people make it up and the "definitions" are none, they are actually after-the-fact formalizations. Whatever humans do to the word "Introvert" now will be its "definition" in 20 years.
Print out some rainbow and ask people to draw the line between "red" and "not-red". That would prove that convergence didn't happen and would nicely show why it probably never will.
I would argue if you asked 100 random people to draw a red Vs not-red line in that experiment you described, short of colour blindness, you would not see very much variance in the position of the line. That is why I believe the terms have converged on a meaning.
In fact, I think it would be very hard to construct an experiment where people did not use the term red in a consistent fashion.
I agree with you that formal definitions of words come after the fact. But meaning of words are always present; everyone who uses a word uses it with some understanding if its meaning, that they want to convey. And as words converge on a shared meaning, they become effective for communicating meanings. I'm arguing introvert/extrovert have been around for a long time, and have not converged on a consistent meaning. The terms have too much variance in meaning to be useful at communicating. One person uses the word and means something very different from when someone else uses the word. In 20 years time this variance will likely still be a problem. If the definition of a word shifts over time, that's ok as long as the variance remains low; it just means it has a new definition. But if the variance is high, it means the word isn't very useful/effective for communication.
My impression was that the variance is high enough that i have to learn / swap new vocabulary with every new person in my social circles. I don't see the convergence you are talking of.
Fascinating, that has not been my experience. Can you give some examples?
Although I will note there is always some variance, the issue happens when it's too great, and some people's definition of a word is barely even overlapping with another person's definition of a word.
Right here, right now: Your use of "definition" is foreign to me. I do not have definitions of words in my head, but understandings or interpretations.
A definition is something that would be in a dictionary book.
Haha fair enough! I use definition to mean essentially "what one sees as the meaning of a word". That "one" could be Webster or another dictionary. Or an individual.
Your definition, is "the meaning of a word as specified in a dictionary".
There's definitely variance between these two definitions, but I think it's a small variance, and we can largely still understand each other despite the variance. I would say that word has converged on a meaning. We could, if we decided it was necessary, create separate words, one to mean an exact definition as defined by an authoritative source, and one to mean how every individual defines a word. But English society has decided that distinction isn't worth creating a new word at this time.
My argument is that introvert/extrovert have much more variance. When some people use the term, they use it to describe a behaviour, a temporary state, a constant personality trait, a spectrum, two perpendicular dimensions, a label on a loose set of behaviours, social skills, energy levels -- it's got so many facets! And dictionaries follow human usage -- so how is a dictionary supposed to pin this down to one or two concise definitions? That's my argument for why the terms are too variant to be exceptionally useful/meaningful.
Slowness is a general problem with cars.
Yes, expecting your car to go at the speed of sound is as misplaced as expecting words to be accurate. Self-stab?
I mostly want useful. Accurate and supersonic would be great.
I've identified an issue with my car's starter and my mechanic, in his wisdom, tells me that cars in general do that sometimes. It's perhaps a cruel irony in a discussion about usefulness.
I’m not sure if I’m an extrovert or introvert, but I struggle with two things: small talk and being stuck in problem-solving mode.
Small talk: I often don’t know what to say and end up saying the wrong thing. Prolonged small talk makes my mind feel numb, like I need to retreat and recharge. So I try to avoid it if possible.
Problem-solving mode: When I’m focused on solving a problem, I’m physically present but mentally somewhere else. I try to engage in the conversation but can’t fully tune in, leading to goof ups which I regret later.
I really wish people could ditch the "introvert vs. extrovert" framing. As a label, it is not helpful for anyone's personal growth.
People think salespeople are some kind of natural "extrovert". I hate to break it to you, but cold calling is draining for everyone. Salespeople may get particularly good at reducing the emotional expenditure involved in making cold calls, to be able to making a lot of them for long periods, but it is fundamentally a practice where one expends energy out into the world and gets absolutely nothing in return. I promise you, any salesperson making cold calls with no "nibbles on the line" eventually begins to doubt themselves and looks to make an exit. This is also why online dating is so draining for so many people, despite applications not inducing any "social interaction" like actual conversation - if you invest emotional energy into something that does not return emotional energy to you, then you will drain yourself if you are not careful.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are specific, individual people in our lives who fill us with energy and joy, who we love to spend time with. These are people we "vibe" with, who are on our wavelength, so to speak. When you have someone, maybe even more than one, such person in your life, I doubt you would like to spend less time with them.
