Writing is networking for introverts
byrnehobart.medium.com
byrnehobart.medium.com
But I'm not socially awkward really (imo) more just conserving my energy because I do find talking tiring.
So all that to say I'd rather focus on high quality interaction - smaller groups with mutual interests, vs make bulk unsolicited networking easier for me. I can see the article makes sense for the author and would work for people who for some reason want to have idle banter with others.
For example, I find smalltalk with people I don’t really know to be extremely challenging and tiring. And yet with people I do know, or in conversations on topics where I feel confident, I struggle to shut myself up.
I wouldn’t consider myself to be either introvert or extrovert, merely some set of personality traits.
I always thought my father was just like me, no nonsense, no chit chat, just to the point. Until I went with him when he was looking for storage space, and had heard an 80-year old farmer a bit outside of our town had some.
They talked about essentially nothing for twenty minutes but if you listened very carefully, somewhere in between the farmer had asked what my father was looking for, and a few minutes later my father had spent a few sentences on it, and then later it was mentioned that Xx who is the brother of Y you may know him has that company and he is using storage now but in a month half of it will be free and who knows and the rest depends on what Z does in the spring. In the end my dad kept a lot of stuff there for years paying hardly anything.
And in the meantime they understood exactly who the other was, what kind of people they were from, and so on.
I was in awe (I just stood there listening), they just had a whole type of conversation that I couldn't do.
So now I try to practice when I have the chance.
Introversion and extroversion are, on the extreme ends, whether you need to seek out “down time” after being around people versus never needing down time and always wanting to be around people, respectively.
For example, I’m more of an extrovert and if I’m dead tired at midnight but someone invites me to go out, I will still say yes because being around people gives me energy and it’s like ecstasy. And if one of my friends says no, I will respect it but “won’t get it” as to why you’d want to go home.
(Of course you have responsibilities as you get older but that’s a separate issue.)
FWIW, this pretty much exactly describes an introvert. Being introverted doesn't mean you don't like socialising at all.
If your default preferred way of being isn't "with other people" -- to the point where you feel anxious when you're alone for any reasonable length of time -- you're probably some flavor of introvert?
Well of course. Because majority of people is exactly in the middle between extroverts and introverts. The extremes are fairly rare. Most of us are a mix of introvert and extrovert traits, because it is normal distribution.
The way people talk about it, you would think there are two distinct species with no overlap.
This sounds more like ADHD.
In a sense, we are all a mixture of personality traits. It’s only when you get to the extremes, where it starts to be harmful, that it becomes a “disorder”.
Then I took piano lessons, practised a lot, and learnt three songs quite well.
Ever since then, when I’m at a party where there’s a piano, I’ve played one or two songs, then spent the rest of the night talking with people about music.
Learning to play the piano has helped me to overcome my social awkwardness. Now, instead of strangers feeling like an energy drain, it’s like they charge my batteries.
My point is that you can have no social awkwardness and be good at talking to people, but still have it be an energy drain.
For example, I can’t small talk with someone if I think they’re boring or if it’s someone new who I just met and don’t trust. It’s a terrible trait of mine because it’s pretty judgemental, but it’s something that I’m hoping to improve over time. Because of this, people’s first impression of me is that I’m an introvert, but I’m far from being an introvert (I really need frequent social contact). It just takes a while for me to warm up to someone.
These are typically a gateway/warm-up to high quality conversations.
And I think it's fair to say that extroverts value that glue more than introverts, generally speaking. For an introvert, the value of the glue may even be exceeded by the cost of discussing some random nonsense they don't really care about.
I'm very introverted myself, but I realized if I'm trying to make friends or whatever I have to deal with the small talk.
I think there is a vanishingly small amount of people - even amongst introverts - that will jump straight into the deep end of a discussion with someone right off the bat. Most of my introvert friends also engage in warm up small talk before talking about whatever it is we talk about.
That said, I don't make small talk with strangers unless I'm interested in making them a friend or acquaintance: so I suppose your opportunity cost perspective still applies, as I definitely don't make small talk just to make a silence more comfortable.
"Hi neighbor, it's nice to see a familiar face. I'm glad to see that you are alive and well, as am I. I am still a normal non-creepy person who lives near you & who cares that you are doing well. If you ever find yourself in a jam eg. locked out, I'll try to help you, and hope I can rely on you to do the same for me. But I don't necessarily want to be your friend, and I realize that you have other things going on at the moment, so I won't bother or distract you with a conversation that takes longer than an elevator trip or requires emotional vulnerability or introspection."
