“So, dude, what are you doing on your days off?’
Oh no! Not only do I not want to come across like some anti-social loser, I work with someone who still says dude! Think fast, brain!
“Oh you know, this and that. Christmas parties, y’know? Maybe hit the trails on the bike. Couple of long lunches maybe, then down to Bondi for a swim if this heat keeps up! Hey, how hot is it!”
Nice work, brain! Heh, extroverts are so easily deflected. Now he’ll never guess that I plan to spend the next five days at home, doing absolutely NOTHING except writing.”
True story. Verbatim quote of a conversation I had with a workmate yesterday, minutes before I escaped from work. How was he to know that the activities that fill his cup are the ones that drain mine? I was so sick of people by yesterday that even that conversation had me choking on the bitter dregs. I’m sure it’s not just me. In fact, I know it isn’t. So why do extroverts act as if introverts should be on medication? I’ve read the DSM-5 and we’re not in there. What we have can’t be cured with lithium or ‘therapeutic’ ECT. Is it because extroverts naturally assume that they ware born to rule in every sphere of human endeavour, and hence normal = extroverted? Yes, that was rhetorical.
Why am I talking about this? I recently discovered “Look Up” by Gary Turk, on YouTube. Give yourself 4:58 minutes to have a look for yourself, if you haven’t already:
I loved it, initially, but then I began thinking. It ticked so many boxes for me, except one. He advocates an extroverted lifestyle, of looking up from our ‘antisocial’ activities and rushing headlong into the thronging horde, because that is ‘living’. To me, it’s like telling a turtle that it will be happier if it leaves its shell behind. More extrovert propaganda. Social leper I may be, but I’ve met enough people already. Just leave me alone to fill my cup so that I can sally forth into the world again.
Introversion and its noisy twin are topics I’ll revisit. Let’s just say it’s a topic close to my heart.