An Introvert in an Extrovert’s World

5 minute read

My name is Marie Kelly, and I’m an introvert. Like some sort of shameful addiction or hidden bad habit, I spent my younger years in denial about my status as a card-carrying introvert. Just as a drug addict might escape to the loos for a pick-me-up on a night out, I would escape there for time out. I remember at one particular wedding, sitting in a toilet cubicle wondering how long I could get away with being there before someone demanded I free up the facilities.

When I was in my 20s, I wanted to be someone else. Someone who stayed up all night, had good time stories to tell and bad hangover tales to entertain. I spent most of these years with a boyfriend who was an extreme extrovert. Back then, I was drawn to men who were the opposite of me, because I thought if I was dating an extrovert, people would think I was more than just a ‘boring’ introvert, and maybe I might too. I could be guilty of good times by association at least.

Ironically, by the end of that relationship, I considered myself to be the most boring person in the world, because all I wanted to do was hide out at home on my own. I’d spent so many years with a man whose appetite for socialising could never be satiated. It didn’t matter where we went or how often we went out, there was always another party, pub, pint or person to visit, drink or talk to. You could have strapped me to a chair and waterboarded me instead and it would have felt less like torture. At least then I would have been in my own home.

That break-up was the happiest I’ve ever had. He and I follow each other on Instagram now, and he’s still living exactly the same life at 50-odd as he did at 20-odd – boozy lunches, birthdays in Ibiza and gangs of friends – and I’m so happy he’s living his best life, but I’m even happier that I’m not living it with him.

Since then, it has taken me years to realise that I’m not actually boring, I’m just an introvert, and they’re not one and the same thing.

Reading Susan Cain’s 2012 book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, was probably the first time I fully understood the nature of my own personality. Given to me by a former (introverted) colleague, it just made sense. Everything Cain said resonated with me and validated me, especially the following advice: “Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured…Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.”

It was like receiving a written permission slip to be me. You see, it isn’t that I don’t like going out. I do, but just in very specific circumstances, ie, with one or two close friends over dinner and a bottle of wine, and not every night of the week. I don’t enjoy being in large groups, especially when most of the faces are unfamiliar, and I tire of small talk pretty quickly. I get lockjaw from robotically smiling and headaches from feigning interest in the plans of people I don’t know. With the right individual, I will belly laugh as hard as anyone; in the right scenario I will drink more than I should and talk more than I ever normally would, but few people see this side of me because there’s even fewer people I feel comfortable enough with. Having said that, I love being at home. My happy place is a glass of wine, an old movie and a spitting fire. I lived alone for 10 years and I was perfectly content. I will live alone again I’m sure.

Now, at 47, I’m at peace with my introverted nature. In fact, I quite like it. So I was disappointed to come across a 2019 article in The Guardian, which talked about “conquering your inner introversion”. I’ve only just accepted mine and now I’m being asked to conquer it? The article cites a study published in Science Daily that same year, which found that introverts are happier if they force themselves to be extroverts. Over the course of two weeks, 123 individuals were asked to be talkative, assertive and spontaneous for the first week, then to behave like introverts the second week. The results found greater levels of satisfaction and positive emotions in participants during that first week. But as someone who tested this theory out for at least a decade, I disagree.

I think the notion of someone trying to conquer their inner introversion is a fool’s errand and an emotionally draining pathway to poor self-esteem.

Anybody can be someone else for a week. Of course it will result in increased positivity levels, because when you step outside of your comfort zone and achieve something new, adrenaline kicks in and serotonin levels spike. I’ve stood on stage hosting events in front of 70 or 80 people who are all there to listen to me, and while I once considered this to be very firmly extrovert territory, I realised that when I know my subject, I can play that part for an hour or two. It feels amazing, but so too does the escape home, shutting the door behind me and rewarding myself with the promise of nobody else’s company but my dog’s and Carrie Bradshaw’s for at least a week.

This isn’t denying or conquering my introvert nature, this is simply professional assertiveness. If you want to make a living, it’s par for the course. The danger of this study, however, is that it could lead an introvert to do exactly what Cain says we shouldn’t, which is “...busy [ourselves] trying to appear like a zestful, reward-sensitive extrovert…” which can then lead you to “undervalue your own talents, or feel underestimated by those around you…”

Apart from assertiveness, the study participants were also asked to demonstrate spontaneity during their week of playing the extrovert. Spontaneity unnerves me in the same way as organised fun or audience participation. Having to try to be spontaneous sounds completely at odds with itself in any case, but ‘dropping everything’ is not part of my lexicon. That’s just not how I’m wired. It sounds so unglamorous, doesn’t it? At the very least as a woman, I’m supposed to want to be swept off my feet and away somewhere at a moment’s notice. But any man who wants to impress me needs to email a full itinerary at least a week in advance. The idea of becoming spontaneous is about as appealing to me as turning vegan. I’m not convinced either will make me feel happier or better about myself.

Of course, I’m working in completely the wrong industry. The media and introverts are not natural bedfellows. To illustrate the point, in Quiet: Cain explains how a director of HR at a major media company equated the “creative” people the company was trying to attract to individuals who were “outgoing, fun and jazzed up”. Creative people are assumed to be extroverts, and analytical introverts. Cain compares introverts living under the extrovert ideal to “women in a man’s world; discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are”.

But just like femaleness, introversion isn’t a second-class personality trait. Like so much in midlife, I wish I’d known this 30 years ago.