Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

orkohunter.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 473 posts

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

#411

Post by hinkley »

frognumber wrote: post #340
lll-o-lll wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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& IV were basically useless for most of the formative years of genX and millenials, and 5th edition is over a decade out of date.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.

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

#412

Post by skizm »

kstrauser wrote: post #86

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…

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…

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

#413

Post by atoav »

caeril wrote: post #401
atoav wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fac…

> 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.

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

#414

Post by Suppafly »

hinkley wrote: post #411
frognumber wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

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.

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

#415

Post by Suppafly »

hnbad wrote: post #343
lll-o-lll wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

>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.

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

#416

Post by kstrauser »

skizm wrote: post #412
kstrauser wrote: post #86

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…

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 alr…

That's just smart career management, is what that is.

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

#417

Post by jiscariot »

knorker wrote: post #26
erinaceousjones wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 to…

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.

> 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.

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

#418

Post by thayne »

542354234235 wrote: post #335
atwrk wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 shou…

> 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.

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

#419

Post by mojifwisi »

jimkleiber wrote: post #372
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…

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.

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

#420

Post by fsckboy »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #210
fsckboy wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.
Post reply on HN