I like you, but I like being at home more
An introvert’s battle in a society built for extraverts
On the last night of our holiday this past summer, my boyfriend and I went to a bar. The vibe was casual and laid-back, but absolutely packed. And loud. We got put at a table right next to the DJ booth, lucky us, where that man was bopping his head, looking satisfied with what sounded to my untrained and I-only-like-music-that-I-can-sing-along-to ears like a variety of banging noises. A few tables away a group of people were chatting. Every couple of minutes one member of that group would shriek so loudly that I refuse to believe that noise was produced naturally or spontaneously. It was obnoxious and had a ‘I want everyone to hear me so it’s clear what a fantastic time I’m having’ sound to it. It made me irrationally angry.
My boyfriend and I had an interesting conversation, we enjoyed our drinks and ended the night in the rooftop part of the bar that overlooked Vienna, which was lovely. But the entire time there was this voice in my head that said: We could be in our hotel room right now, comfortably in our pyjamas, having the same nice chat without all this screaming. Looking around us I saw nothing but people in their twenties and thirties who seemed to be having the time of their lives with their overpriced drinks on sticky tables, surrounded by repetitive, torturous beats, screaming strangers and so.much.noise. I felt like I should be enjoying this more than I was. I know I’m a homebody, but jeez, have I always been such a ninety-year-old granny?
Being an introvert has nothing to do with social skills
To anyone who knows me it’s no secret that I am an introvert. The terms ‘introvert’ and ‘extravert’ have become more common in our vocabulary, but many people still seem to think that an extravert is someone who is open, loud and confident while an introvert is shy, quiet and a bit of a wallflower. However, those things have to do with your social skills, not with where you sit on the introvert-extravert spectrum. It’s more about where you get your energy from, and how quickly your ‘social battery’ gets drained. Most of us are a mix of both, but people who are more on the introverted side of the spectrum reach the limit of how much stimuli they can process before they get overwhelmed a lot quicker, meaning they have a higher need for solitude, prefer smaller groups of people and have a few close friends instead of many social relations. I imagine an extravert’s ‘battery’ like that of a Nokia 3310: Reliable, can go for days on end, and rarely without some juice left. An introvert’s is more comparable to the battery on my five-year-old iPhone: After two hours of action it’s game over and you should start making your way home so you can plug her in the wall.
I am someone who is far from shy in social situations. I am quite good at smalltalk and I can keep a conversation going with just about anyone. In a group I am probably one of the loudest people. So based on the misconception above, if you saw me out and about you would probably think me an extravert. But those interactions don’t give me energy, they take it, and the truth is that I love and crave being by myself so much that an offer has to be extremely appealing for me to even consider leaving the house. Messages from friends that read Hey, I’m in your area in twenty minutes, let’s meet up for drinks? will be met with a Have we met lol? I need at least a week’s notice for something like that. You’re telling me some people have planned a nice night at home by themselves to eat leftovers, read or watch TV, and they then spontaneously decide to not do that in favour of putting on outside clothes and venturing to a bar? Fascinating. Could not be me.
When I realised my everyday life is what others call ‘lockdown’
I remember as a child playing by myself for hours and hours, to the point where family members were concerned that I was unhappy or didn’t enjoy being with them because I would just lock myself up in my room or sit in a corner and not talk to anyone all day. I once overheard my great-grandmother tell people that ‘no, she’s fine, but that’s just how she is.’
When adults ‘bothered’ me too much I would feel frustrated and snap at them, and then wonder why I reacted that way. Now I know that I was probably feeling overstimulated, but as a five-year-old I didn’t have the words to express that. As a teenager and in my early twenties I would find myself in situations where I would be on holiday with friends and halfway through the trip I would start coming up with excuses to be alone. Again, I didn’t know how to tell them that every cell in my body was craving alone time without coming across like an asshole. I had quickly learnt that most people don’t understand this and that ‘It’s nothing personal but I really need to be away from you right now because I feel like I’m going mad’ wasn’t something you could just say.
These past couple of years I have become more comfortable with the knowledge that I am simply someone who doesn’t just love, but needs alone time. I can go for longer periods of time without seeing anyone I know. When Covid happened I had just moved to the UK a couple of months before and I didn’t know anyone in my area. I went months and months without seeing a single familiar face apart from the Sainsbury’s cashiers, and 18 months without seeing my family and closest friends. Of course I missed them, but while everyone was complaining about how seeing only a small number of friends was weighing on their mental health, I was fine. Working from home is now the standard for me, and I now often go weeks without any real-life interaction with anyone other than my partner and my cats.
Intentional social interactions: Will this make me happy?
On the one hand I’m finally confident telling people that no, I will not be participating in this activity you’re suggesting because I know that’s not something I will like. But I’m also aware that I don’t want to get too comfortable with a very limited amount of social interaction. I don’t want to get to a point where even the smallest thing feels massive and the thought of not spending a night at home automatically fills me with dread. I need to push myself a little bit, otherwise I would never leave the house. No matter what I have planned, whether it’s a nice holiday, a friend coming over, or a lunch in a cafe I’ve been meaning to try: The night before or right before I have to leave, part of me will always think: If only I could do this next week and just stay at home today. It doesn’t matter how much I know I will have a great time once I’m there.
Just as I was starting to overthink this, an episode of the podcast How to Fail with Elizabeth Day with Miranda Hart appeared. In it, Miranda explains how she’s convinced that years of pretending to be an extravert and crossing her own limits have negatively affected her health long-term. She worded it perfectly when she said: ‘I have to be extremely intentional with my social interactions.’
And I think that, at least to me, is the answer. Everything depends on the question: Will I be happy once I’m there and will I be happy I did this?’ This week I’m meeting up with two friends for a Halloween walk in Kew Gardens. In that case, the answer to the question ‘Will I be happy I did this?’ is a big yes, even if, when the time comes for me to change from my tracksuit into an outfit, part of me will probably think that it would be nice to stay at home and read. But when my company recently organised Octoberfest, aka a big group activity where I would have probably been one of the only sober people, I politely declined because I just know it will not fill my metaphorical cup of enjoyable social interaction.
At the risk of sounding dramatic, it isn’t always easy in a society that is so clearly built around extraverts. Most people don’t understand that simply looking at your calendar and realising that you have several social events planned that week is enough to make you feel exhausted, corporate environments are created for only the most extraverted people to thrive in, and your need for alone-time can easily be taken as a personal offence. Going forward, I no longer want to downplay my needs and feelings around this. Instead of coming up with excuses why I won’t be joining after-work drinks, I will simply say ‘I have planned a quiet evening by myself’ or ‘I’ve had enough social interaction today’. Maybe if us introverts became more open and direct about communicating this, eventually people would have to stop seeing being extraverted as the standard?
Let’s start with one small step! Whoever you are reading this, no matter where you are on the introvert-extravert spectrum, can we please please please normalise running into a co-worker on the platform on the way to or from work and just saying ‘Hey, nice to see you, but during my commute time I really like to be by myself and read/listen to this very interesting podcast/just chill’ so I will talk to you later, okay?’ That would be a game changer.