A Novel Concept: Silent Book Clubs Offer Introverts a Space to Socialize
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In other words: an introvert. There seems to be a widespread misconception that introversion means being "shy" and not talking to people, when in reality it is more about where you draw energy from. The result is tons of people self-identifying as "extroverted introverts"[1], presumably in an attempt to signal that they are not totally devoid of social skills, when in reality introversion has nothing to do with that.
[1] When I was single I saw this surprisingly often in online dating profiles. Interestingly, for all the many people I've seen identify this way, I've never seen a single person self-identify as the opposite: an "introverted extrovert".
Luckily when socializing with other introverts, they're generally OK with silence and gaps in the conversation, it's not awkward. And when socializing with extroverts they're happy to dominate the conversation and I'm happy to let them and just listen.
When there's an extrovert dominating and thus no silence at all, I just get tired of listening.
It can also be tiring when someone dominates a conversation, it really just depends who it is. I have some friends who I could listen to all day, and they'd happily talk all day.
I have those friends too, but unfortunately I also have some acquaintances that I can only listen to for a minute, yet they happily talk all day.
Sometimes their extrovert nature can override recognition of the audience's engagement level.
I wouldn't limit and label myself a certain way based on a few situations with a few people. Keep exploring folks!
To my ears, this usual "introverts are not made uncomfortable by silences" refrain sounds condescending.
The bigger point is that when you try to communicate with people, if they're using the word as introvert(2), you're being a jerk if you're pretending they meant introvert(1), because that's the "correct" meaning.
And, to be frank, people who insist on labeling an acquaintance as introvert(2) are not exactly engaging in non-jerk behavior either. In fact, it's that very thing that leads young introverted people to self-describe as "shy" and then do their unconscious best to fulfill that description, to their detriment.
Fact is that in common usage the word "introvert" primarily means "shy".
To me, fighting to change the definition of words, is among the least productive of all things.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/introvert https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/intro...
> And, to be frank, people who insist on labeling an acquaintance as introvert(2) are not exactly engaging in non-jerk behavior either. In fact, it's that very thing that leads young introverted people to self-describe as "shy" and then do their unconscious best to fulfill that description, to their detriment.
This seems a very unlikely chain of events!
Consider the phrase "begging the question", for example. The phrase means something specific when discussing logical syllogisms, and was coined by academics as a piece of jargon to refer to that particular concept.
Even if everyone who doesn't know what a logical syllogism is, now thinks that "begging the question" means something entirely different from what those academics mean, that doesn't mean that the phrase has lost its jargon meaning. You can't redefine away jargon. Jargon gets written down into scientific papers and people continue to read and cite those indefinitely, so the jargon use of the term gets promulgated in academia indefinitely in order to understand those papers.
Yes, there is a lay-term "introvert" that now means something pretty much non-differentiable from "shy." But that's irrelevant when the useful term isn't the lay-term, but the jargon term.
To think otherwise would be like expecting a biblical scholar to stop using the word "apocalypse" to refer to the set of apocryphal texts of the Bible, just because the lay-term refers to an eschaton event.
Yes, lay-people will think you mean the wrong thing. But the solution to that is not to abandon the jargon word, but rather to specify that you're speaking academically and that you intend words to have their jargon meaning; and to terminate the conversation (or, grudgingly, teach an entire intro course to the academic subject to your interlocutor) if they don't know the appropriate jargon.
No, not even remotely. It is a real problem.
(I agree with you that it's pointless to try to change how people use words.)
The best layman explanation I have heard is that extroverts are "recharged" by being around others whereas introverts recharge by being alone. For example, I really like being around people, but the idea of not having time to myself to recharge can be exhausting.
That's a good step 1.
Step 2 is realising that introverts often do get energised by one-on-one or small group socialising, or socialising in a more meaningful way around a real shared interest.
Step 3 is realising that the concept of introversion/extraversion generalises past social interaction to preferences for levels of external interaction / stimulation in general. So for example, some people may not be super-sociable, but may love lot's of external physical stimulation (music/lights/exercise, etc), others may love to be exposed external ideas (or alternatively have a preference to only be exposed to small amounts of these things).
^ This is the notion of introversion/extroversion captured by the MBTI / Jungian Type Theories, where Extraverted Feeling (Fe) roughly function corresponds to the popular notion of extraversion, but there are also Extraverted Sensing (Se), Extraverted Intuition (Ne) and Extraverted Thinking (Te) functions which present differently.
I would include talking to a person about their life as meaningful conversation. But lot's of extraverts like to chatter about nothing at all. Like, they literally cannot let there be a silence. (because it helps them think / keeps them stimulated).
