Caring for Your Introvert (2003)

I'm not sure I buy the binary approach to this, nor his experience with "extroverts."<p>One, I'm not really one or the other; 23andme quizzes claims I'm extroverted, Meyer Briggs claims I'm introverted. I actually went around and asked people in my high school what they thought I was, and all the teachers thought I was an extrovert and all the students thought I was an introvert. Apparently it's situational.<p>And like the author, I often get tired of talking to people. But usually it's a result of conversing with someone who is extremely talkative. Sure, those people don't seem to <i>get</i> that you are not into talking... but <i>not</i> because they're extroverts. It's because they're socially disabled. Only someone who can't read facial cues will keep chattering away at you. Most people can see I'm getting weary and will stop.<p>I think this guy met one to many people who basically can't tell that you're just not interested in speaking with them, and confused them with "extroverts."

One thing for me I guess would be phone calls, pretty much don't like phone calls unless it's from a small select group of people or is something that would take many messages to resolve. Which kind of puts me at odds with those who like to call no matter what over messaging.<p>It's just those formalities of phone call that put me off, unless your close to a person focusing just on the question you have can come off as rude.

I don't get tired by being with people so much as ... feel as if I've lost grounding - and most of my friends say that I'm extroverted and friendly and nice to be around with. So I don't know. After a couple of days of going out with friends I tend to want to come home because I feel too many things are going on, and I can't think.<p>Does that make sense? Am I the only one who feels this?

I used to date this girl who would tell me I was too serious... It was hard because I didn't have the words at the time to explain myself... Now I do.<p>Just... Thank you for sharing this.

But would anyone show up at the "Introverts' Rights movement" ?<p>Or would we just stay home? (lol!)

Being an ENTJ (not an introvert expert by any means) I wonder if those who are more introverted would be more comfortable, and thus perform better, with walls (tall private cubicles) vs. being in a bullpen style development environment that is favored by so many startups?<p>Based on the assumption that a lot of developers are INTJ in the Meyer's Briggs.<p>Any input on this guys?

I love how this article is 7 years old and it keeps getting reposed time &#38; again. Classic stuff.

This article gave me the wrong impression that introverts are geniuses.<p>They are not, I know, I'm an introvert.<p>Of course a lot a people here are going to say that this article rocks, because I guess many people on HN are introverts.<p>I see no proof, no figure, no statistics on this article, at first I thought it was some blog post but it seems to be a real article in an actual newspaper. That's a shame.

I wonder what is the ratio of intro/extroverts among programmers. Something like 90/10 I guess.

Everyone can be an extrovert on the Internet

Excellent article. Hits the right note.

groans...yet another special group.