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The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

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Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#391

Post by gedy »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #307

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…

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

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#392

Post by cdrini »

swat535 wrote: post #336
cdrini wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

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.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#393

Post by blueflow »

cdrini wrote: post #390
blueflow wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#394

Post by ghidramans »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #307

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…

[dead]

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#395

Post by cdrini »

blueflow wrote: post #393
cdrini wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#396

Post by xedrac »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #329
atleastoptimal wrote: post #307

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…

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.

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.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#397

Post by hidelooktropic »

JasserInicide wrote: post #379
ternnoburn wrote: post #194

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 exce…

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.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#398

Post by hidelooktropic »

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.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#399

Post by hidelooktropic »

electrondood wrote: post #383
sans_souse wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> might I found their post helpful, and not an attempt to diagnose.

You might be autistic is an attempt to diagnose.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#400

Post by thayne »

AbstractH24 wrote: post #302
0xEF wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would it be fair to say “You are an introvert by necessity rather than by choice”?

Being an introvert isn't a choice.
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