Caring for your introvert

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/2696/

by tamersalama • 16 years ago

166 39 16 years ago

m.theatlantic.com

BRadmin• 16 years ago

Great article, but repost from over a year and a half ago (and article is from 2003):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=561311

Sizlak• 16 years ago

Such a great article though that all extroverts should be forced to reread it yearly until it sinks in.

d2viant• 16 years ago

I'm an introvert but I also understand it goes both ways. Some of my extroverted friends may need me to swing the pendulum more their way as well. It may be uncomfortable and draining for me to be that outgoing or engaged, but I think back to the situations in which I made a conscious effort to do so -- I seem to have grown a little bit each time I did.

levesque• 16 years ago

I will play the role of the guy who has never got the chance to read the article, although it is very old, and I will thank the poster!

necubi• 16 years ago

Me too. This so perfectly describes how I feel in social situations, and it's nice to hear somebody say "It's Ok! It's society that's screwed up, not you."

gliese1337• 16 years ago

And I've had it hanging on my wall ever since. Helps remind roommates and enlighten guests. Definitely warrants revisiting from time to time.

tamersalama• 16 years ago

Sorry - unintentional repost.

pastiche• 16 years ago

In case anyone wants to go more in-depth into the inner workings of an introvert, I highly recommend the book "Introvert Power" by Laurie Helgoe. The article sums up most of the basic points pretty nicely though.

mtigas• 16 years ago

The follow-up interviews and bits are worth reading, too, if you've never seen them:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/02/introver... http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/02/jonathan... http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/04/the-intr...

noidi• 16 years ago

Thanks for the links! It's nice to see shyness and intro/extroversion addressed as separate things. I've always had a really hard time identifying with descriptions of both introverts and extroverts. I'd really like to read about shy extroverts, if that's not an oxymoron, since I suspect that that description might fit me.

hardik988• 16 years ago

I can relate to this on a deep level, because apart from being an introvert, I also happen to have a stutter (though they're mutually exclusive. I would've been an introvert even if I didn't have a stutter). So, I try to avoid talking to anyone new, because that triggers the stuttering. Being a startup guy makes this much harder as I have to meet new people now and then. I love meeting new people, but the talking becomes unbearable, and I usually find a way out of the conversation to avoid awkwardness. A lot of my feelings can be summed up by the movie, Rocket Science.

blr_hack2• 16 years ago

Some of my good friends, have suffered, from the problem of stutter. To the best I know (we never discussed this), they overcame it, by simply stop getting embarrassed about it. Its hard to acquire that feeling in one go. It needs to be cultivated.

And BTW, Do you know, Hrithik Roshan (Indian Movie Star) has been struggling through an acute stuttering problem, since he was a child. In an interview of his I saw, he was saying he practices on his vocals for about an hour or two daily. Also he occasionally did stuff like: Once he had to do a stage show in Dubai, he shut himself in a cabinet, and screamed at top of his voice. The reason he did it was, so as to not alarm the other people in the hotel.

maw• 16 years ago

I hate (love?) to be the pedant here, but your stutter and your introversion aren't mutually exclusive. They're orthogonal.

As to the stuttering, I think I understand. I don't stutter, but I do have a horrible time hearing when there's much ambient noise. It makes many otherwise neutral to vaguely unpleasant events unbearable.

codeslush• 16 years ago

I appreciate the post as I haven't read it before. I am confident I'm an introvert I definitely NEED my quiet time - plenty of it. I absolutely suck at small talk. In fact, it's one of the things that causes me the most anxiety about business meetings. I'm cool with the meeting/presentations/etc..., but if we have to go to lunch or dinner, I'm petrified!

Below are a couple of things that help me, and I'm curious if other introverts have adopted any tools to help them:

1. Alcohol! Of course, this isn't always appropriate, but it does seem to work. Hah.

2. Adopt a passion in a subject that is applicable to a large audience that falls outside your primary expertise. For example - Fitness. As the article states, introverts are perfectly capable of engaging in conversations that interest them without the exhaustion that comes with normal small talk. Most people are interested in fitness. Therefore, if the introvert is highly interested in fitness, it stands to reason that he can steer a conversation in that direction and engage with a wide array of personalities. Food/Nutrition, Travel, history are other examples that might work.

How about you?

andymism• 16 years ago

As an introvert myself, I follow a short list of rules/steps before big events/social gatherings that starts a few days before the event itself. Although I'm usually physically exhausted the day after the event, I'm often complimented and mentioned as 'quite the social butterfly' by friends and acquantances during such events. These things don't take much time, but do take effort. The payoff is worth it though (firends, fun, and fame ;-) ). YMMV.

