Introverts: How Do You Experience Introversion?

[sassafrassquatch]

Shit, there were questions. D'oh.

What stimulates you?

I dunno. Stuff.

How much external stimulation can you tolerate?

Not much.

What is your internal world like?

Barclay on the holodeck.

How much alone time do you need and how often do you need it?

As much as possible

What comes along with being an introvert that most people don't realize?

That I will kill them if they keep talking.

[scantilyclad]

What stimulates you?
One on one time with friends. Going places by myself. Interesting conversations.


How much external stimulation can you tolerate?
Not a lot at all. I get really irritated when i'm over stimulated, and i don't really know how to handle it.


What is your internal world like?
It's wild, and i love it. In my internal world i am the most amazing person at everything. I always have internal competitions, like when i'm playing tetris, and i lose, i imagine that i'm now a tetris champion getting ready to beat the last person to play. I have strange thoughts and day dream regularly. I often reply conversations in my head or practice future conversations. I imagine what life would be like if certain things were different. I think about what may happen in the future.

How much alone time do you need and how often do you need it?
I need a lot of alone time and i need it for several hours everyday. Sometimes i only get to be alone if i'm showering. Having a baby just doesn't allow much alone time.


What comes along with being an introvert that most people don't realize?
I can't say what other people don't realize.

[Dansker]

What stimulates you?
Being alone, lost in my own thoughts, interesting conversations, learning new things, new concepts, complex issues.

How much external stimulation can you tolerate?
Not much. Too much leaves me feeling suffocated, stressed and frustrated.

What is your internal world like?
So satisfying. It's rich, there are no limits, it keeps me entertained for hours and hours on end.

How much alone time do you need and how often do you need it?
I'll take as much alone time as I can get. I recently spent time alone overseas and would spend days at a time, alone, talking to no one. I never felt so happy.

What comes along with being an introvert that most people don't realize?
That not all introverts are shy and socially inept.

[Mort Belfry]

I don't know about anybody else but when I'm home alone I walk around talking to myself in a very loud voice. I may indulge in fantasy and I might make up conversations between two silly voices for what seems like, and actually is, hours.

When I was young and at a place with a lot of people that I couldn't get out of, for example a school assembly, I would imagine how I could eradicate everybody in the room using only objects in the immediate vicinity.

In later years I have found enjoyment in passing absurd and hurtful internal judgements about complete strangers. When I am on a bus, I will actively think about how I hate every single person on that bus and how every single one of them are leading shallow, purposeless lives.

I'm not saying I'm right, it just passes the time.

[FFF]

Originally Posted by Metamorphosis

I would have to disagree. I am an I and still like to go to parties.

I never said you can't like parties, I said it matters what you do at parties.

[INTJMom]

Originally Posted by Jae Rae

Gosh, of course you were exhausted - you were entertaining this woman
7-8 hours a day/40 hours a week. Most people would find that enervating, not to mention annoying and depressing.

A few years ago my best friend and I got together three or four days a week, spending several hours walking and talking. But we never tried it eight hours a day, five days a week. I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did. How did it end?

Jae Rae

Well, it was about 6 years ago, so I don't recall exactly, but I think I finally had to get up the courage (knowing that I would hurt her feelings) to tell her that we really needed to cut it back to something like 3 days a week instead of 5.

My husband had complained, too, because I wasn't getting any homemaking done while she was here.

So she decided to hire me to work for her, so that we could spend time together, and my husband couldn't complain, because I was earning money. It might have been the best job I ever had. I worked for her for 2 years. We were very close.

But because of her emotional baggage, she kept getting more and more sensitive and kept getting hurt more and more easily, and though she "forgave" me she didn't really, because I came to realize that every little hurt had been put in a pile and was stacking up against me until I was constantly in a state of being on the outs with her. We couldn't work together like that!

She decided she wanted to make a clean cut of our relationship, and though I would have preferred to have remained correspondents, she refused and that was the end of that. Although she has informed me by email when important people in her life have died.

