I don't like the introversion/extroversion dichotomy as a model of personality types. One reason is how easily it changed for me. In my first two years of high school, I didn't talk much with people. I mostly stayed home, played a lot of video games, and tried (and succeeded) to hide my dysfunctional family situation from my peers. I was also arrogant and thought I was smarter than most people, so I figured they'd be a waste of my time anyway. I felt drained just being around them.
In junior year of high school, I made some great friends. It was the same time I was getting into board games, so we'd hang out every week playing games and talking deep into Friday nights and shallow into Saturday mornings. They were my first exposure to mature friendships, laden with vulnerability and trust, friendships that humbled me and taught me things. These friends made me into a much better person. Being around them didn't make me feel drained; it filled me with energy and passion. (It also helped that my friends were incredibly smart, talented people whom I continue to admire.)
I had shifted from feeling drained when around people to feeling drained when
not around people. It was a big change during a highly developmental stage of life -- but I am acutely aware of how easily it could happen to me again, in either direction. Ever since, I've considered the part of my identity that takes energy from being with or apart from people to be highly mutable, and hence not a reliable label of who I am.
I know people who identify as
extremely introverted or extroverted who are confident they'll never change. For them, introversion/extroversion is a clear, established part of their identity. I don't know if they're right or not. All I know is, I was also extremely sure I'd never stop being introverted, and I was totally wrong about that. I'm sure all the extreme 'verts I know know themselves better than I do, so the duality makes more sense for them. I'm cool with that. But I also wonder if they can change like I did.
A bigger reason I don't like the dichotomy is because I don't like it when people quickly stratify themselves into binary categories. It's always felt too simplistic and reductive. Whitman put it best:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Sometimes, I feel so introverted I can't even muster the energy to send a one-word reply to a text message. I actively avoid close friends. I'd much rather read, or write, or dance in the peaceful solitude of my room (close the door on your way out, please).
Other times, I crave interaction. I call people who aren't expecting me just to hear their voice. I go for a walk so I can see some human faces. I start conversations with strangers on the street. I want people to pay attention to me and give me compliments so it's not weird when I give them compliments.
Feeling these different urges doesn't seem unhealthy to me; if anything,
their breadth is an essential part of the beauty of being human. When I
have to collapse all of this breadth into a single word -- "introvert" or "extrovert" -- it seems like I've failed to communicate
something important. It also feels like the person who hears my
self-categorization immediately forms an impression of me based on which
side I picked, an impression that can only be deeply flawed.
To illustrate this tension, I will tell you two stories. Both of them took place in empty homes.
The first story takes place at the end of my time in college, the day after my roommates moved out. We were good friends, usually having dinner together 4 times a week. We were also very open and comfortable around each other. When our lease ended, they left a few days earlier than I did.
I will never forget what it felt like to leave my room and see absolutely nothing in the house. The day before, it had been full of boxes, furniture, assorted packing paraphernalia, and not just things, but sounds: jokes and laughter, table legs scraping on hardwood floors, all the bustle of moving and all the laziness of not wanting to.
Now, there was total emptiness. My roommate's door, right across from mine, creaked on its hinges. I could hear my breath echo into his empty room. I was acutely aware of the sounds my clothes made as they rusted around on my body. I was struck by a profound, piercing loneliness.
I
loved college. I'd been in school my entire life. I had no idea what life would be like afterward, without the structure of classes and teachers and syllabi. I was also someone who genuinely loved school, who loved studying and learning and teaching, and I had no idea where I'd end up, and it seemed impossible for me to end up in a place I would love quite as much.
I'd also made my closest friends in college, friends I didn't know if I would see again. I'd already undergone the painful experience of losing close high school friends whom I thought I'd never lose contact with. We naturally drifted apart due to our increased distance and loss of commonalities. It seemed totally reasonable for that to happen again, even though I really didn't want it to.
All my sadness, anxiety, and fear came together in the silence of that barren house. I felt wholly and utterly alone, in every way someone could feel alone -- physically, intellectually, emotionally, temporally. I was more extroverted than I'd ever been in that moment, totally drained of energy, in
need of human contact. And there was no one home with whom I could share my multitudes.
The second story is when I finally moved into my apartment here in Boston. The two people I know out here are both super busy, so I ended up doing it all alone (well, almost -- I did pay a Brazilian guy I met off the street $20 to help me carry the heavy furniture inside, but that was the extent of my human contact -- I drove 30 hours from CO, stayed in an AirBnB while taking the bus to various libraries every day so I could look for an apartment online, found one, got an email for a better apartment that turned out to be a scam, paid the deposit for the real apartment, found cheap furniture on Craigslist (which, in total, comprised three bookshelves, two sofas, curtains, assorted cookware, a desk, chair, bed frame, box spring, mattress, table, dresser, and nightstand), rented a truck, moved all the furniture into my new place (with the help of the aforementioned Brazilian guy, who didn't speak English, so I communicated with him entirely through Google translate (shoutout to the Google translate team -- y'all do amazing work))), and collapsed, exhausted, onto my new bed.
I was wholly and utterly alone, and happier than I'd been in months. I was incredibly proud of myself for doing it all on my own. I felt mature, independent, self-actualized,
free. It was the sort of freedom that felt so good I wondered if the radical libertarians were actually on to something after all. Everything I wanted to happen was happening -- not through chance, but through my own hard-fought efforts; I'd been working diligently toward a dream my whole life, and when I got finally got to the end, I found out
it had all been worth it. Great endings go on to become even greater beginnings, and my future would be greater still.
I had no one to share my triumph with -- it was well past 1:00 am, and I was too tired to talk to anyone anyway. But even if I'd had the energy, I don't think I would have. I was caught in the blinding light of joyous introversion, totally fulfilled. It was a special, private moment, a moment begging to
not be shared, a moment crying out for stillness. It was a moment just for me. It was a moment
I -- no one else -- had earned. And so I laid there and exulted in my multitudes.
