Pam at Park Butte Lookout, overlooking Mt Baker
I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day. She’s an extrovert who talks a lot; I’m a classic introvert who eventually gets the urge to flee when in the company of a person who doesn’t appreciate the value of silence and solitude, and especially when I’m in the company of a group of people who are extra chatty.
That’s not to say that I’m a wallflower. I have a lot of friends and I love movies, especially foreign films and fascinating documentaries at my wonderful local indie cinema. I go to Zumba classes and western line dance classes. I belong to hiking clubs and kayaking clubs and several writers groups, and enjoy spending time with all those folks. Limited time. After a couple of hours of chatter, my brain is screaming “Run! Save yourself!” and I can’t wait to get back to enjoying the silence of my own thoughts again.
I recently met several family members and associates of this friend I’m talking about, and I remarked that I thought it was wonderful how one very quiet but obviously intelligent young man had found his passion in the study of mathematics. My extrovert friend remarked that she thought he was “hiding out” from life. To me, that phrase implies that the introvert is frightened of social interaction and avoiding it out of fear. She went on to name another quiet person we knew who she thought was hiding behind his fascination with his work.
Snowshoeing with friends in the North Cascades
I would have said that I am following my passions–writing, painting, reading, and sometimes hiking–in blessed quiet and solitude. I will emerge from my cave when I want to enjoy company again. I assume these other quiet types I know are doing the same.
And by the way, I recently published my 9th book (The Only Clue) after all this reclusive behavior. (Actually, it’s my 20th because I published 11 “how-to” technical books a long time ago, but I usually don’t count those.)
But her comments made me wonder: Do all extroverts think we introverts are “hiding out”? Do they think we have some sort of social anxiety disorder just because we like a lot of time to ourselves? What do you think?
Well said, Pam! Though I may be yet further in on the introvert scale than you. At a future Crows meeting, could we shed further light on the problem of introverts having to self-promote in this era of self-publishing?
“Hiding out” is a good way of putting it. They say that the measure of being an extrovert versus an introvert is whether one is engergized by human interaction or drained by human interaction.
As a fellow writer I wonder if introversion is a key atrribute of being a writer.
In the book I am working on, it was a week-long solo sailing trip that got me off my writing duff to move beyond outline to writing. And the main character of the book I, Heretic, wakes up from “hiding out” to find he has amnesia.
So the opening scene has him trying to piece together who he is by what he as around him and what he knows. So the question posed to the reader is “What caused him to lose his memory?”
So thanks for the “Hiding Out reference.”
We introverts are no more hiding out than extroverts are avoiding their interior experiences and thoughts. It is more a matter of: where is reality, in here or out there? (Reverse if you’re an extrovert.) Another way to think about it is the general and the lieutenant. The introverted general is in the tent planning strategy, while the lieutenant takes care of daily business at the table out front. The extraverted general plans strategy with his captains, while the lieutenant takes care of business back in the tent.