Social skills are about finding more people who give you energy and resisting people who drain your energy. Finding more people who give you energy is, yes, a cold-calling skill, one where you take the risk of investing, from time to time, a small and limited amount of energy in the universe in the hope of finding a social energy return. But it is also about resisting people who drain your energy. Sometimes we need to interact with people in our families or at work who we can't just cut out of our lives, for one reason or another, who drain us. One can hardly be faulted for not having the energy, at the end of the day, to go network at some social function when they're already drained. But it is also that person's responsibility to learn to manage their emotional energy so that they will have some for the cold-calling that is necessary to find the people we vibe with. You do not need to vibe with everyone, and framing people with really good cold-calling skills as "extroverts" avoids the fact that such people do not actually vibe with everyone, they are just better at both the cold-calling skills involved as well as managing their emotional energy levels.
This is why I hate the words "introvert" and "extrovert": everyone can just assume that their personal makeup is "introvert" or "extrovert".
This of course makes for easy straw man arguments to the effect of "Everyone is the same at the core" and "Extroversion is a skill" and "Everyone feels drained". If you honestly think that, then these words are meaningless.
I had a similar conversation with a friend the other night about smiling, where she said "you just pull up things in your mind that naturally make you happy, and then that makes you smile naturally." Once again, not for some of us. For some of us, our natural state LOOKS very unnatural to others. Every interaction requires putting on a facade, because for some reason our natural pose, facial movements, body movements, how we talk, how we smile - ALL of it must be done in a very artificial way in order to "look natural".
And THAT is why it's so draining, akin to squatting on one leg. Sure, you can train it so that you could even do it for 20 minutes instead of 4, but evenually it's just too much and you need to retreat to a safe place where you can relax your stiff muscles and behave normally for awhile (except for the small group of friends with whom you can just be normal).
And if squatting on one leg were the only way you could emotionally reach those you talk to, you'd do it sparingly - only where it has the most impact.
The amount of folk psychology in both that article and this thread is disappointing but expected. Introversion has become a fuzzy and basically useless term that gets folded into a number of unrelated concepts: neuroticism, openness to experience, and agreeableness.
I think that people get attached to the introvert/extravert division because it's the most clearly defined by social relations. It takes less introspection to be able to look at social group and define one's self relative to one's peers in terms of how much others seem to enjoy spending time in shared company compared to one's self.
The reality is that somebody might crave a lot of human contact but be paralyzed by social anxiety (that's me). Or maybe they don't want to leave their comfort zone but once out there can engage in long deep conversations with others, even strangers. We also mix into that stew social lubricants like alcohol, drugs, and board games that can warp a social situation and reward different social behaviors.
Ultimately, I think people understand a lot less about themselves than they realize (and I include myself in that). We latch onto the simplest categories, and we especially love categories that depict us as victims of societal circumstance, or somehow superior to the people around us.
The reality is that if you pick one dimension of psychological categorization like a diagnosis or a trait like introversion, and then look at all the people who share that, I think they share less in common than they might assume.
Nothing I love more than being lectured by neurotypicals.
I know the author is well meaning, but for some part of the population, this is just more of the same hurtful invalidation we've received our entire lives.
Being neurodivergent involves others constantly encouraging us to set ourselves up for failure.
They don't see the exhaustion so they expect us to push through. They don't have our limits so they expect us to overcome ours. They have will power to get them what we don't have so they think we aren't using ours.
There's nothing in here that hasn't occurred to me before. And it's not necessarily that the conclusions are incorrect, but that for some people they come at an extreme cost to mental health and are not truly sustainable.
I would love to hear people voicing acceptance instead of more of the same of telling us that we should try harder when we're already trying to the point of constant overwhelm.
“ Hey man, what’s up? Why don’t you approach and talk to a few here? They are friendly, you know. You like Open Source, so maybe talk to that guy (pointing to a senior of mine) and ask him how he got started “
ah yes nothing says being a party host like whispering to someone the exact words they should say like they’re a child learning to socialize.
I agree with most of the other HN comments that this article, while hitting the nail on the head when talking about socialness and how that is linked to appreciation in the workplace, is not very kind to anyone who strays from this socializing.
Kind of like the author got taught he had to socialize, as a rule. and feels a disdain towards people ‘breaking’ that rather unspoken social rule
for me I've realized my problem isn't introversion/extroversion, my problem is just that I have trouble thinking on the fly. or even just speaking off-the-cuff.
Well, now, don't you tell me to smile You stick around, I'll make it worth your while.
Sorry but fast thinking is needed for a lot of socialization. No one sticks around if you are not interesting and people judge harshly everyone who is taking time to build up response.