I think we don't say these things in these words because it takes too long, and it requires engaging with someone on a more personal/honest/vulnerable level than they may really be comfortable with given that I'm basically a total stranger.
It is the purest form of empathy and yet unfortunately also the most invisible kind.
Hell, I know people who tend to help themselves into dumb conversations while the other person reads a book or does something similar. No empathy here.
This is, I believe, to cover discomfort coming from silence and such conversations, while not completely pointless, often have little value. They would talk about just anything, to combat this feeling. Weather is a good topic because most people can relate and it is rarely annoying.
I would say that both intro- and extroverts can act like this but conversations started by introverts tend to be more awkward. I think that lonely people are more likely to start valuable conversations.
Sure, for their mental model of other people they're being nice (and in some cases they actually are) - but not everybody has the same mind or preferences. True empathy is built on understanding that.
Speaking for myself, if I was sitting at a social gathering I'd totally bear through any length of ice breaking to get to the meat of the conversation. If it was on a queue at the grocery store I'd bail out at the first 5 seconds. It's a matter of expectations.
- is energised by interacting with people
vs
- is de-energised by interacting with people
But there is a social skills / anxiety aspect to this.
Some people aren't particularly inherently energised by social interaction, so will always be introverted. That doesn't mean some social interaction isn't beneficial though - It might mean that they need a lot less though, like how some people biologically need less sleep than others, or degrade slower when deprived of it.
Incidentally, I wonder whether "coping mechanisms" are the difference - that introverts develop stronger internal dialogues that substitute for normal (external) social interaction(s).
I started a blog recently where I want to write notes for my writing practice and explore different subjects I'm interested in. Of course it'd be nice if someone had actually read it, for my personal vanity, and all those conversations and opportunities people claim blogging leads to.
But it's not the kind of project it would make sense to drive ads to, or even to niche down and grow an audience around a specific topic, since the whole point is to write whatever "gratifies my intellectual curiosity". But you can't really submit this kind of thing to reddit or to forums, they ban "blogspam" for very good reasons. There's no obvious way to promote it and put it in front of people.
Instead of blogging I could try engaging in conversations here and on reddit (and maybe on discord or twitter), and that, at least HN and reddit, works amazingly well for having good discussions (if not for making personal connections).
But the biggest problem with engaging in social media is that it quickly becomes extremely unhealthy and addictive (in the way that blogging doesn't). I want to write, and I want to talk to people, but I don't want to get addicted to refreshing my profile page to look for upvotes and comment notifications (I do have a big problem with the internet addiction).
I'm not sure what the right solution to that would be. Does anyone have good ideas? How do you make actual human connection over the internet and engage in intelligent conversations, without getting your dopamine hijacked and skinnerboxed by the social media algorithms?
Maybe there's a space for a platform that would encourage thoughtful discussion somehow, and limit the immediate rewards that make social media so addictive. But then nobody would use that platform, right?
Making videos is hard work and the learning curve is steep if you don’t have a background in video and (more importantly) audio. But to your point about an audience: on YT, if you build it, they will come. Most interactions in the comments have been pleasant and interesting.
If you’re at all that way inclined, I recommend you consider it or - even better - try it.
EDIT: Forgot to add, although it might have been clear from the context - I’m heavily introverted.
But, of course it'd be nice if some people read what I wrote? When I post to reddit or hn I get good traffic and some discussion, but that has all the problems you discuss.
There are probably only a few dozen people who enjoy regularly reading this sort of content, they probably write too. I'd love to find them and start a private chat server where we could read each other's pieces.
There could be some kind of solution, based on NLP, or maybe even just finding patterns and clusters in links. But it'd suffer from the same problem subreddits and google do - instantly getting hijacked by the spammers and SEO people trying to promote their stuff.
To the degree that having a popular blog is valuable, people will be motivated to find ways to promote it. And when people want to promote stuff, they'll try game whatever system is available. And so the system will have to implement the anti-spam measures, leading to moderation and probably banning most of the blogs.
