you’re not an introvert, actually

putting the pop in pop psychology

For a while, there was that voice in your head that said everyone was always out having fun without you. Maybe it’s still there. The party you missed was the event of the decade, the night you stayed in to do laundry is going to be the source of fifty in-jokes your friends will leave you out of. If you’re lucky maybe they’ll tell the story enough that you can laugh along with them rather than smiling, cluelessly, and eventually they’ll forget that you weren’t actually there for it.

But then, after a while, it became harder to go out into the world than it was to be at home. Maybe it was coronavirus, maybe it’s the collective mess we’ve all made of things in general. The pull of the sofa, of the bedroom floor, of your own kitchen and your own belongings surrounding you was too much. A dragon atop a pile of overpriced skincare that doesn’t really work and trinkets you keep telling yourself you’ll throw out. Staying in because you felt like ‘protecting your peace’, ‘recharging your social battery’ was glorified, and many shared the thought that they’re always secretly happy when plans are cancelled last minute so it means that they can stay home. 

It turns out there’s a word for it, don’t worry! You’re just an introvert. That’s a type of person who sometimes likes to do solo activities and sometimes is tired. Less cynically, it’s the idea that a person gains energy alone rather than being with company, the opposite of an extrovert, who gains energy from being in people’s company. These ideas aren’t completely misguided, but the way we fit them into a framework isn’t exactly helpful a lot of the time.

The reality is that people who are truly introverted or extroverted are rare. Really rare. Pretty much everyone else sits in between sometimes- certain people or certain occasions are energising, some are tiring but worth it when you show up, sometimes it’s easier to stay home after a long day. It can be hard to judge from instance to instance which it’s going to be, but you definitely don’t learn by always avoiding socialising in the name of potential rest. Sitting on Instagram can be just as exhausting and less fulfilling than the pub.

The idea of introversion and extroversion (which I’m going to refer to as extraversion- that’s its more sciencey counterpart) was developed by Carl Jung in the 1920s and, like many of his theories, is better viewed as a guiding principle than a law of nature. In theory, extraverted people are sensation seeking, because chemically it takes more stimulation for their brain to emit neurochemicals of satiation- dopamine and serotonin (which you’ll recognise for also having been referenced online until they lose meaning). What they turn to for this stimulation is up to them, it could be healthy or unhealthy, novel or repetitive. I’m always inclined to suggest that the person who scrolls on their phone whilst eating and watching TV (and maybe even trying to hold a conversation) is more aligned with this trope than the person whose mind is emptied when they’re on the dancefloor- but, critically, most of us are a bit of both. Like the rest of the internet I’ve been loving The Dare’s Good Time- him taunting “I’m in the club while you’re online” sends something electronic through my neurons. Except I’m often both. Checking my emails at the bar, checking the news at the house party. I read a Substack essay in the club once. Please don’t tell anyone.

This concept of extraversion in its genuine psychological use is much more validated. It’s also one of the axes of the Big Five, which you might have heard of as OCEAN, the main scientifically accepted measure of personality traits (please don’t say the phrase ‘MBTI’ to me). Extraversion is a scale: its other end isn’t really introversion, it’s just low extraversion. It tends to be somewhat steady across your lifetime, and is more about stimulation seeking behaviour of all kinds than that party montage you picture when doing an ‘are you an introvert or extrovert’ quiz, probably on Buzzfeed. Yes, it can be associated with alcohol and drug use, risky sexual behaviour and BDSM, extreme sports, and partying. It also has associations with creativity, exercise levels, broader scopes of thinking, and even volunteering. The idea that the stereotypical introvert is the epitome of an artistic thinker, or someone who just wants to read alone in their room (I don’t think this person exists, by the way, unless it’s more about avoiding an anxiety response), and especially that they therefore have a far more powerful mind than those who go out in the world was never going to hold up. There’s plenty you can learn about the world around you actually going into it.

Plus, maybe feeling drained after socialising is sometimes more to do with the person than socialising itself. If you want to stay in and rest or do things alone, that’s a really important part of life. But if you felt relieved when the word ‘introvert’ explained that, I’m afraid it didn’t. You’re probably just a person who wants to be at home sometimes. But how do we live if we can’t sum up ourselves and our patterns of behaviour in one word? It feels much less validating if the explanation for how social you feel is that sometimes you’re tired, and sometimes you’re not. Some people like socialising more than others in the same way that people like different types of cereal, here isn’t necessarily much more depth to it than that. I’d argue that ideally there wouldn’t be any part of your identity that, if you lost it somehow, would be single-handedly able to topple your sense of self. And it seems to me that we’re all losing a lot more than we’re gaining by identifying too strongly with these terms and personas.

‘The Mainstreaming of Loserdom’, a recent piece by

Tell the Bees

, has so far resonated with a few thousand people who agreed that the superiority that’s suggested by a lack of social life is misguided at best. The love of songs about partying is incongruent with the apparent fear of, or sometimes even disgust with, partying itself. With so-called ‘recession pop’ (music we want to dance to so we forget about the rental crisis) defining our summer, you’d hope that sharing joy and movement with friends and strangers alike would appeal to more. Instead, I find myself wanting to analyse the marketing campaigns behind new songs, reading critiques of their stars in Twitter threads. Everyone’s a self-proclaimed twenty-year-old-grandmother. Watching 90s and 00s TV shows where the characters go on adventures, and taking away only fashion inspiration. We’ve become so wrapped up in the idea of having a ‘main character moment’ when things feel a bit too much like the movies, that we’ve forgotten how fun and exciting things can and do happen to people all the time, even on a small scale, if you dive head-first into the world. Media has gone from being a somewhat aspirational but largely reflective body, to being almost entirely escapist, a way to live without living.