I can throw in some jokes and in general be funny but with people that I am familiar with .
Not so much meeting strangers.
“The odds are good, but the goods are odd” - why is SV full of wierdos? Part of the answer lies in social isolation. Whether you like it or not and regardless of personality, humans are social creatures. This was evident from covid.
To avoid interacting with others is not only a disservice to your own growth but also to society. It is much easier to live in your own world then go out there and learn - books and the web are not substitutes.
You see this effect on today’s generation who rely on internet bubbles, brainwashing and biases to inform their thinking, hardly having critical skills (ex: woke). You can only blame the system (big tech) to a certain extent, but the individual should ultimately take responsibility.
Being born (disadvantaged) an introvert is no excuse as being born a foreigner (ex: H1Bs) or a sinner, you still have to do your best in becoming a better version of yourself.
Implied in this: That learning about other people will make you like them more and not lead to increased wishes for isolation.
Sure people are not the best creatures, but it is part of the painful learning curve
I get the message of this article. I feel like someone wrote it for me. Thanks
The author misses the mark completely with this post. I not sure if they even know what introvert means. I recommend the book Quiet.
> The second challenge is the misconception that communication should be natural and effortless. While the reality is, it takes effort to communicate and drains energy for everyone.
Yeah, no. It's 100% effortless for me to communicate with people I'm familiar with, and a massive effort to talk to people I don't know or are mere acquaintances. For my wife it is not only effortless but a massive energy boost to interact with a person whether they know them or not.
I think the author says some right things but vastly over generalizes.
Conversely, being too open/productive may also lead to burn out. The trap of participation
when will our benevolent overlords drop mind reading tech qualitative psychology is so exhausting after a point
Like so many things, introversion can now be both medicalized as a disorder and celebrated as a lifestyle choice. This allows some people to pick whichever is psychologically soothing to them at the moment and use it to justify a lack of effort, as if socializing were not a skill that many people actually have to work on.
How about "shutting up and leaving people alone" as a skill that many people should have to work on? Let's distribute the effort.
Ah yeah, I forgot. Being outraged that other people have opinions that offend you is a good fallback if soothing methods 1 and 2 fail.
Well too bad ADHD makes me a fast thinker that talks over everyone else and writes code at 6x speed, but only sometimes, when I'm not procrastinating for hours at a time and when I'm not too mentally drained to engage with other people. It makes me an extrovert at work, but only sometimes, and a great team player, but only sometimes.
These blog posts feel so dumb to me because they always assume that you're a neurotypical and that everyone around you also is a neurotypical. That if you just put in the effort, you too can do it!
Well guess what? No, it's not like that. In fact, this mode of thinking is exactly the problem that makes my life hell. Fuck this. If I'm working remotely it's because idgaf about other people - not any more than strictly necessary to complete my tasks. Stop trying to gaslight me into thinking I'm wrong, stop trying to force me to go on trips and to delegate and to talk to other people - this is an adaptation for my own survival. I went into programming because I like writing code. That's literally the start and the end of it. It's not my fault the industry is 99% web development and 1% fun stuff for people on [a] spectrum. I'm here because if I weren't I would starve, not because I care about your company or the people you hired. Even though I'll gladly chit-chat with them from time to time, and even form friendships if I deem it worth it.
Was going to write approximately this, thanks for beating me to it. Just a bit of sparkling from my own (mostly miserable) experience: the disdain for “normies” comes from them, “normies”, forcing a square peg (me, atypical) into a round hole. There’s zero intention for accommodating for the differences. Predictably, as a result you get an extremely antisocial introvert. But guess what! If you just LEAVE ME BE, respect my silence and self-isolation… I will reach out and try to connect, on my own terms. Usually, by written text, since I don’t parse voices well, and don’t read facial expressions at all.
I was a fat little kid with a skinny friend who told me the secret to losing weight (which he had never had the need to do): just don't eat so much. He was not gas lighting me in any way. He was just communicating his internal experience that this thing that I found tremendously difficult was in fact trivially easy and I just had to try it. He wasn't lying, just telling me his truth which happened to be false. Don't attribute malice to obliviousness.
I'd attribute malice when this advice comes from supposedly grown-ups.
Exactly. At some point, obliviousness itself becomes malicious.
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I think you are taking yourself too seriously.
Can’t imagine this attitude makes work easier for you nor does it make working with you easier. People keep making these “I’m on the spectrum” arguments as if it’s a legitimate excuse for bad behaviour. Perhaps life is more difficult for you in some ways. Life isn’t fair, learning to accept this is much more rewarding than hiding behind some spectrum definition. ADHD doesn’t make you do anything. You choose your life.