Hmm... Maybe that's why we ended up with HN comments and subreddit text-posts working so well. Yes, you can't get the "networking" value out of them (because nobody cares about your username, and there's no such thing as subscribers), but it's not a bug, but a feature - without the personal value there's no incentive to game the system, so you just have people posting for the sake of the conversation.
But that would also mean that becoming even a "micro" celebrity will always be at least somewhat difficult - to the extent that it's valuable, there will be people trying to game the system, and measures trying to stop that, and competition.
Yes, you would have to use tags to participate if you weren't already, but that just makes it opt-in.
I don't have an internet-based solution for you, short of trying to get your stuff published in publications. They say that building an online audience is hard, and the best time to start was five years ago.
This being said, my favorite solution and suggestion is to join a local writer's workshop if you haven't already. Many workshops concentrate on fiction, but there is a growing interest in "creative non-fiction" as well. That's where I've found a decent level of discussion about both the content and form of my writing. A second suggestion would be to take a non-fiction writing class through a local university extension. I've gotten a ton out of doing that; there are few things like a small community of supportive writers and readers.
As long as your tasteful about sharing, like you already participate in the community idk if you should feel bad or feel like your blog spamming.
3rd party sites are often just a better format for something long form. Blog spam is just drive by dumping shit on a message board expecting likes, follows etc ... With no participation and the content being shared is low quality
I’ve never submitted anything but I’ve read and commented on quite a few articles I’ve read from that subreddit.
As long as you don't abuse those and are interesting enough in your everyday forum conversation, people are going to check those out ?
I think you understand the power of the truth, which is why you're uncomfortable being exposed to it too regularly.
This is why I treat most of my non-commissioned writing as living documents, especially in the software space as things change all of the time.
If that is because you have learnt something, great!
So many amazing people have written that they actively seek finding out where they are wrong: they revel in it, because they recognise that they have become smarter by understanding their own mistakes.
If your opinions are static, then you are not thinking. 99% of what we know is wrong (subtly or dramatically).
That's interesting, though. I rarely change my opinions, but I noticed one thing - I often say "I don't know about this subject enough to have strong opinion".
I feel like if I change your opinions frequently, these opinions weren't built on good enough basis.
This is the point that matters most, and I would pay careful attention to and hone this instinct. It is the one that would truly reduce the "pain" of consuming your own efforts. Otherwise, I am not sure what to say, it is of course possible to write for different reasons and with different efforts and expectations, so I would not fret too much about how much you "care" about something over time, just how much it interests you to read your own points about it
For example I can write a post and feel the tone is good, then come back to it and find it too informal, not expert-y enough. Then I'll write a new article and some time later find it too academic and not engaging enough.
That might just be me though.
If so, maybe it’s that your drafts lack something because you’re just trying to get all the words out.
I view it as inappropriate to put pen to paper to publish about something I've only put passing thought and research into, so this point is a bit facile.
> A 5 year old
This one even more so.
This is really my point - "opinions changing" = initial conclusions were drawn with inappropriate extrapolation. Why would you write about things you hastily extrapolated and never verified?
> I personally imagine for reading one's own writing, just like listening to my own singing, the exact "pain points" you feel would also be felt by any audience and therefore are the most valuable feedback you could possibly receive...
Curious if you've actually received the exact same feedback from someone else listening to you sing vs your own thinking? Realize that might just be a stylized example. But I'm a drummer, and over many years of playing in front of people I've observed that they didn't notice the "paint points" I noticed. Lots of these things are relative right?
> I view it as inappropriate to put pen to paper to publish about something I've only put passing thought and research into, so this point is a bit facile.
Do you draft while you think and research? What's your process?
it's a stylized example, for noobs who find themselves offensive upon any listen-back. For example, the comment I'm responding to suggests "reading their own writing to be painful". This is clearly not performer-tier, which you clearly are talking about.
To flesh out the example, I was bad at singing initially. I could be in-tune in a certain range, maybe 1.5-2 octaves, but even then my timbre was off, my pronunciations were off, it was too shrill here and there, my range was limited, etc.. Easy things to figure out on your own; painful things to hear on playback.
Now, later, I have 3+ octave range, multiple tones I can accomplish, the ability to power voice / head voice / rasp / break / scream, so when I sing for people they are able to give me subjective feedback on my artistic expression rather than my technical shortcomings, so the feedback diverges from what I would think myself, which is fantastic.
