I do not believe in introversion and extroversion. How paradoxically neat to fit all human socialisation into the categories, and with reckless abandon are they used. It highlights my evolving reticence toward psychology and those who preach it, a discipline thoroughly possessed with the organising of man's mind like a child organises puzzle pieces but never actually assembles the puzzle. But that is a human thing; for all I can say to debase it, I cannot deny my callous use of the word 'introvert' for myself. I feel it, but if you catch me in the throes of social repose, this meek thing that I claim I am is not so meek. Is this you too? A fluid in a beaker changing properties to the whim of whatever other liquids greet you. Maybe my experience will resonate with you, and when it is all done, we will have a word for us other than the two.
Time has a grip upon my mind. I count the hours I have to myself, the hours I work, play, study, and sleep; I sleep less. I used to sleep a lot, but as time falls under the grip of life's demands, I have learned to shirk it for better or worse. I spell it 'mournings' because of my sleep, and I am the walking dead. There is a camaraderie with early risers; I, among the compelled, do not have it. The worst people are those who muster a chipper tone and can then turn that into a collective curmudgeon with their fellow early birds. That willingness to speak and compulsion to speak are the marks of an extrovert.
I've tried to talk, to engage in the hearty banter of the bakers and the night fill folk (though admittedly, no such night fill worker I've known has ever been anything but the epitome of an introvert). What comes out of my mouth I think about for so long, I can't even write it. It's an exhalation out of an open mouth. It's a laugh and an acknowledgement, but also so ubiquitous to hide the fact I either didn't understand or didn't listen.
So much time is lost thinking about how utterly witless and banal I must appear in the mourning. I think primarily about all the fantastic puns I could have said, the one-liners, the zingers, the absolute bangers that take from the 5 am grouch to the 5 am party boy. I once did a quick jig to a catchy song at 6 am, and my boss said, 'that's the happiest I've ever seen you.' What image have I cultivated for myself? I know it was me who did it. I don't flex the effort to speak to anyone. They are just coworkers, likely people I'd never gel with anyway.
They are gum in my hair to which no conditioner could create a condition with which we 'vibe'. My vibe is probably so outwardly sodden with sadness and silence that any attempt to be me of another vibration simply confirms the strangeness present.
The mournings I enjoy not for the people but for the silence. Most night owls hoot quietly, some not all, while others are the possums; surly mouth-breathers who are those not hooting but crying out in the night, talking too much, more than ever needed. I am of the hootless owls. My dad once told me, 'if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.' It is advice spoken from experience, a possum once himself, turned hootless through attrition. The sentiment in my words extends further; 'if you have no insight nor relation, say nothing.' When meeting new people, it's a problem to both be so filled with words and yet no voice. A precedent must be set in the case, a reason for me to speak.
Speaking is an exchange, a dance done to glean information about the essence of our fellows. It isn't enough to ask how a day is. Most people are inclined to be brief; 'It's fine 'Not bad', 'yeah, good, good'. All you could learn from this is that their days are so lacking in content, or said content is too personal to frivolously share. Introverts of them all want to be so dismissive, even with the best (or worst) days of their lives. However, introverts have some hidden compendium opened with questions of substance, things of them that otherwise go un-asked.
If I call myself introverted, I also call myself self-absorbed, so I know that if I were to ask someone who is inclined to secrecy something more than just their day, out blossoms insight. Telling stories of ourselves seems pretty human. To discredit the depth of a hootless owl for its silence is as daft as doubting the imagination of the blind. I don't ask enough of those kinds of questions, I am the answerer, and most often, I find myself stuck in this entire world of Me, extroverting my introverted self.
Nothing is more challenging than establishing a relationship and expressing yourself as introverted. After a time, such immense doubt comes over you. The doubt, mainly, of your insight. Do you offer enough nuance and personality for someone to want more of you? You need to be able to relate, yet I feel so singular in how I am that no other person could ever know it. Hardly true, but it feels true.
To me, extroverts establish relationships through the enjoyment of earthly pleasures and the company of people. But every worldly pleasure can be enjoyed alone and, in many cases (to me), is worsened by people. I love dancing; I relate to all those who groove, but when I mean to dance, the floor is mine, the music is mine, and I am all that there is. It is selfish, but it makes me comfortable. I cannot reckon a world in which some stranger intrudes on my ritual, complete disrespect of the shamanistic ordeal in the dance. So when I find a moment at work to move, it is my insight that perhaps there is more to me than the mourning walking body.
I am guilty of social sin. Social sins are the least problematic for paradise but sins nonetheless. "The Irish Exit," to leave a place without saying goodbye to anyone, disappearing as if never there. I am trying to curb it, even when goodbyes pierce my soul with feelings of insincerity, because it is not always a goodbye; it is often a lousy bye. Through courtesy, I spare you my frustration and make you like the Irish.