Heyyy, take it easy :) Would you call it “bad behavior” when a mute person refuses to speak? Well, A(u)DHD kind of makes one deaf, mute and blind to the standard communication style. That’s why the afflicted prefer to WFH, and text instead of face-to-face. Some are always impaired so, while others, only when tired.
I know. I’m diagnosed. I found that when I stopped using it as an excuse and started engaging my career and life in the ways I assumed adhd made them worse, I started succeeding in ways I thought I wouldn’t. My message is don’t become a person who identifies as a person with adhd. It will only hold you back in my experience.
I understand your point better now, thanks for elaborating! I do relate to the experience of stopping using my diagnosis as an excuse for pushing people away. My life is so much better now. Yet, for me, a pair programming session (for instance) is something I prefer doing, like, once a month, or less. But I certainly do enjoy it, a lot!
> ADHD doesn’t make you do anything.
It literally does.
What, in the post you are replying to, would you consider "bad behaviour"? Seriously, give us some examples!
I mean, it literally does make you do things. That's why it's a mental disorder.
I think it's all about context and intention. We should embrace growth, not labels, and recognize the beauty in both collaboration and quiet connection
This is a profound misunderstanding of introversion. An introvert may choose to develop and use the skills of social connection that come naturally to an extrovert. But at what cost? If the situation demands extroverted behavior, then do it, fine. But the introvert pays a cost to recharge and come back to whatever equilibrium is normal for them. If the cost/benefit does not work out, an introvert can and should make the choice to exhibit introverted behaviors.
Being an introvert who is capable of extroverted behaviors, I always felt confused about the question, "Are you an introvert or an extrovert?" It became clear to me when I read an explanation that went like this: After a dinner party where you meet some new people are you left energized or exhausted? If you're exhausted it is because you're an introvert.
My issue is it just so greatly depends. Certain parties, if I have some sort of pressure on me, I leave tired. Other parties, I leave happy and contented. I might even be tired, but overall happy! When I'm going to a party, I might feel dread, or I might feel exhilarated! And that rarely has an impact on how I feel after the party/gathering.
That's largely why I think the introvert/extrovert theory is not super accurate as a theory. In my experience, my energy after a party is not a constant that depends only on my personality. It depends almost entirely on external factors -- what my day was like, where my head is, who I'm meeting, what they're like, what we're doing, etc.
And: I can often place myself in a state of mind that makes me more or less amenable to a social gathering, and helps me enjoy it more; which will generally make me feel less tired/more satisfied when I leave.
> What they don’t realize is - everyone is an introvert and everyone is an extrovert.
Citation needed.
> I looked into his eyes and saw the disgust for everyone in the room.
That's not how human interaction or theory of mind works.
This article is "not even wrong". It's just subjective bullshit (in the technical definition of the word bullshit).
It's probably the most ill informed post I've ever seen on the front page of HN.
> It's probably the most ill informed post I've ever seen on the front page of HN.
Ever seen so far
No. It is not extrovert at work, it is about raising awareness to others about your concerns.
Perhaps it has been said but can we agree that it's ok to be introverted?
There's also a thing called schizoid personality that about 1% of people have. Maybe "proud introverts" of this article are mostly that.
The name schizoid sounds terrible but it's basically self sufficiency and reduced need for real world human contact. This enables evaluating opportunity of each one on its merits and for people who had prior bad experiences might result in avoidance of almost all human contact. Since there's no emotional cost of that such people can be pretty shameless about it. Hence connotation of "proud" and antipathy from non-schizoid people like the author of this article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorde...
I’m not an extrovert, but behaving in an extroverted way is hugely rewarding. Talking to strangers, befriending fellow travelers, commiserating with colleagues.
If you’re a manager it’s literally part of the job. Asking how people are doing isn’t useless small talk, your job is to keep an eye out for things that might be hindering the effectiveness of your team so that you can catch problems early and respond to them. “How are you doing” suddenly becomes a serious and interesting question with real ramifications.
Theres a common misconception that extroverts don’t like people or are not interested in people. We do and we are. Just in a different way. Every introvert has had a best friend, maybe a lover, maybe someone they were just comfortable talking with. The problem is that most social interactions feel shallow, banal and pointless. But I think that’s only before you look at it deeply.
Buried deep in each stranger is the potential to be a best friend, a lover, a future colleague, a business partner, or just someone who teaches you something important about an interesting thing you’ve never thought to study.