1. Ditch the alcohol. Or, at least, know your limit (that gives you a buzz) and have 50% less. You want to be able to remember faces and names of the people you meet and some details about your conversation. So make sure your mental faculties are reasonably sharp.

2. Spend most of your time listening. Pretend that you're interviewing the person and ask them open ended questions about their job and hobbies. You will almost certainly find out something interesting about them that you can discuss further. Who knows, maybe they're a programmer just like you!

3. Get up to speed on current events. I personally try not to read much news, but for about 3 days heading up to an event, I'll skim headlines and first paragraphs news articles on a broad range of topics (takes less than an hour each day). The goal here is to create little hooks that you can hang conversations on, it is not to become an expert on a random topic. You'll most certainly run into someone who'll know more than you and will gladly tell you all about it.

4. Keep it light. You and the other guests are there to have fun. Downers are for drug addicts. Politics and religion is for reddit.

5. Work the room by having short conversations with lots of people and asking for introductions. Introductions are as simple as asking, "So who else do you know here tonight?".

6. Prepare yourself mentally for being at the event. Clear out to do's and other distractions. I kind of psych myself up for chatting with lots of people in the same way others might psych themselves up for sports contests (metaphorically, of course).

All of the above can be summed up as:

1. It's not about you. It's about everyone else who you'll meet, the friends you'll make, and making sure your significant other has a good time (especially if he/she is an extrovert).

2. Prepare. "A hard drill makes an easy battle".

I've learned to turn down small talk heavy events that I can't adequately prepare for. I've also learned that you can have a 15 minute conversation with someone by just asking what they do for a living and how they got to doing it. I've learned that stock phrases (aka, pick up lines) really work. My favorites are:

"Hi, I'm Andrew."

"What do you do (for a living)?"

And, if I find out the person has an MBA: "So what the hell is future-discounted value?"

wallflower• 16 years ago

#5 is gold. You're not there to do business or woo people - it's all about establishing contact so that you can follow-up with a few and do business and go on a coffee date.

What you may find is the simple act of repeated short interactions is the most effective warmup for introversion. The thing is it may take more than one interaction to be warmed up. Five more likely. Any number is better than one.

A social experiment I highly recommend: Walk down a not too busy city street and just start smiling and saying hi to people. You'll find most people will ignore you, maybe even give you a negative look. Don't mind them. If you can get to a certain magic number for the environment, you'll find the balance shifting - you'll start to feel energized, fearless, alive and - it is usually at this point that some people respond back in kind. And when that happens, I can schmooze with the best. In a way only introverts can. This might be 50 HIs and smiles later though. Good luck! Even on a smaller scale (walking into a room and deliberately greeting everyone you first encounter), this really helps!

pluies• 16 years ago

Very good advice indeed. Looking forward to putting it to practice on New Year's Eve!

Your point #2 reminds me of a HN comment that said something along the lines of "when I meet someone, I assume this person has a secret and it's my job to discover it". Recently after reading this, I got talking with a guy sitting on the next seat on a plane, who I discovered had been a screenwriter for a famous TV show for three years and had a particular fondness for programming (and a lot of insightful comments on tech in general). An hour before, I only knew this guy had an impressive mustache.

blr_hack2• 16 years ago

Some thoughts:

1) Am I the only one thinking, that some of the terms used to describe introverts: "guarded," "loner," "reserved," "taciturn," "self-contained," "private", have since long been stopped to be considered as negatives?

2) Think, Introverts easily command more respect, on an average, than extroverts (no data to back this up. Just my perception). Even extroverts, based on my anecdotal experiences, regard introverts with a lot of respect, as high achievers often tend to be introverted.

3) I like the definition though: "introverts are people who find other people tiring"

4) Think, >=70% ppl on HN are introverts. [ A poll could confirm this ... or break this :) ]

_delirium• 16 years ago

I think #1 and #2 are true, but mainly for introverts who are also seen as being somehow "serious" and accomplished, which is what earns the respect, and then the introversion adds an air of mysteriousness to it. There's a pretty old and fairly positive stereotype of the reserved intellectual, and similarly for the quiet, private artist or novelist (the counterpart of the cafe-frequenting extraverted artist).

But I think among people who don't have a particularly serious/accomplished air going for them, extraverts get seen more positively by default. Even if both are seen as sort of time-wasting, somehow "wastes his time drinking and telling stories in bars" gets ranked higher than "wastes his time at home playing videogames".

natmaster• 16 years ago

So where do I learn how to deal with extroverts....

disruptivetech2• 16 years ago

I'm a big fan of Myers Briggs - the 4 letter assignation that is given to people for rating their personality. Most people lie on a spectrum between E and I (Extrovert and Introvert). We all have quiet time and noisy times and whilst you could consider yourself an Introvert since this is what you prefer, it could be very context sensitive. I expect if you profiled many tech entrepreneurs they would tend to be some sort of hybrid between E and I.