She was the best friend I ever had, and I really learned a lot of wonderful things from her. She was very patient. Her life wasn't all about "efficiency" like mine was/is. I learned people are more important than I had been making them out to be.

[Jennifer]

As an introvert, I had to accept a lot of things about myself:

1. Everything starts with my inner world, and I go into the outer only to collect information to develop the inner. Sometimes this leaves me feeling negatively self-absorbed and perhaps sometimes I am, but up to a certain point this is just natural and good.

2. I guard my feelings and thoughts more than an extrovert does. Sometimes they misread me as aloof, or snobby, or disinterested when actually I am still very interested in them, but I'm unsure or afraid/anxious.

3. I can only handle a certain amount of group activity before I am drained. There is a cost to socializing with large groups of people... sometimes even just going to work. I also get bothered by loud noise, or lots of noise at once...sort of like if someone kept scratching at the same spot on my arm and eventually wore it raw.

4. I am not as socially connected as others because I'm happy being a homebody. I really don't WANT a routine that takes me out into the social world all the time. I like to control the time I spend with others and be able to disengage when I need to.

5. I have two thought processes going at once. The primary one is internal, but I start up another "thread" outside of me, engaging people. but throughout the entire interaction, I am thinking, speculating, evaluating, checking, challenging, imagining, etc. I have to focus hard to block out my inner world and just immerse myself in the outer... and it tires me.

Sometimes being an introvert is lonely, because I see everyone else being happy. So when I don't have a friendship available or someone to connect with, I feel alone and like no one understands. (I also don't voice everything I feel and think, so that means people don't understand there either.) It's tiresome to constantly have to articulate my inner world in order that people know me and can connect.

[cascadeco]

What stimulates you?

I'm not certain why I'm having so much trouble deciding what stimulates me, but I am!! I think it's because different things stimulate me in different ways. Good conversation can make me excited about ideas, but I think a lot of it is the interaction itself, and that connection with another person - although I guess WHAT we're actually discussing is equally important, because certain conversations really de-stimulate me. :-) Just the energy between us as we're talking, maybe. That stimulates me. Connection is *really* important. A lot of external things can stimulate me too - when I'm out in nature, I can become overwhelmed with happy thoughts and energy. Same with other physical activities - might just be the endorphins, but moving around and pushing myself physically can often clear my head and energize me to do other things. Music might. I guess for me, I'm interpreting stimulation as something which brings me physical energy, excitement, positive mental/emotional energy..that sort of thing. But all of these things, with the exception of good conversation, are primarily solitary activities. I'm still in my head while I'm doing all of this stuff, even though I might be with people while I'm doing it.

How much external stimulation can you tolerate?

I differentiate between external stimulation in the sense of just ME interacting with the world around me, vs. me interacting with another person or people. With the former, I think I can tolerate quite a bit. With the latter, not as much. Ideally, I'd like to interact with people or do something with others a few nights a week, and then the other nights I'd be perfectly fine on my own, and actually need to just be on my own doing my own thing. But usually, socially, when it rains it pours. I'll either have nothing going on for a week or two, and then I get TOO much alone time (too much alone time is not good - I need some sort of human contact, even if its just a presence, after I'm alone for more than 48 hours - otherwise I get really lonely and want some sort of interaction, and I also tend to get 'stuck' in my head and too wrapped up in my thoughts, and am prone to a downward spiral), or I have something going on 7 days in a row. If I have too much going on, initially, I'm excited about it, because I DO like connecting with people, and I enjoy being with others (assuming I like them ;-). So I can do the extroverted thing, and enjoy it, for maybe 3-4 days, but by day 5 or 6 I really start to emotionally shut down and I get really frazzled. I'll then need a good week or two to fully recover, and in that week or two I don't really want to be around anyone, or do anything. So it's a fine line.....sometimes I can't prevent overextending myself, because, well, sometimes that's just how everyones' schedules line up. But in day to day life, I'll usually 'schedule' two or three days during the week of doing nothing, and one of the weekend days to myself, in between my 'doing stuff' days, just to prevent myself from overextending, and to prevent the need to become a hermit for a week or two. :-)

What is your internal world like?
I guess I'm just ALWAYS thinking about stuff. My life, re-playing social interactions, broader world topics, random things...my brain is rarely not thinking about something. Even when I'm in more of a contemplative state, my mind is still on...it's just in a more mellow state, and it's more just shifting feelings and impressions rather than active thinking.