Your task as the introverted traveler is leave the door open enough to connect with each person enough to get at the deeply interesting stuff inside. Who are you and what makes you tick? What lights you up? What interest or knowledge do you have that I might find compelling?
I assure you everyone has something even if they don’t know it. Approaching each social interaction with the faith that something important can be discovered is the introverts path to benefits of extroverted behavior.
You’re welcome. You can thank me later when you meet me in person, but only if you’re able to figure out through conversation that I was the one who provided you this gem.
It’s pretty shitty of you to not credit the creator of your image like they ask in their bio.
> https://unsplash.com/@lighttouchedphotography
> https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-wooden-bench-PWxcv9hKOQc
> Ram learns about Shyam’s promotion and feels a bit disappointed. He goes back home and says to himself “I am not an extrovert”, consoles himself and moves on with life.
I have seen this play out time and time again at nearly every company I've worked at and even every team I've TL'd.
I used to be a "proud introvert" myself. The "proud introverts" often feel wronged in these situations, struggling to understand that communication is just as valid and critical of a skill as writing code.
Accepting that I didn't need to make "being an introvert" my identity, and learning how to communicate, skyrocketed my career.
Articles like this are (IMHO) ableist and come from an extremely neurotypical perspective. "Just practice social skills" to me is like teling depressed people "just go outside and touch grass".
There's not a single mention of ADHD or autism in here. My own understanding of this has evolved over the years.
The first stage is to understand introversion / extroversion as simply to not like / like socializing, people, large groups or whatever. This is a shallow and pretty inaccurate understanding, one many people such as myself chafe against. I consider myself an introvert but like certain social activities so these labels never seem to quite fit.
The next stage is the "social battery" understanding of introversion / extroversion. That is, social activities will either drain or charge your "social battery".
After this you start to ask questions like "why does X drain my social battery?" and "what does draining a social battery really mean?" and you start to realize you're still describing symptoms, not causes.
The key insight is that something drains your social battery because you're masking [1]. So-called extroverts don't need to mask. So-called introverts do.
Yes, you can get better at following social norms and develop coping strategies for large groups, socializing with strangers, etc but all you're really doing is getting better at masking. That can be useful because it can change how other people respond to you but it's a bit like telling a depressed person to "just smile".
[1]: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behavio...
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Consider this: you can’t read facial expressions, nor the tone of the voice. Moreover, most people you interact with misinterpret your face/voice, assuming you’re joking when you’re dead serious (and vice versa). So, you come up with strategies to cope with your deficiencies. Basically, playbooks of what to say if you hear/see so and so, filling the gaps in your sensorium. What’s handled by an “autopilot” for most, is a very complicated manual procedure for you. I’m oversimplifying here, of course. There are nuances, but it always boils down to this switch to manual controls when one is tired, and then becoming even more tired and overwhelmed. Hope this helps!
You're mistaking introverts for autist. Introverts are not having any difficulties in social situations and they are not afraid of them. They'rte just not that interested.
I dispute that. Introvert/extrovert distinction is outdated and pseudoscientific. The new definition (watered down) is that some people seek stronger stimuli while others avoid stronger stimuli. Autism is an extreme example of the later.
This was the best explanation. I forgot I used to be this awkward as well for many years and the autopilot/manual analogy is just great. I did get much better at this though through lots of practice and patiently wasting my mental energy and having many awkward interactions, now it’s all just natural to me. I’ll be called an ableist and downvoted, however, I don’t really understand what’s stopping others from suffering through discomfort to get used to it and not see it as discomfort anymore. Although I did get lucky with my friends groups at the university and first companies I worked for.
Thank you! I’m glad this metaphor works. As for me, practice did bring many improvements, too. I did stop aiming for “becoming a natural”, however. Good enough, is, well, good enough. I’m always trying to improve, of course! Yet, at least for me, it is so easy to accidentally end up just masking, instead of being myself. And masking is a path that brought me to the darkest places. Hence, I strongly believe that there is a hardwired ceiling, that manifests as discomfort. See, some people train hard and benchpress the weight of a small car. Other people get seriously injured before hitting 100kg. I see no reason for brain being any different.
> This was the best explanation.
It's the only one you choose to believe.
> I don’t really understand what’s stopping others from suffering through discomfort to get used to it and not see it as discomfort anymore
I wouldn't call it ableist to assume that everybody is just like you. People are different. You wouldn't say "if only everyone suffered through reading this physics book, they'd surely understand the glory of physics, and become physicists".