Luyt• 16 years ago

You might be interested in http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4221

Today we're going to delve into the murky depths of Jungian psychology, and examine one of its most popular surviving manifestations. The Myers-Briggs test is used all over the world, and is the single most popular psychometric system, with the full formal version of the test given more than 2,000,000 times a year. But is it a valid psychological tool, is it just another pop gimmick like astrology, or is the truth somewhere in between? ...

disruptivetech2• 16 years ago

I think it useful for helping gauge what makes people tick, remember that people lie on a spectrum. Everyone [I know] who has been through has commented that it has provided some insight into how they work. It doesn't pigeon-hole people: after all its not a psychiatric label and simply attempts to crystallize a few key traits into a manageable form. Life is spectrum and MB gets some of these key axes right.

Wasn't it Jung that defined the extrovert and the introvert?

wccrawford• 16 years ago

"Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts."

... That's the very definition of arrogant.

I'm an introvert and happy with it. The people who are still my friends know this and don't try to change me. I don't try to frame my introversion in terms of being better than others, though. I simply am who I am.

rue• 16 years ago

"Do introverts have trouble picking up on irony?"

JVerstry• 16 years ago

Absolutely not... I am an introvert.

jseliger• 16 years ago

I teach English comp to freshmen at the University of Arizona and assign this piece every semester. About a quarter to a third of them don't realize that Rauch is joking. Usually I go through the Google section ("I performed exhaustive research on this question, in the form of a quick Google search. The answer: About 25 percent. Or: Just under half. Or—my favorite—"a minority in the regular population but a majority in the gifted population."") to make this obvious.

I've also noticed a weird gender breakdown: a fair number of guys say things like, "this describes me perfectly!" and a fair number of girls say things like, "this describes my boyfriend perfectly!" It's rare to get responses the other way around. Anything that increases understanding is, in my view, a net good thing.

A poorly written book called "The Introvert Advantage" elaborates on the idea that introverts aren't necessarily shy -- they just need time alone to recharge, while extroverts actually find themselves energized by others and bored alone. Despite the low quality of the writing, I sometimes recommend it to people who have that "ah ha!" moment.

phrotoma• 16 years ago

I did the first time I read it, and it still seems a thin explanation for those remarks. The bulk of the article is a serious personal reflection on the topic and the only indication that he's joking is the over the top content of his hyperbole with no setup to the "joke" or obvious indication afterward before he transitions back into serious form. If there's hyperbole in that paragraph it is better lit in the remark about six hour meetings, though I imagine for the bulk of HN'ers six hour meetings are a very real horror not to be joked about.

hessenwolf• 16 years ago

Please don't take this dodgy, pop-psychology to heart and act on it. Dividing people into black-and-white introverts versus extroverts is too simple.

thingie• 16 years ago

Now, the question is what to do if I just don't have any time that I can spend alone. There should be some substitute.

S_A_P• 16 years ago

I can relate to much of what he said. I find that most people are socially tiring, though I have a small network of friends I dont mind hanging out with long term. The metaphor of gasping for air in a fog of contentless conversation is a great way to put it. I was at dinner last night and remember counting the empty sentences of one of the people at my table.

I am also usually pretty quiet in meetings where people are hashing ideas out. I usually like to think things through before speaking from a place of authority on them, which for me means doing a proof of concept and assessing the problems at that point. I personally hate being wrong on a "guess".

kang• 16 years ago

It is amazing how he performed "exhaustive, quick google search" to find the number of introverts??!!

m_myers• 16 years ago

Related: The Nerd Handbook by Rands In Repose.

http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_ha...

I fit only about half of the things he describes, but that half is so spot-on it sounds like he's been stalking me.

nlawalker• 16 years ago

The problem with this article, as with Rands' "Nerd Handbook", is that it's impossible to get the extroverts in your life to read it. They're too busy socializing and Facebooking :)

angrycoder• 16 years ago

I can't be the only one sitting here saying, "Holy shit, so that's my problem".

blahblahblah• 16 years ago

I would challenge the assertion that introversion/extraversion are some sort of immutable orientation. These traits can and do change over time. In high school, I tested as an INTJ on the Myers-Briggs. As an undergrad, I tested as ENFP. As an adult, I'm back to being an introvert. Ask me again in five, ten, twenty years from now and you'll likely get a variety of different answers.

Caring for your introvert

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