My point is that you don't get to the "performer" stage where people critique your expression without getting to a stage where your own art/work is palatable to you yourself.
> Do you draft while you think and research? What's your process?
Yes, I write behind a main thesis statement, and I write a first draft and simultaneously I collect evidence for this point. if I come to some conflict in my readings, I let this fuel my learnings. I don't just brush it aside as confusing, and then publish my work, come back to the conflicting info in 6 months and realize my idiocy, and then be like "oh damn my opinion flip flopped again, oops".
Writing is a communication medium.
For some of the reasons we want to communicate, it's the perfect tool for the job. For some of the reasons we want to communicate it's a bit rubbish.
Writing is extremely abstract. It has less of a connection to our subconscious, it's a long, long way from the real world. Humans are creatures driven by human shaped, in person interaction.
Quieter cats love writing for exactly that reason, the emotional ups and downs are much more mellow.
I find though, many people use writing and other tools as a band-aid for how they deal with their emotions. Instead of exploring them.
Instead of seeking, enjoying, laughing, crying, being curious about at all the joys of life, they use multiple abstractions to control their emotions.
Rather than throwing themselves into an emotional whirlwind and growing as a person, they throw up safety barriers. They never figure out how they, themselves actually work.
They'll happily devote years of their lives towards optimizing language compilers, without even thinking to learn what makes the Mountain Dew compiler tick.
I do see the micro-celebrity in action with my adult son, who is a YouTuber. People recognize him pretty often, so his small following must be relatively local and has this effect. But that’s video where he can easily be recognized.
On a related note, I often wonder how people are so sure it’s him. If I see a video of someone, I’m not likely to recognize them in public. Perhaps I have a bit of this condition of an inability to recognize faces mentioned in the article.
I read blogs from authors I have no idea what they look like or where they live or anything, some for almost 20 years, and longer than even that with ppl on IRC. All you need is some consistent identity for people to internalize, which in a lot of cases is a nickname, username, or whatever. Heck, I'm certain a site that used only database IDs to identify users would see (stronger, perhaps) connections form just the same as you see on LinkedIn. "On 11/21/21, 384372 wrote:..." Furthermore I'd bet that there are people who still think to themselves something like "I wonder what happened to 'gardenfloot' on Napster."
>On a related note, I often wonder how people are so sure it’s him.
It's him because it's his (I assume) channel and username. That's a reasonable assumption under the social contract such that any aberration would likely be an emergency or a successful hack or something. There have also been groups of people who act as a single online identity, but yours doesn't sound like it's that at all.
I also think celebrity itself is transforming into something a little less oriented around mobbing and paparazzi, and that being recognized is something relative nobodies can get and somebodies can lose, increasing the number of doppelgangers and diluting the entire celebrity industry.
Some of the best business and personal relationships I've had IRL, have been a byproduct of writing something online.
Some the advantages that I can think of 1. Putting yourself out there has a lot more scale when you broadcast your thoughts by writing online. Even reaching 10s of people takes more time in real life. 2. Cumulative and compounding - someone can find out a lot more about you by just reading more of the things that you've written about in the past. 3. Pull vs Push - It lets the best connections come to you - instead of putting the impetus on you finding the best connection.
To prepare a good conference talk generally takes a long time, and an otherwise solid talk can be made less engaging by poor delivery.
Writing a comparable article can take the same amount of time, but it's much easier to get feedback on it, and it's far easier to track updates. There's no single moment where you can really screw it up.
You can use it as a shell.
You might use it as a sting.
I personaly do not know any "classic" intro- or extrovert...
I guess it is.
I also feel much more appreciated when someone reaches out to me because of something I wrote and it's easier to make a connection - it acts as a great filter, straight to the point and can be a jumping point to more conversation.
The problem with the global and centralizing nature of our current social instruments is that markets in every niche are global, which means that all buyers and all sellers are in the same spot trying to network. This is monolithic. It is good for finding global optima, but it misses all the value that exists in local optima.
Anyway, so where besides medium and f*cebook are good places to write?
Publishing a blog, for example, is pretty likely to be read by at least a small group of people. Same with a book. If I’m writing in a personal notebook, than no, it’s not likely to be read. On the whole, the statement is probably true, but for specific forms, I suspect it’s false.
No it isn't.
Writing for the internet > Doing that one on one through networking IRL
Most of what is spoken isn't really listened to, either.