291–300 of 473 posts
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> 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.
There's clearly a high correlation though.
So one could be really eager to socialise but find it terrifying to approach (social anxiety), especially if many unknown people are involved.
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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 s…
Given parent is an introvert and succesful the statement is true.
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…
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.
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…
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)
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shyness != introversion
What this guy describes is social anxiety, not introversion.
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. T…
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.
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 comput…
It’s a measurable scale from 1 to 100 in the big 5 model.
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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, i…
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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.