Introverts can often be destructively sincere. My brother is a man, amplified by autism, into a brutally honest truth giver. The preamble to goodbye is dressing he forgoes, jumping straight into its point. If you want to leave, by all means, go. No ill will; we have finished. Nothing could be worse than being stuck somewhere, feeling dejected, removed from it all but stuck. Nobody wants to be rude, nobody wants to be uncomfortable, but what to do when it's rude to be uncomfortable? It is my fiance's soul-splitting fear; to be rude due to discomfort. I have often left, risking rudeness for comfort, even as she suffers. The logic I function is: that any amount of ease I can give my soul is far more significant than how rude I may appear. I can apologise and spin a story. Whether it is believed or not isn't the matter. Many people will not be so callous to refuse it. I can't say sorry for putting myself through some sort of nonsense I had no care for.
The conundrum then is upon the ebb and flow of my extro-intro versions. Discomfort is twofold; the former is a lack of attention; I crave a cosmic eye upon my being. The second is complex. It's a self-perception and reflection on how well I am doing, whether I embody the person I am well enough, this other creature. At work, I have failed completely. No aspect of me that I like or respect exists there. It did once, but no more. It has nothing to do with hating work; I quite enjoy it. The failure comes with how truly inhuman I feel there, how lacking own self I have become. Perhaps the time of day I chose to wander through is the culprit, the mournings to which I despise.
At uni, I am proud of myself for the kind of cultivating I've done mostly. Still prone to the difficulties of wanting to see people and interact, the prospect so grim in my head. I forsook visiting the National Gallery of Victoria, even as it pertained to my assessment (I did myself a disservice because the art in that place truly outshines the boorishness of its grey, exterior cubism). But I am still not 'me', so it breeds insecurity. Do you offer enough nuance and personality for someone to want more of you? The question again but with added stipulations.
The first (1); are you satisfied with the nuance you could muster?
The second is (2); are you comfortable with who you are showing yourself to be?
The third (3); can you keep this up?
The fourth (4) question serves as the counter. Am I overthinking things?
This self-reflection and breaking down of how I interact with the world is predicated upon a narcissistic notion that I am, beyond all others, thought about and dissected as much as I study myself. Most likely, not a single person has articulated a thought about me unless I was in the room, involved in their conversation.
I am competing for the position of 'most interesting man in the room', which, said out loud, makes me sound so full of it. I said only moments ago I like the attention, and I held back in demonstrating how integral it is to me. The cosmic eye was not a metaphor; I wanted God's attention. It then means that I dissect myself believing everyone thinks about me and how I am not a good person. Sometimes I don't feel worthy of a goodbye, sometimes my frustrations are not with you or your friends but with me, that I have failed to seize your attention in a way that makes you wonder how well-rounded I am.
Social validation is the ichor in my veins. I am a social vampire sustained by the interaction. Like most vampires, I seldom leave my home, a recluse in the usual hours and undead during my active ones. The easiest way to sate my social hunger is with performance. I am comfortable on the stage, the dancefloor, or anywhere the eyes are on me, but when the dance is done, the play plays, and we all cheer for me, I return to the shadows. I get invited to after-parties, but after-parties are just extensions of the actual party somewhere else, forcing me to hold my composure even longer because I cannot keep this up. If both stipulations 1 and 2 are fulfilled, 3 and 4 will be no. In fact, 3 is always no, and 4 should be yes but is frequently no. Even as stipulations 1 and 2 change, the existence of 3 and 4 are a formality; they serve me no practical purpose.
I might have to add another social sin, a sin I commit to myself. A sin you likely commit, the sin of doubt. The evil that makes you set rules and markers for your own social effort causes you to look back and hang on every word as if any number of words in a different order would make you more attractive. For every Irish exit I commit in the name of comfort, I commit to myself the sin of doubting my worth because the social validation wasn't coating me. We can work on this together.
I don't believe in introversion and extroversion. We are pseudosocials. It is a kind of thing that is in flux with its own status in the world, imperfectly reflected in situations of discomfort, sated by the validation but just so, haunted by the lack of it. The kind of thing that is as quiet as it is loud. A pseudosocial creature that will party hard and skulk back to the ether for a week.
This feels more fitting, more than the simplicity of extrovert or introvert. Even in this definition I have given there is no way to say it is defined. Perhaps you, who feel this in a modicum define such a pseudosocial thing to be a wild animal that on occasion slinks into pure aversion of human contact, they almost become dead. Or perhaps a creature that is always there and engages but never acts, or that which acts but never engages.
Maybe if you are not satisfied, and your penchant for human contact still exists, we can talk about it over coffee.
Writing this bio proved difficult for Luke, his schema often works against concise self-descriptors. What words could consign him to any particulars when those particulars are particularly partial to change? Today, Luke might be an introspective writer concerned with his own thoughts and feelings, but tomorrow, he may be a furious world-builder, manufacturing universes for his all-consuming fiction projects. One thing, however, remains constant; he will write about it. Read more from Luke at The Kings Cup.