Or "if only someone would just read my religion's book, then obviously they'd instantly become a devout follower of my particular god?".
It all seems profoundly ignorant, naive, lacking both empathy and theory of mind.
> I simply cannot comprehend how something as enjoyable as spending time with people you like can be so mentally taxing?
Similarly, I simply cannot comprehend how something as tedious as partying with dozens of people you hardly even know can not be so mentally taxing.
But that's fine. We don't need to comprehend how it works in others. We just need to accept that it does indeed work in different ways for different people, and treat them accordingly, as we ourselves wish to be treated by those who can't comprehend how it works for us.
You find it enjoyable to be with people you like all the time. Other people don't and reach a point where it becomes uncomfortable to continue.
It's not because of some weird attitude about wasting energy on having a good time. Quite the opposite; once you reach your limit, it becomes wasting mental energy on not having a good time.
I love to waste mental energy on having a good time - chess, puzzles, board games, crosswords, programming. But spending time with people isn't like that. Talking to a group of people I half-know is like someone has slipped a hobby-knife under my fingernail and is slowly extending it. I can feasibly have a good conversation, or even notionally a good time; but it's hard to ignore the knife.
I love talking to people. Unfortunately it's exhausting for me. I have no such attitude about it being a "waste [of] mental energy." I don't know any introverts that do.
I would recommend taking a deep breath and just consider for a second that some people are just different than you.
Most introverts are totally fine with spending time with people (albeit in smaller intimate settings). They are just (a lot) more comfortable with "awkward silence" than extraverts are. Spending time with someone shouldn't mean the entire occasion is filled with talking amongst eachother. Honestly I'm glad I can appreciate both.
Introvert social recipe, mileage may vary
1. Cozy room, moody lighting
2. Nice vinyl (harder to pause ). You'll probably want a print out of the lyrics if applicable
3. Maybe some projected visualizations or visualizations on a TV
4. Vibe
5. Discussion time at the end will vary, but idk, it's still fun to me to sit around cool people and have a mutual experience that doesn't require talking, so that's enough for me. It's also an opportunity to have them suggest a new album to listen to next time, but you also have to accept you might not get immediate feedback because they want to spend more time thinking about it.
Think of basically anything else that doesn't require talking and you can spend time with an introvert doing that. Part of what makes them uncomfortable in social situations is feeling pressure to say something when they have nothing to say. Allow the silence to happen.
You do have to have introvert break out rooms at parties. A sound machine drowns out the noise. No extraverted behavior in the break out room! Extraverts who can't respect the boundary don't get another invitation.
Oh and of course extraverts should know better than anyone that sometimes people just don't like you and that's ok. That's one downside of hanging out with some extraverts... extravert-on-extravert violence is pretty exhausting.
The best thing you can do for comprehending an introvert is realize that not all social interactions have to fit your preconceived notion of what a social interaction is.
> Introverts, fight me.
Unhelpful.
> I simply cannot comprehend how something as enjoyable as spending time with people you like can be so mentally taxing?
It's not a perfect analogy, but you might as well blame people for eventually needing to sleep.
It's super enjoyable to be awake. What could possibly make you want to stop what you're doing, only to go into a dark room and do NOTHING for eight whole hours?!
Some people are also tortured by silence, and they simply MUST talk non stop. To other people, never just having a quiet moment is torture. Are you the former? If you never again in your life had two awake seconds without someone talking, would that be heaven or hell?
> I tend to think that it’s because of the attitude that implies that the one has to waste mental energy on having a good time.
You said "I simply cannot comprehend[…]". How about you stick to that, instead of baselessly saying introverts must simply have an attitude problem?
Well, you've answered your own question - "you cannot comprehend", but others can. This should inspire you to question your own views first, then look for the answers in a more humble way.
My intersect of "people I like" and "people I have to spend time with" is likely smaller than yours.
300+ comments so far, and no mention of the elephant in the Valley : Asperger and it's 666 shades of narcissism.
I'm "on the spectrum", but conscious that narcissism in the bane of humankind.
Halas, 8 of the 10 richest American individuals disagree with me, and the #1 just got in power ;-)
Screw this. Guess my type.
Dear God please scale down the size of this website. Everything is too big!
The whole concept of introversion is a regression in social skills which is only slightly genetic and largely environmental. The idea of burning social energy is mostly a skill issue, although it is worsened with new/weird people.
Most negative self labels have this property, not just introversion.
I know people that say "they are always late haha", people that say "they aren't good at math", people that say "they don't like art" and many others, and they just serve to hold you back. In almost every time I hear this, I just hear "I decided I don't want to be or do this".
