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My
experience of being introverted by JEANNINE
I’m 41 now and I don’t think I knew what an introvert was until 7 th or 8 th grade, but I knew I was shy as far back as I can remember, since everyone was always telling me so. Maybe I ended up being shy partly because I am an introvert. I had four brothers and sisters and I didn’t feel like any of them liked me much, maybe because I always wanted my space and because I could be pretty stubborn. I always had a hard time making friends and was very unhappy all through elementary school.
In first grade I remember walking around the perimeter of the playground by myself, and trying to make it inconspicuous that I had no one to play with. These days, most teachers would notice and try to help, but back then people apparently didn’t concern themselves much with children’s social lives. Maybe some introverted children would be content to do their own thing at recess, but I just wanted to fit in with other kids and didn’t know how. I’m an ISFJ. I think I read somewhere that life is harder on introverts that are more on the feeling end of the scale. I imagine that people on the thinking end don’t care as much what other people think and keep themselves busy with intellectual or creative thoughts. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought I was too boring or weird for anyone to like and that was very painful for me.
Finally, in seventh grade, I was part of a small group of friends. One day in social studies class, the teacher was talking about introverts and extroverts. Extroverts were outgoing, talkative and social and liked to be with other people, he said. Introverts kept to themselves, liked to be alone more and didn’t talk as much. He asked the class (probably without expecting an answer) if we knew anyone like that. One girl yelled out “Jeannine’s an introvert!” Well, I’m sure you can imagine that I was mortified. I never liked attention on me to begin with, and of course it sounded much better to be an extrovert.
In my teen years I tried to change myself to try to fit in better. I tried to stop being “so quiet” and started trying to put my “two cents” into conversations. I ended up feeling really dumb because the things I would say were never very clever or funny. I finally decided that it was better to stop trying to be something I was not and that I should just avoid situations where I might embarrass myself. Some people thought I was a snob, but I was really the opposite.
As I got older, I started growing out of some of my shyness and wanted to show people that I really am a very caring person. I read some of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. At first I thought the book would tell you how to be phony but it really was helpful. If you sincerely want to be friendly with someone, it helps to have some good social skills. Everybody wants to be liked. Back then, I still thought being an introvert wasn’t a good thing, but now I proudly tell people that I am an introvert.
The book “The Introvert Advantage” by Marti Olsen Laney really confirmed and expanded on what I had started to learn over the years. Introverts are special and valuable people! And if I let people know that I’m an introvert, hopefully they won’t suspect that I don’t like them. If they really know what an introvert is, they’ll know that we sort of speak a different language. So it’s important that we educate people about it.
I am married to a real extrovert, and I can appreciate the good qualities in him that I don’t have, but I need my time alone and sometimes I have felt smothered by him. I have tried to educate him about introverts and he appreciates most of the good qualities in me too, so I guess I’m pretty lucky.
