Why introverts love Facebook

Today is World Introvert Day, something I didn't learn until quite late in the day. Too late to throw a big party or anything like that, but not too late to share it on Facebook. I posted a link to www.introvertday.org, which garnered some amusing feedback from other introverts. 

My best friend Lulu (who shared the link with me) said she wished she could have celebrated World Introvert Day by spending it under her desk.

Belinda said, “We could have had a party and then found excuses not to go.”

Peggy said that explained why she hadn't wanted to do anything but curl up on the couch with a book today.

Burns asked if I had read Susan Cain's book Quiet (I have), prompting a discussion about the book's premise that most of the world is geared toward extroverts, and about some of the ways introverts have found to cope (like the college professor who retreats to the same stall in the men's bathroom for some much-needed alone time after each lecture).

I resurrected and posted a Dilbert cartoon from a few years ago:

Lulu remarked that World Introvert Day “is more an 'Understand Your Introvert' movement, but introverts already understand each other and extroverts just think we're no fun.”

I'll admit it: I love Facebook.

Facebook may have stolen my privacy, my self-respect, and more precious hours of my time than I care to contemplate, but it has given me something in return: a way to be connected to other like-minded human beings that doesn't require me to actually Go Among the People.

I don't need to go to parties and have seventeen stilted and pointless conversations before accidentally discovering that someone shares my point of view about something. All I need to do is post a photo of turkeys made from Oreos and malted milk balls, or my adorable cats (let's just admit that they're the cutest cats in the world, OK?), or a link to EqualityMaine or The Daily Show, and I discover, almost instantly, who among my acquaintances shares my passion for “Fun With Food,” or cute cats, or leftist causes.

Facebook has allowed me to become a member of not one but several on-line communities of writers, to chat with other people who believe Kris Kristofferson is the greatest American singer-songwriter ever (and not just that old guy who plays Whistler in the Blade movies), to learn more about local history directly from people who have lived some of it than I ever would have gleaned if I'd had to do the research myself.

These people are my “friends.” Yes, Facebook tosses that term around rather lightly, especially to someone like me who has mostly subscribed to Henry Brooks Adams' theory that “One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.”

I have one hundred and seventy-two Facebook friends. I rarely, if ever, have exchanges with most of them. But others—some of them people I've never met, others people I've known “in person” for years but with whom I'd never really had a meaningful conversation—have revealed themselves, through the magic of Facebook, to be perceptive, funny, intelligent deep thinkers.

Many of them are introverts, like me. If we met at the post office, our conversation would most likely be limited to observations about the weather, or to inquiring about each other's kids. If we felt we knew each other well enough, one of us might bring up the Red Sox, but that's about as deep as it would go.

On Facebook, though, we've engaged in earnest discussions of politics, gun control, same-sex marriage, cute pets, and how to make a snowman out of cheese balls. And introversion.

I've found that many introverts love Facebook, for the same reasons I do.

Extroverts use Facebook to reconnect with old friends, and they post things like, “I’ll be back in town next weekend. Let's get together!” or “I miss your face—haven't seen you in too long! Gotta fix that!” 

Introverts, on the other hand, like Facebook because it gives us our “people fix” without requiring us to actually be around people.

By the way, extroverts will tell you that this is unhealthy and everyone should “get out more.” Ignore them. They don't get us. They also don’t get where they’d be without us.

“And let's not forget,” says the website for World Introvert Day, “that although introverts might be a minority, they are a majority in the gifted population. Most famous scientists, philosophers, artists and thinkers are introverted. Introverts shape the world we live in.”

No, let's not forget that.

(I should add that texting, along with Facebook, is an absolute godsend for introverts. Not only do we now not need to actually see people to communicate with them, we don't even have to talk to them on the phone. This is another thing extroverts don't get. Text an extrovert more than once or twice in a row, and your phone will probably ring and you'll hear, “I figured I might as well just call.” No, wrong. Don't be offended, but if I wanted to talk to you, I wouldn't be texting.)

I am an introvert...no, really, I am!

People make me tired. This is not to suggest that I’m unfriendly, or that I don’t like people (some of them, anyway). But being around them makes me tired.

It’s been this way all my life. In junior high, when we had about three-quarters of an hour for lunch (divided between the cafeteria and the playground, two places I avoided like the plague, for reasons that would fill a blog post and then some—suffice it to say that we moved to a new school district before seventh grade, and it pretty much ruined my life) I walked home, all by myself, every single day. I may well have been the only student from Mathewson Elementary School who went home for lunch, but, as far as I know, there was no rule against it—at least, no one ever tried to stop me from leaving the school grounds the minute the lunch bell rang.

By the time I had gotten through a morning of non-stop human interaction, I really needed that break. It was about a ten-minute walk, and since my mother worked, I came home to heat my can of Campbell’s soup in a house that was blissfully silent and empty. I don’t remember what else I did during my solitary lunch breaks, except that I know I talked to myself a lot. But, even though I hated having to go back to school afterward, that 45 minutes of solitude gave me the energy and courage to get through the afternoon.

For the next 15 years or so, I often felt overwhelmed by too much “people contact.” Sometimes I was able to recognize the signs and carve out some time for myself before I reached the breaking point. But more often than not, thinking I wasn’t “supposed” to need time alone—or at least, not so much of it—I ignored the warning signs until I felt like this:

Then, sometime around the mid-1980s, I got hold of a copy of Please Understand Me, by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, which (despite its pathetic, self-indulgent title) was enlightening, mainly because it offered a definition of “introvert” that I had never heard before: someone who draws energy from solitary activities, in contrast to an extrovert (or extravert, the spelling Keirsey and Bates use), who draws energy from being with other people.