To introverts that's infuriating, because they can't think while the chatter is happening, and they are over-stimulated.
I love priority-preserving pauses, maybe even with explicit priority-yielding tokens, but there are so many people that just take any pause in the conversation as their opportunity to seize priority and keep it, and this is what produces the culture of babblers and chatterers. Silence is a resource devoured by the tragedy of the commons.
Some people need you to shut up, in order to think their own thoughts. And when they are not allowed to stop and think, they get angry and frustrated with you. So pause. Take a breath. Take another breath. When that silence starts to get uncomfortable for you, that other person is still assembling their meaningful contribution to the conversation into a sentence. Hold it just a few more seconds... aaand... let them speak.
I guess color me immature with an inferiority-complex bigotry.
And that's okay. I'm not sure why this had to involve a sermon on immaturity and—of all things—bigotry.
I didn't know that going in and about halfway through I remember thinking China must have a lot of amazing Chinese sci-fi writers because the ideas in the movie reminded me of the vastness of Liu Cixin. Then afterwards I look up more info and find out it's based off of a short story of his.
Of course it is, lol. Great movie.
Is there any actual support for this theory besides its status as an internet meme?
But for both of us, even having a drink after work with people is super exhausting and we just want to go home and relax, while an extrovert would be depressed staying alone and needs to recharge by having fun with people.
Drat.
I don't join book clubs precisely because I don't want to commit to reading that material on that schedule. The idea of simply meeting up with friends for an hour to silently read whatever we feel, hey, I like that. I can read LotR or HP again, someone else can read sci-fi or mysteries, and we can chat about that or whatever else. It's a great alternative to reading one and only one book.
It's not even about not wanting to read something - I just want to feel engaged with what I'm reading and my friends seem to agree. It's how you can let a book sit on a shelf for 6 months then pick it up and read it in 3 days - sometimes it just 'grabs' you.
Most people who I meet who proclaim they are "introverted" have just not invested any time into building their social skills.
Most people who I meet who proclaim they are "extroverted" are people who are not comfortable with being alone for whatever reasons.
It is seemingly obvious to me that both social skills and being with one self are both equally important.
Deciding which one you are by taking a shallow survey with surface level questions seems unintelligent.
Choosing one to identify with seems irrationally limiting to who you could be.
The social aspect, in terms of one's anxiety around it, or the ability to be social, doesn't factor in. At least not in the sense that introverts are bad at being social. And vice versa.
In fact, my girlfriend is quite a bit more socially awkward then I am. Especially in new situations, and around new people. She gets anxious about it, worries how she's going to be perceived, and either clams up or talks too much. I'm the one who breaks her in to these situations. Which, considering how most people define these two terms, is ironic.
Most psychologists don't view it as a dichotomy but rather as a scale with introversion on one side and extraversion on the opposite side. People are not either introverted or extraverted, they are somewhere on this scale. Which means that they tend to prefer introverted or extraverted behavior depending on their position on the scale. So even a very introverted person can display extraverted behavior, although it will be unlikely to happen often.
> Most people who I meet who proclaim they are "introverted" have just not invested any time into building their social skills.
The further people are on the introverted side, the more they prefer to be by themselves. Any skill you don't practice will not improve much, this is also true for social skills.
> Deciding which one you are by taking a shallow survey with surface level questions seems unintelligent.
> Choosing one to identify with seems irrationally limiting to who you could be.
You can influence the outcome of the survey, but the idea is to determine where you are on the scale, not to decide or choose. It is a model of personality/temperament and has proven itself quite useful over the years. But obviously it has its limitations.
And just a last point is that it seems like this silent book club is doing what you suggest, it is an introvert going to a place they feel more comfortable which will in time develop their social skills.
If social skills were on a tech tree, introverts would put points into the "polite disengagement" branch first, while extroverts are still putting their early points into "bonus friend slot" and "multiple-participant schedule coordination" and such.
Some people might just recruit an extrovert for their sole friend slot, drop a single point on "Irish Exit", let the friend set up all the social events, and just vanish whenever they're done. That's a perfectly reasonable social skills build, up until the extrovert reaches their friend cap and drops the introvert into the acquaintance pool, to free up a slot for someone with better synergy bonuses.
And this is the sort of thinking that tends to drive off people who don't view (or don't want to view) the universe as a simulation that could be hackable with a better understanding of the data structures, and who don't want to have nerdy, speculative-fiction conversations about whether "deflect blame for loud fart" is a skill or a perk.
That said, I narrowly disagree that it's a weak distinction (I wholeheartedly agree it's a messy one) that only has currency because people are desperate to self-diagnose.
