![]() Ask people questions Small talk is the real bane of introverts’ lives. You ride the wave of expectation you have created – surely no one who has made such a gladsome entrance, and now has a glass in her hand could possibly be dreaming of leaving? – and duck out. You make a great noise and fuss over every vaguely familiar face you see (“Oh my God! It’s been ages! How are you?/You look amazing!/Oh, wow, look at us!” etc), using each one as a pinball uses a cushion – pushing off to the next one, never stopping, keeping the momentum going as you cross to the bar, grab a drink and then head off to – no one. None of them are great, because you’ve already had to have a shower and put clothes on and stuff in order to attend, but they’re better than nothing, and soon you will be home in joggers, slippers and the warm embrace of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I promise. Then you have to simply cleave to procedures to minimise abrasion of the soul. Use your common sense.īut there are always events you can’t get out of, whether family-, friend- or office-related. Only if the hosts don’t know each other, obviously. If there are two things on the same night, says yes to both and then realise your “mistake” later and cry off both. Use fake excuses (keep a spreadsheet if necessary) or the God’s honest truth, depending on who’s asking. Turn down as many invitations as you can get away with. But it doesn’t mean you have no agency at all. Yes, the world and its chosen methods of marking various socio-religio-pagan dates are designed for extroverts. The first and most valuable of these is to deny the existence of party season. And so self-protective measures and evasive manoeuvres must be deployed if we introverts are to save our mental health and our limited capacities for socialising with the few people with whom we actually want to socialise. In a just world, that is how things would be. Use fake excuses or the God’s honest truth, depending on who’s asking It follows, therefore, that just as you wouldn’t force the latter to refuse invitations and stay in, the former should not be required to accept them and go out. An extrovert is someone for whom they have the exact opposite effect. I’ve said it before, but I will say it again and keep on saying it until everyone listens and understands: the clinical definition of an introvert is someone who is depleted by social interaction (outside a few very limited conditions). ![]() A stranger is just a person keeping us in a room, a situation we don’t want to be in, probably with music playing and definitely away from our books and our own lavatory. ![]() This is a sentence that makes no sense to us. ![]() A stranger is not “just a friend you haven’t met yet”. The people for whom people, en masse, are the worst thing imaginable. That is what life is like for most of the population. ![]()
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