AHA!

Keirsey and Bates go on to say that when introverts interact with others, “it drains their energy in a way not experienced by extraverts. Introverts need to find quiet places and solitary activities to recharge, while these activities exhaust the extravert.”

Again, AHA!

I also learned that about 75% of the population is extroverted, making extroversion the norm—which explains a lot about why introverts are often regarded as shy, anti-social, selfish, boring, or just plain odd. (I myself am, in fact, all of those things, at least at times, but it’s grossly unfair to attribute those qualities to all introverts just because they need a little solitude and space.)

Over the years, I’ve learned to cope pretty well in this extroverted world. In the same way that left-handed people usually become considerably more ambidextrous than right-handers—because of all the times when, dammit, there are just no left-handed scissors available—most introverts learn to spend more time than they would prefer with other people, and to give the appearance of enjoying it more than they actually do.

Sometimes I think I’ve done too good a job of “fitting in,” like when people express surprise that I consider myself very strongly introverted—I get a score of 10-0 on that part of the Keirsey and Bates assessment (or maybe 9-1 if I take the test on a day when I’m feeling especially friendly).

People often assume that, like them, I enjoy lots of Fun Group Activities, and invite me to participate, putting me in the position of having to:

(a) go along (because, despite being an introvert, I have a nearly pathological need to please people and to be liked) and, very often, end up feeling frazzled and peevish because what I really needed was some alone time;

(b) make up a phony pre-existing commitment (and how many times are they going to believe I’m visiting my sister, or that my cat has a vet appointment for a pesky skin condition?); or

(c) come up with a clear, honest response that protects my need for solitude without offending anyone.

When I was younger, I almost always opted for (a), mostly because I had such lousy self-esteem that every time someone asked me to do something, I was stunned into acceptance: Me? You want me to come to your Tupperware party? Really? That sounds like great fun!

More recently, I’ve used (b) quite a bit. The obvious problem with (b), besides my general discomfort with any kind of dishonesty, is that it can lead to all kinds of complications and intrigue: I can’t be seen in the grocery store if I’m supposed to be at my sister’s for the day; I’ll have to remember my story, and anticipate that someone might ask me if the cat’s eczema is clearing up.

Obviously, (c) is the best choice, but it has taken me my whole introverted life even to begin to be able to express my need for down time without apologizing for it. It’s probably only the fact that, as I get older, I need more and more solitude that has made me brave enough to stand up for it.

So I’m developing a repertoire of appropriate responses, all of which seem to have three parts.

First, they start with some variation of “That sounds like fun, but…” This is the part that I hope people understand to mean “I like you/you are a wonderful person/it means a lot that you thought to ask me.”

Second, the excuse part. (I know, I know, if I had really good self-esteem and felt entirely comfortable in my introversion, I probably wouldn’t need this part, but I always feel as if people deserve to know that it’s really me, not them, that’s the reason I don’t want to attend the party/go out to dinner with a gang/join a knitting group.) This is usually something like, “I’ve had a busy, overwhelming week and haven’t had much time to myself.” (No matter how the week has gone, for an introvert, this is always absolutely true—we’ve always had a busy, overwhelming week, and we’ve never had enough time to ourselves.)

Finally, the part where I suggest what I might be doing instead: “I’m really looking forward to just sitting in the recliner with a book this weekend,” or “I’m planning to take the dog for a long walk after work,” or “I’ll have the house all to myself tomorrow and that’s an opportunity I can’t bear to pass up.” My hope is that this type of response helps to dispel any notion people may have that I’m not really an introvert, and I must just be waiting to be asked to join the next fun group activity.

And by the way, yesterday, while I was out for a nice, long, solitary walk with the dog (having—politely, I hope— turned down an invitation for a group snowshoe hike), I came up with

The Top Ten Signs You May Be an Introvert

10. You may be an introvert if you think organizing your stamp collection is a reasonable excuse for not going out for drinks after work.

9. You may be an introvert if you think Henry Brooks Adams was a genius for knowing that “One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.”

8. You may be an introvert if you’ve ever heard someone use a line like “I’m just not one for crowds” and filed it away in your memory, thinking, that’s one I can use!

7. You may be an introvert if the statement, “I never feel lonely, except in a crowd” makes perfect sense to you.

6. You may be an introvert if you secretly (or not so secretly) hate weddings.

5. You may be an introvert if you can’t believe your good fortune when you get home and find no messages on the answering machine.

4. You may be an introvert if you’ve ever had to be bribed to attend a party. (When I was about seven, I refused to attend a friend’s birthday party until my mother told me a secret: the prizes for those ridiculous games like musical chairs and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey were going to be…live dime-store turtles! Obviously, this was before the sale of baby turtles was banned due to concerns about salmonella.)

3. You may be an introvert if, in high school, when couples were slipping into supply closets to neck, you were slipping into them just to be alone for one goddamned minute!

2. You may be an introvert if the part of a recent party you enjoyed most was the 30 minutes you spent reading the label on the Listerine bottle in the hostess’ bathroom.

1. And…the number one sign you may be an introvert: if you’ve ever left a gathering to get something from your car and instead found yourself driving home, leaving your purse, coat, and spouse behind.