How much alone time do you need and how often do you need it?
I kinda answered this one already, but I can only do *active* socializing a few times a week - where I'm in 'On' mode, really listening, trying to talk more, and trying to be more of an active conversationalist. I'm not much of a talker. If I didn't *have* to talk and could just ride along with a person or group, without being expected to talk or anything, I'd be able to socialize more often, probably. But then..that's not really socializing. ;-) I'm much more passive, I guess, when it comes to this. I love and crave *company* and being with people and doing things with them, and existing, and sharing whatever might come up, but I don't necessarily need the talking. haha. Um. To further clarify...last year I went to Italy with two of my friends, and prior to the trip I was rather worried that I wouldn't get enough alone time, and I was worried that I'd get frazzled and wouldn't be able to travel with them for 10 days, and always be with them. But...in the end, none of it phased me one bit, because I knew them, we were already comfortable, I wasn't 'expected' to be 'On' and talk...and neither were they...just sharing the experiences and all of that, and us also going off on our own for an hour or so each day if we just wanted to wander alone...it worked wonderfully. So while we were together nearly the whole time...internally I was pretty solitary much of the time, just in my internal world. So externally, I didn't have much 'alone time' at all. But I found I didn't need it. I guess we just traveled well together. It was kinda like the dynamics with my family. I can be around them nonstop and I don't get 'tired' -- but then, all four of us are introverts so although we're together in the same space, we're also separate in our own minds.......

What comes along with being an introvert that most people don't realize?

I don't know? I guess most people do overlook me or wouldn't bother to talk to me because I AM quiet. I'm not the life of the party. It's something I'm really self-conscious about - my quietness - but it's just how I am. It doesn't mean I'm boring or lack interest in someone or something (although perhaps I AM boring, for different reasons, haha) - it just means I'm primarily inside. I like being with people and sharing experiences....but I don't necessarily need or want to talk a lot. And in more casual social interactions, it's a source of uncomfortableness for me..just feeling that I *need* to talk more and should talk more because it's not like the other person wants to have just a one-sided conversation..but my maybe not having anything I really have to say. I don't know. I sometimes think there's a bit of a gender expectation in women, too...women are often portrayed as being the chatty ones, where the man doesn't do much talking, and it seems like it's more 'Ok' for the man to be the quiet brooding type. But I don't often feel that it's 'Ok' for me to be the quiet one. And on some dates, I feel like the guy has been a little unsure of what to do with someone who isn't doing all of the talking. I dunno...maybe that's something I'm putting on myself and I don't need to.

How's that for longest response ever?

[lastrailway]

I am a strong introvert and I think I have arranged, more or less consciously, my life in order to be able to have as much free and alone time as possible.
I can take really very small amounts of external stimulation, sometimes all kind of activities, even the most 'lonely' ones (like reading or surfing the net), can be like a background noise that holds me from my thoughts. Whenever something is registered as interesting, I feel the need to isolate myself in order to contemplate on it. That can be, being with some interesting company and having some interesting discussion and feel the need to walk away, close a book right after reading an interesting passage, etc. It doesn't have to be people, really, I need a lot of time without any stimuli at all.
I have developed various ways to successfully avoid having to spend too much time with others, and that's often interpreted as my being depressed or sad, or lonely, or dislike people, or even being rude.

[Kanamori]

...wait, I'm not done yet.