bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 ::

The introvert's moment of Net fame
As though we introverts aren't arrogant enough without this, but now Jonathan Rauch's Atlantic article, "Caring for Your Introvert," is making us feel like Leonardo DiCaprio's Titanic character, Jack, when he climbed to the mast of that ship and proclaimed to a raging, uncaring ocean, "I'm king of the world!" For the moment, at least. And before that moment passes, I'm going to take advantage of the sudden Net buzz about introversion.

Thanks to Rauch's thoughtful essay, we introverts now have our moment of fame on the Net. While our deliberation and thoughtfulness is looked down upon in the extrovert-dominated "real world" -- the world of chatty, interminable staff meetings; office social committees; schmoozing and small talk; and far too many shoot-from-the-lip decisionmaking -- we are able, on the Internet, to bask in the limelight that extroverts are always hogging in the offline world. We then link to the article, compose our own here! here! comments on the subject (many introverts prefer to write, while most extroverts prefer oral communication) and post them to our weblogs, which are then read by our little online conclaves of others bloggers, many of them, like us, introverts. (Judging from the interest in Rauch's article, a fair number of bloggers must have a preference toward introversion.)

Then, feeling a bit cocky, we print out the articlem photocopy it, and distribute the copies to our extroverted co-workers. (Or if we're extremely introverted, we may just leave them in their inboxes, perhaps with a note attached.)

But do they read the article? Oh, some may skim the essay and nod cordially. But before you know it they're distracted by the latest office small talk, and off they go again.

As Rauch explains:

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! Here!

What other bloggers are saying about the introvert meme:

"As a minister, being an introvert is hard. I loved pastoring on Sundays, but after -- I just wanted to be alone, not go out for lunch at Denny's." - Tim Bednar of e-Church (full comments here). Tim, like me, is an INTP but apparently much more introverted than I. I'll eat at Denny's any old time.

"[T]he article could have possibly been intended to be more along the lines of being some sort of a clever ruse or otherwise a back handed critique by its author." - Morgan W. Brown, who posts a lot more introspective stuff, and questions, about this article at his NorseHorse site, Feb. 27 (no permalink; you've got to scroll down).

"I spend 75% of my hours by myself but I am not sure if it is introversion or the situationally induced hermit-dom. I like socializing, I just don't have the opportunity to do it all that often. I suppose I would have to become a butterfly in order to determine if I still need some 'alone time'." - This Boy Is Toast (here's his permalink)

"Most often I feel like I'm the only introvert I know. Everyone else seems to default to an outgoing social orientation. I can't think of many others, if there are any I know, for whom the most natural state of being is alone. Alone is when I'm myself. Alone is when I gather my strength toward my center (indeed the only time I know where it is). I don't need to be around other people all or even most of the time. I actually have a high requirement for "downtime" that I can spend alone, processing, writing, reading, thinking, recovering from the sensory assault of the day and integrating the social interactions I've had into my memory in a way that yields meaning. Digesting my life, if you will." - Just part of a very long post at ManiaHill (warning: post includes profanity)

Winning headline: we're here, we're not particularly loud, get used to it - from Pudding Time (scroll to February 26 entry)

:: Andrew 15:10 + ::
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