Being introverted is not a sin

If anyone was to ask me for one thing in which I wish I was different, I wouldn’t think twice to answer that question. For me, the answer is my introversion. I am an introvert, meaning that I don’t need as much external stimulation from my environment and from the people around me. Instead, I can achieve the most when I am alone. And I also often enjoy and need to be alone to feel rested and good - being surrounded by people constantly makes me feel tired and fed up. And here also comes the bad part of it: because of that I am more quiet and shy, not making friends that easily and not enjoying various socials with people I don’t know very well. In fact, I am dreading them – having to make small talk with people I know, but not very well, mostly seems like a nightmare to me, although sometimes, meeting new people and making new friends can also be nice. But only sometimes.

I have always felt like my introversion was my biggest flaw. In primary school, for example, I was in a vicious cycle of being less social than an average teenager, which led to my schoolmates calling me antisocial, which made me even less motivated to socialise even with those that seemed to be nice to me – they must be just pretending and bitching about me behind my back. Things started to improve in high school, where I probably tried to make friends a bit harder, and also had better self-confidence and self-esteem, realising that people aren’t talking to me just because they were socially forced to. From the same reasons I also made some closer friends, with whom I felt confident enough to start talking and show them who I really am beyond my walls of quietness.

Now at the university, I was surprisingly outgoing and social enough at the beginning to make a nice group of close friends, but as soon as I got those, my motivation for further socialisation decreased. Last year I was trying and was going to a lot of socials, at which I always had to uncomfortably make myself involved with the small talk or other conversations that didn’t really interest me much. When after going to so many of those there were still no results – no proper friends made, I just gave up. No point forcing myself and even spending money for all those expensive dinners out. And I’m still happy with the small, but tight group of friends that I’ve got. Plus, with my preference for staying out of the centre of attention, I often feel invisible in larger groups of people, as many don’t know or remember my name or me at all even if we had talked before.

However, all of those friends are more extroverted than I am, with a wider friendship circle and meeting up with a variety of friends from their course, college or other societies. Their sociality makes me feel odd, as if there was something wrong with me, the same way as what I was told in primary school by other kids. But there’s nothing wrong with me though! About 30% to 50% of the population are supposed to be introverts and many of them can be very successful. Apparently, we need less external rewards to do our work well, we are more likely to stick with a difficult challenge for longer than extroverts, are better at listening to people and can be more creative. They can also be great leaders and contribute a lot to the society. We are also not antisocial – having a narrower circle of very close friends is in my (introverted) opinion way more rewarding than a wide circle of acquaintances.

There seems to be a paradigm in our society that people with a larger number of friends with whom they socialise every day are happier. Now, firstly, I think it is the close friends with which we have a deep connection and on whom we can rely on are the ones that really matter, and I don’t believe that extroverts have so many more of them than introverts. Then, if introverts don’t enjoy socialising in large groups and meeting new people all the time that much and have a circle of friends with whom they meet regularly, why should we be expected to be equally outgoing and socialising with so many other people, when we often don’t enjoy it? Of course, meeting some nice new people is occasionally nice, but there’s no need to do it every week or so.

I am completely happy the way I am without constantly meeting and messaging with my friends (it actually gets overwhelming really quickly, making me less responsive) and being able to do various solitary activities, such as hiking, that recharge my batteries after being surrounded by people. My needs for social interactions are often easily satisfied by just following the normal course of my life. I should not have to feel guilty for behaving the way that makes me feel satisfied and happy, just because some people have different needs and cannot really understand me. So please, don’t immediately panic and ask me if I’m ok, just because I decide to have a calm evening alone in my room. And don't worry, I will talk and have fun with you on the next day.