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

431–440 of 473 posts

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

#431

Post by _yb2s »

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.

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

#432

Post by caycep »

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'…

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

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

#433

Post by zem »

taskforcegemini wrote: post #381
HPsquared wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

#434

Post by thaumasiotes »

fsckboy wrote: post #420
thaumasiotes wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

> 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.

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

#435

Post by kstrauser »

Barrin92 wrote: post #410
bawolff wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 t…

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.

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

#436

Post by lll-o-lll »

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'…

> 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.

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

#437

Post by lolinder »

blueflow wrote: post #357
lolinder wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: gan…

> 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.

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

#439

Post by yowayb »

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.

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

#440

Post by jimkleiber »

mojifwisi wrote: post #419
jimkleiber wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[0]: https://www.ifeelio.com

[1]: https://www.emotionalselfdefense.com

[2]: https://www.emoko.org

[3]: https://www.jimkleiber.com/show

Post reply on HN