Introversion...

These days just about 95% of the internet is claiming that they’re introverts, and I started wondering, so I decided to try taking a personality test (the Jung-typology test) based on the works of the psychiatrist Carl Jung and the writer Isabel Myers-Briggs. The test defines your personality based on extraversion(E)/introversion(I), sensing(S)/intuition(N), thinking(T)/feeling(F) and judging(J)/perceiving(P). In this test I ended up with the result INFJ, but what interested me most was the fact that I tested to have a 89% preference to introversion over extraversion, when the fact is that a lot of the so called “introverts” on the internet in fact aren’t introverts at all. And Chris who thought he was strongly introverted was actually only slightly introverted - but then I started thinking about it. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the internet’s perception of introversion is quite wrong, and bear with me here - because I am largely basing this on my experience…

A thing I’ve noticed a lot is that people seem to think being an introvert is the same as not liking people - it’s really, really not. Others seem to think it’s the same as being bad at socialising (this is the case with Chris), for which the same goes - it’s wrong.

Being an introvert is about being fine just being alone, that doesn’t mean you never need social interaction, it just means you’re more comfortable being on your own. And I think it’s a lot like that with most of the people in my family, my parents do have people over every once in a while but they’re not the kind of people to be some place every weekend. Though my mom seems to think I’ve taken it to extremes - I rarely see people “in real life” as she says, which is true, I don’t go visiting friends after school all that often (pretty much never), Sille and I do plan sleepovers every once in a while and I usually go to the parties I get invited to but… Honestly, after a day at school, even if it’s not a long day, I’m exhausted from the amount of social interactions I have to make, because when I’m out (in school or doing other things) I can’t just say that I need half an hour to myself - because for some reason that’s weird. It’s been widely accepted in my family that I don’t show up for most family parties, though my parents make me go every once in a while so the family doesn’t think I’m dead.

What annoys me is that the internet (maybe especially tumblr) seems to think that “being an introvert” allows you to be mean to people - it does not - you don’t have to hate people to be an introvert, I love people I just don’t love being around them for too long.

So introverts are (or at least can be) nice people, we just sometimes need alone time and space, because that’s how we recharge.

Anywho, I’m off!