A few thoughts:
- We are (broadly) too quick to self-diagnose, but I think it's mostly a byproduct of more general behavior. We're too quick to identify. We lean too heavily on categorization and especially exclusive categories and once the categories are reified, have a hard time seeing the variety they were trying to carve order out of.
- I don't want to project, but I wonder if you find the distinction weak because you mostly experience the middle of a normal distribution produced by a messy attempt to quantify a forest of human emotion and behavior.
- I think the I/E spectrum has salience because it has at least a little power to explain how people, relationships, and societies all work at scale in a way that defuses/de-personalizes a common source of friction.
- About like I'd expect, I can only think of a few people I've ever known for whom their status as an introvert or extravert is so essential that it's part of my own model of their behavior.
https://introvertdear.com/news/introverts-and-extroverts-bra...
The folks far on each E/I scale have brains that work quite differently. They prefer different chemicals with different effects. There's more or less of certain structures. There's a different, longer pathway for introverts. Might be more things we haven't found yet. So far, they're neurologically different followed by different behavior that's a consistent default despite their environments.
From there, I can agree that introverts can improve at interacting with extroverts by investing energy into doing it better, desensitize themselves a bit, etc. It will still drain their energy because their brains work differently. They'll be acting the whole time while others are just casually talking in a way that builds their energy using a different chemical.
At least the community is sort of good at distinguishing between the two and sometimes encouraging people to find help.
Yes, you can learn to change much of your behavior. That doesn't mean you don't have strong preferences.
Would you say that someone who says they aren't athletic based on a shallow survey of behaviors and inclinations is unintelligent? Someone who answers a shallow survey on their sexual orientation is unintelligent?
This is quite different from the technical distinction psychology professionals make when using the words, which is what most people seem to respond to.
The difference between that and what we do on internet now is that these were books by authors who spend a good chunk of their lives being authorities on the topics instead of someone dumping their musings on the internet (admittedly not all of which is substandard).
I think this kind of focused consumption (because you have to be physically there) of high quality content in an "aimless" manner is underrated and happening less.
I am a person who can't "just call and talk to him/her aimlessly" or "just ask friends to go out" as some relatives recommended me to do. I can spend hours trying to crack the task of "socializing" as if it is some hard puzzle.
This got me wondering why books are called novels - apparently from the Italian "novella": https://penandthepad.com/history-novel-6305937.html
So you take your psych 101 textbook to the commons and read mostly quietly for a half hour and then party all night with whoever else shows up to "study" and the only difference is you're older and not paying $50K/yr for the privilege to do so.
Just what I want: classic rock while I'm trying to read something of moderate complexity.
If I want to be around people all reading their own books in silence, I can catch the Metrobus. (Actually, most days I catch the Metrobus willy-nilly; what with cell phones, the reading isn't as silent as it could be, but the bus gets me to and from work.)
1. it allows politeness without deepening the relationship.
2. it can be a breadth-first search of mutually-stimulating topics for in-depth conversation (which may lead to a deeper relationship if desired).
3. it can avoid accidentally offending someone with controversial topics or opinions.
4. is quick to disengage from, unlike a story or debate, so is useful as a conversational holding pattern.
HN doesn't really fit any of those. Sure, some comments will say "my kid does this", but I find they're rare on HN (and usually downvoted); in general, comments are adding new data or engaging in debate.
So presumably the 1 hour of coding in silence would be followed by as much time as you liked for pizza and socialising.
Eventually, you may reach the point where you won't realize that someone is trying to get your attention until they actually poke you with a sharp stick. Or maybe just tap your shoulder.
This idea would make me far more anxious than just talking to people.
I have no social anxiety, and I genuinely enjoy meeting new people, or talking to small groups of friends. but I need my alone time, and that isn't up for debate- it's a genuine need. Took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that.
Whether this is the natural result of just getting older, or a sea change in general society as the less-social of us find ways to connect anyway, I am not sure. I do think it's a little of both.
It's cool for me. I'm not shy. I love standing in front of a room and teaching. I'll happy go do social things. And if I do too many in a row, I get completely exhausted. First comes an overwhelming urge to sleep, followed by a strong desire to stay home with my dogs and a book and just read in silence.
15 years ago, living in University dorms, it was the same thing, but instead of having a framework to describe it, I had to make excuses to have alone time. Sunday was perfect for that... Sometimes there was a real hangover, and sometimes there wasn't, but it was always a good reason to chill out solo.
There are vast swaths of identity people used to diversely discuss, that are now either completely off limits for discussion or only one extreme view is currently permitted. We are witnessing the death of multiculturalism, where the only "multi" allowed anymore in public is extroversion vs introversion.