And even if you were truly bad at something that is expected by society, thinking of yourself as bad at it won't really help much. It's much more useful to just recognize your skill level for what it is and just understand that everything improves the more you try to do it better.
Not sure I would say introversion is a negative self label.
> people that say "they are always late haha"
No, that just means "I don't respect other people or their time, haha".
> people that say "they aren't good at math"
There are people who say it as an excuse to not try. But you know, some people are bad at math, so maybe let's have someone else on the team do that part?
But what's the difference to "I don't want to do/learn math"? You don't have to. There's no guard rails on life, you can go out and eat dirt right now if that makes you happy, nobody's going to stop you.
> people that say "they don't like art"
I've not encountered this. Art, like any art? I think this is just not understanding just how much classifies as "art".
> thinking of yourself as bad
I'm not "bad" because I'm an introvert. I'm not "bad" as socializing. What makes you say introvert is some sort of insult?
It's not "bad" of me to be perfectly happy not interacting with anybody for weeks. I don't actually do that, because research shows that this is bad for your long term health, but an extrovert would absolutely not like that one bit. I find it more "bad" if I'm in a waiting room or something and some stranger can't just STFU for 30 minutes while we're waiting.
It says more about you than about introverts that you seem so hostile to it/them.
It is funny that you reply to a diatribe about not attaching yourself to labels to come across as very defensive of the label you've given yourself. My whole point is we're not anything, you're not an introvert is my point.
I often think about this post when people call themselves introverts. I wonder how much is this a function of who you are (genes, etc.) vs the environment a person was exposed to in formative years. I've never seen a study about this. (I've read Quiet, which is a book that gets quoted by introverts a lot)
"A lot of you guys are not true introverts you were just expressive children who didn’t get the attention you wanted or deserved so you got comfortable at keeping everything inside and entertaining your own thoughts"
Source: https://x.com/SchrodingrsBrat/status/1834583804016484637
For the record, we introverts get very tired of having to justify ourselves to extroverts who constantly question our existence. It seems to happen far more often with introversion than with other differences.
People don't tell those who prefer cold to heat that it's just because of the way they were raised and that they should really build up their heat tolerance. People don't tell those who dislike cilantro that it's an acquired taste and they should really put in the effort. People who try to tell LGBT folks that they should just try to be straight get straight-up pilloried. But for some reason people feel that it's okay to tell introverts that they probably are just imagining that they have real differences from the average person that can't just be fixed by trying harder.
To introverts I would say: just now and then try to get out of your comfort zone. Most of the time, it will feel liberating and next time it becomes much easier.
Step 1. Regularly talk to strangers. Most easily it can be done at public transport or at a shop. Start with places where you are waiting for a short time. Just ask a silly question or say something about the weather.
Step 2 speak up in small groups. Just say something funny in between. Or ask a really curious question about what someone is saying.
Step 3 take the lead in organizing a Teams call that anyways need scheduling. Be the MC or host. Just state what the meeting is about, what is to be accomplished and listen and note some things for in the summary.
Step 4 do a talk in front of an audience. That will need some prep and some rehearsal, this one is quite difficult for myself as well.
Everyting worth the effort, takes effort.
All of your advice is for shy people, not introverts
Being an introvert is not the same as being shy, and it is long past time that people stop conflating the two concepts
You cannot "fix" being an introvert by practicing being social
could you humor me and exPlain why you think this? I’m neither shy nor introverted and I have only a casual understanding of either. If I take their comment literally, I guess the only part I would see being different is “it will feel liberating.” But aside from that I do support the advice of people going out of their comfort zone, even if they hate it.
I read GPs advice as “go to the social gym.” For some people the gym ends up feeling good, others will hate it no matter what, but the advice is sound regardless.
What do you think though?
Shy == social situations are scary
Introvert == social situations are strenuous
It's very simple: As an introvert, I'm neither afraid of nor bad at social situations. I'm just not (that) interested.
If this is the case, then why should we change the way everything currently works around the fact that you are capable, but not interested in socializing?
Not GP, but who's asking for that? I think all the blather is inescapable. I can't make people write an email instead of them wasting my time while they try to make sense of their own thoughts in a meeting. That's just how it is.
I think people need to reconcile their level of interest in making new friends or finding success in innately social environments with their level of willingness to overcome fear or exhaustion. I see a lot of people in this thread basically saying approx. "you don't get it, it's exhausting", and that's fine enough if you've determined you get no value (after exploring that prospect valiantly) in doing the thing that exhausts you, but it's not fine if you do get value out of something and aren't willing to exhaust yourself.
