Care and Feeding of This Particular Introvert

[tiger_spot]

By request! I hope this is helpful, or at least interesting. Questions are welcome.

The basics:

DO invite me to stuff.

DON'T think my turning down an invitation means I don't like you.

That pretty much covers it, really. Everything else is my issue, and other people shouldn't have to think about it. But if you want to think about it, here is

Comments

[lrc]

Since you posted this at about the time I posted that I will indeed be having a party on the 6th, consider yourself specifically invited. My parties vary in size, but between the house, the back porch the deck/dancefloor and the redwood grove,there are generally plenty of quiet places to talk with a select group.

[tiger_spot]

Okay, I don't usually need weeks of notice. Busy that weekend, though. :)

[leback]

Thanks for posting this -- I'm finding a surprising lot of it to usefully describe how I work, too. (I don't ordinarily ID as an introvert, but I also don't ID as an extrovert -- usually, the way the dichotomy is characterized mostly seems sort of orthogonal to a useful description of my social functioning.)

[firecat]

What she said (except I do ID as an introvert).

[tiger_spot]

Heh. I'll post about some of the odd tangentially related bits later, then. I'd be surprised if people see themselves in those much at all.

[tiger_spot]

I think relatively high needs for social time can camouflage a lot of introversion. I didn't think of myself as particularly introverted up until high school, because before then I didn't have all that many opportunities to socialize, and nearly all of them were with people I knew well. I knew I was shy, because I had trouble when there were new people, but I didn't realize I needed alone time until the structure of my life changed enough that I wasn't automatically getting it.

[rfrench]

Yep, this pretty much describes me, too.

Consider yourself invited to woodworking class next week, even though I know you're not particularly interested at this time.

[tiger_spot]

Thanks.

[johnpalmer]

You know, I'd never thought of it, but I think your experience matches mine - if I have bits of social interaction, it does get a bit easier (so long as it's not overwhelming).