Hell is other people at breakfast (Sartre)
August 16, 2007
I wonder why I liked “Caring for Your Introvert?” Thanks to Michael Kruse who thanked Wendy Bailey for finding this article. My name is Dave, and I am an introvert.
Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?
Of course you do. As for the opposite end of the personality scale,
Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion. As often as I have tried to explain the matter to extroverts, I have never sensed that any of them really understood. They listen for a moment and then go back to barking and yipping.
Here’s one more quote, and then you can jolly well click through and read it for yourself.
Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward. We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts’ Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say “I’m an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush.”
Dave, feeling it’s time to shush himself.
Comments
2 Responses to “Hell is other people at breakfast (Sartre)”
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I knew there was something I liked about you!
I enjoyed this article. I agree that it would be a better world if introverts ran the world! But the question is, do they ever run for office? We can only vote for who runs.
Leslie, a bit of both