“I’ll also defend myself preemptively and say not everyone has the same threshold for social interaction, which again, is fine. My issue is that I do not believe that the millions of people engaging with these posts all have very literal tolerance for social interaction.” - Telling the Bees

Stay in when you need to stay in, and find ways to enjoy your own company for the days when it’s all you’ve got. Sharing the things you’re passionate about is one of life’s great joys, but sometimes diluting an experience by having someone who’s less interested than you- your favourite band in concert, a hobby you’re a pro at, a place where you could make new friends- is the way to go. That’s one way in which being on your own- charging your ‘social battery’- isn’t the same as not doing anything. But when I find myself consuming content about people who travel, people who talk to strangers, people who have fun in ways that I want to have fun instead of actually doing the things myself, I decide it’s time to jump in rather than being so precious with my energy. 

what is it about having two drinks that makes every collection of inanimate objects seem like a still life waiting to be captured

There was even a second there where the internet discovered you can spend time with someone while you do whatever you were going to do without them, whether it’s getting through your TBR list or replying to emails. It’s clearer than ever that we all still care about community and its place in our lives- except we decided it was a new thing entirely known as ‘parallel play’, rather than just hanging out. I cannot emphasise enough how using words used to describe children’s developmental behaviour for your fully-grown adult self is not going to save you. Go run errands with your friend and enjoy it. Grab a coffee and go to the post office and then say goodbye, like everyone in the Netflix show you love does. And you’re never going to be Eve Babitz if you don’t leave the house. You’re not going to be a party girl if you can’t even ask the barista how their day’s going. Sometimes it feels quite reminiscent of the ‘I hate small talk, ask me what the meaning of life is’ conversation. If you want human connection, sometimes you have to start by talking about the weather. 

The best investment I made this year was a tiny digital camera. I don’t just love how it makes you look in the photos (although that’s a bonus), the idea that all pictures immediately feel nostalgic appeals too. The second you look back at them, even a moment after taking the shot, it looks like it should be at the centre of a snow globe. I don’t mean to sound like your parents, but reminding myself that I could capture moments without getting my phone out, the black hole I carry around in my jacket pocket, has changed the game. Now it’s an activity to take photos, not something that takes me out of the now. At parties, I abandon the camera on any surface (flash on) and pick it up at the end. The SD card is inevitably full of photos of people I don’t know, didn’t even have chance to introduce myself to. Arms fight my towards me hoping to delete unflattering photos and I swat them away. You can all look sweaty and shiny and young and have every freckle crystal clear and you can be happy about it. Slightly harder to swallow the feeling when it’s photos of me baying to be destroyed, but I embrace the fleeting. 

digital on film on a roof

It’s recently been explained to me that my theory about prosecco reducing your chances of being hungover is fundamentally incorrect, which is probably why I keep ending up hungover. I used to lament that I couldn’t drink it without there being a celebration until I discovered the French 75 (I joke that the ones I make are French 50s since I have to substitute champagne for a cheaper fizz and no one laughs, not the first or second or even third time I say it). But the morning after the night out is still part of the party. Sometimes the best part. I wake up in a friend’s bed, and meet her on the sofa where she ended up moving because I took up too much space as she tried to fall asleep next to me. I’m no stranger to the “starfish” accusations. It could be worse, I tell her. In my sleep I’ve been known to have arguments and even weak-fisted physical altercations (more than one person who’s braved it and slept beside me has received an unconscious kick). We cradle a coffee in our pyjamas at 3pm. It comes to me like heartbeat feet stomping on a dance floor. We are all ha ving so much fun. I don’t know, it feels as though nights out don’t turn sour like they used to. That bile rising moment doesn’t come. There seems to be an idea that going out, having stereotypical strobe light fun is at odds with wholesomeness (a word I usually hate for its insipid performance of good). The other day as I walked home from the bar well after midnight (a perfect level of tipsy), I saved a caterpillar from being stepped on, then ate a cornetto in bed, whilst still shaking the techno from my eardrums. So maybe not such a far cry from the desired softness that keeps a lot of us from reaching out into the dark.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no interest in berating this conception we have of Young People, particularly not for existing in an online culture that wasn’t entirely built by us- and definitely who aren’t responsible for the economic circumstances that have made stepping out of your front door so expensive. And I think the sensitivity to people’s need for time alone, time to rest, and aversion to stereotypical funfunfun type fun is a good thing. Spending time on your own, especially doing things that you care about, is essential and fulfilling. It just occurs to me that many are drawn to a lifestyle they won’t do anything to get towards. Many engage with stories where people do things they want to do, and easily could, but it feels more straightforward to just imagine others doing it. You already know you don’t need to spend money and get an Instagram photo to have fun, but the alternative isn’t caging yourself into an identity that you think is at odds with typical functioning and socialising. Maybe there’s a way you can give yourself a bit of what you need, and a bit of what you want, without it becoming a box that you hibernate in.

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