Exhaustion for me is often a key component in anything I do. The friends that do find social interaction exhaustion and can't overcome it, I end up seeing once a year, and that seems to be ok with them, but if they were hoping for more, they need to practice being exhausted.
Lastly, if you're not practicing the exhausting things, you're practicing the comfortable things, imho. It seems more true in more cases that people aren't willing to do anything that exhausts them, so they never walk far, they never go to the gym, they get fat and isolate themselves socially... until they realize that they've suddenly become squishy, dull, and lonely, then look for a quick fix that doesn't cost them anything, and maybe post to Reddit "Any friends out there? I'm an avid reader and single player video gamer that will sometimes come out for 30 min if it doesn't conflict with my nightly 5 hour solo stationary leisure time. We could start a group chat!". There's nothing inherently wrong with that, it doesn't need to be fixed, but it services what it services and it's worh thinking deeply about whether that is or isn't worth practicing.
Good advice but we need to change its scope: All of that works if your problem is shyness or being self conscious. And indeed there's a strong Venn diagram between shyness, quietness, self consciousness, awkwardness, and introvertness. But it's not the same.
I'm inherently all of those things. After 20 years in consulting though, including dedicated training and experience, nobody believes me anymore - I've built strong social skills and come off cheerfully comfortable at work and random social situations. I've been formally mentoring people emotional intelligence and soft skills for at least 6-8 years.
But they are exhausting, even those that have become second nature / automatic. And that issue is not becoming lesser with age or skills or experience. And the more people in a group, the more exponentially exhausting every experience is :-/
Today I learned, being skilled at something does not mean it has to become less exhausting. Could it be that your acquired social skills somehow go against your 'nature'? I wonder if there is social research on this subject.
what you do - even if ALL the love for it is there in you - sounds absolutely exhausting to me (especially after as many years as you have been doing it) and I am about as extrovert as it gets, much like you are described your sister in the other comment.
is it plausible that your feels are not as closely related to you being introvert and just nature of the career itself?
Plausible, but the draining is not just at work. I love one on one and can generally spend large amount of time with individuals whose company I enjoy. But groups (say 4+ including myself) are "draining" no matter the enjoyment. It's not that I'm "not a people person", I love hanging out with my friends and family! It's just that, with several people hanging out especially, I'm likely the first one to leave and find a couch or bed or comfy chair somewhere to read a book or play an instrument or video game or whatever to "recharge".
Some people misinterpret that as not enjoying hanging out with people but that's not it. It's more like, hanging our with people is as physical of an activity for me as biking or swimming or rock climbing. I love it... But I get tired eventually :-)
(analogy breaks down quickly tough - per another thread here though, unlike the physical activities here,I haven't really been able to increase my "social stamina". Social skills, hugely! Social stamina, not really)
fascinating!
I totally understand even though I don’t actually understand (if that makes any sense :) )
I am an introvert. I can talk to strangers, but prefer not to. I speak in small groups of friends or collegues, I am the lead in lots of calls, I even do training to big audiences. When in the moment, I can do it without hesitation, but in the end its always draining.
As an introvert, I have no idea what you're talking about.
As an introvert, talking to strangers is in my comfort zone. Being an introvert has nothing to do with whether I'm able to talk to strangers.
As an introvert, speaking up in small groups isn't a problem. I do it all the time when I feel like it or when I feel it's necessary. Again, what does being an introvert have to do with this?
As an introvert, I regularly find myself leasing things because other people don't want to step up. This has nothing to do with introversion/extraversion.
As an introvert, I do talks in front of an audience. Not a problem.
Learning all this was valuable, but none of it solved my introversion. Because it's not something that can or needs to be fixed.
What it did fix was my shyness, lack of confidence and insecurity around other people. But I'm still introverted because it still requires me to exert a lot of energy, which can only be regained if I'm alone.
After reading all that, I think I'm an introvert as well. Though people tend to label me extrovert.
Even though getting downvotes, there's a lot to learn on HN, even about myself!
As an introvert I do these things - actually search for opportunities to do a talk or to do public presentation works. This works (and you can find me on YouTube in these situations) but it doesn’t get easier with time. It actually feels like with time it gets harder to find the energy to do this again.
You clearly don't know what it means to be introvert. It's not a choice, it's almost like a phobia.
As an introvert, what does being an introvert have to do with phobias? If you have a phobia for being around other people, this is not being introverted.