The Story of the Extroverted Introvert

Erin, Are you an Introvert or an Extrovert? 

Those who know me know this question is silly.

I'm ridiculously outgoing (and super annoying).

But it's actually a question I've asked myself a lot lately as I've moved to Pittsburgh and had to really make an effort to meet new people.

It's weird when you move to a new place because you kind of forget how you made all those old friends in the first place. You are no longer surrounded by thousands of people your age that you know. It forces you to take a good look at what you want in a new relationship and a deep dive into who you are.

I always took being called an extrovert as somewhat of an insult. I mean, I'm a writer! I'm supposed to fly-on-the-wall the crap out of every situation! I can't break down that fourth wall and actually gather my own life experiences, right? To participate and observe creates a skewed, conflict of interest to a story, right?

I spend a lot of time with myself. I like shopping alone and eating alone. I like watching boats pull bigger boats down the Allegheny River on my lunch break. I like putting up my ENO hammock and hanging out by myself as all the sidewalkers stare. So naturally, I thought of myself as an introvert.

But I think I confused introversion, independence and observation skills as being mutually exclusive.

I thought because I was able to spend days hanging out with myself and not getting self conscious -- because I could go out to lunch with myself without feeling the need to stare at my phone -- that I was an introvert. Really, it's just that I am independent.

When it comes down to it, as in most areas of life, we can't simply organize ourselves as one way or another. Humans are more complex than that. Even when we gather MORE boxes and MORE descriptions (like the ever popular Myers-Briggs tests), people still don't fit into our tidy little categories.

There are super self-conscious extroverts and insanely conceited introverts. There are extroverts who hate talking in front of others and their are introverts who can sing the Star Spangled Banner in front of millions on national television.

Introversion/Extroversion really explains where you get your energy from.

The other day, we bumped into someone who I think it's safe to call a legend in the organization I was involved with in college (called Younglife) at Dave & Andy's (an awesome homemade ice cream shop in Oakland).  He and his family had just moved to Pittsburgh to start a new YoungLife chapter here and I had known this from mutual friends, but had never actually met him. Casually, I approached the man and we held a titillating conversation for a few minutes before I got my strawberry ice cream and we headed on our way.

As we walked to the car, licking our cones, I was bouncing off the walls. My boyfriend pointed it out that my energy level literally changed because I had just met a new person. He laughed. hard. Because we've argued before whether I'm an extrovert or introvert. He was right. My attitude and mood after meeting this new person had gone from 0 to 60. So obviously so that it was kind of hilarious.

Ultimately, my confidence, extroversion and independence all come from the same roll of quarters. They all work together to make me who I am.

Everybody is different and it's really awesome to see how we all fit together.  We need all kinds of people to make it all work.

While, introversion and extroversion are things we need to know about ourselves in order to best take care of ourselves, there are also different skills that make us who we are that we can practice and perfect. These can change as we change.

It's so important that we all figure out where we get our energy (you probably already know this answer). It's important that we figure out the skills we love about ourselves and keep practicing them, and that we figure out the things we're awful at and, after scrutinizing them, we exercise them.

You are a unique person with some kick ass skills that you can use to make the world suck less.

Forget what box you fit into and figure out who you really are. Then go be that person. Be the best damn version of that person you can be.

Signed,

The independent, somewhat introverted outgoing extrovert who enjoys hanging out with herself but also gets really excited about meeting new people.

Update: I was approached about this blog and told that I'm not an extrovert or introvert because I'm an ambivert — the person who fits in between. My point in this blog is to show that people are complex beings, inadequately categorized from simply getting their energy from alone time or social time. To take this blog and attempt to categorize my feeling that every person is unique completely misses the point.

People Observation: Cat videos killed the curiosity

My next door neighbor is a professor Emeritus of Physics. He's an incredible man who I could chat with all day. On the subject of our college town's academic quality, I asked him what he notices with students these days compared to those he's taught in the past. He gave me one answer: they just don't have any curiosity.

He teaches physics. His students are studying to be scientists. But they never seem to care anymore to know the fascinating answers we are finding to some of the universe's biggest questions.

My neighbor's observation isn't unaccompanied. I've noticed this myself.

I babysat for a wonderful little boy who has a creative brain that I loved to pick. While many people find Right Brains to be the math experts, I would argue the most successful problem solvers are the ones who can best mix that Left Brain creativity with that Right Brain critical thinking to find unique and new routes for finding solutions. This boy I babysat is one of those people. His math homework was kind of a mess, and he loved to use one of those extra smooth and inky purple pens to write his answers (which drove me kind of nuts). His answers were always right, but he always seemed to find them in ways I never understood. One day, he brought home a couple of wrong answers on a math quiz. He was very discouraged. He said his teacher told him he wasn't good at fractions. I was livid. What kind of third grade teacher tells an eight year old he isn't GOOD at something? Then, as I looked through his answers, I found she was the wrong one. The questions had been ambiguous, and when the boy attempted to ask for clarification, he was shot down. Only because this boy had misinterpreted a quiz question was he told he was incorrect, and even worse, he was told he wasn't good at it.

We have all had similar experiences: When I was in second grade I used to get really excited about the books we were reading. If I read ahead I would get in trouble. (Sidenote: My brother Sean used to read ahead to parts in books with swear words -- obviously 5th grade swear words like hell and ass-- so he could volunteer to read out loud during the raunchy parts of class novels)

Eventually this getting in trouble for our curiosity takes a toll on us. We get sick of our excitement about all of our questions. We're told our questions are stupid. So we stop asking. Eventually, the only questions we ever ask are, "is this going to be on the test?"

As a young person who was insanely curious in college, I felt this kind of punishment all of the time. See my story about getting a C- in a class I took for fun.

But I have found that the rewards for my curiosities always outweigh any kind of "punishment" I'd ever receive for them. Rewards like further understanding of people who aren't like me (or, as it turns out, end up being more like me than I think). Rewards like empathy. Rewards like meeting new people and noticing the little nuances and paradoxes of every day life.

I've talked about New Years Resolutions before. They're an easy way for me to make a drastic change towards becoming the person I believe a person should be. I like to do drastic things (mostly so I can brag about them but also) to test myself and learn something along the way. This year, my resolution was that I wasn't allowed to look at my phone while I'm in a line.

You see, people are looking at there phones everywhere they go. Every single line you've stood in in the last three years has been loaded with phone lookers. And I hate it. I absolutely LOATHE it. People constantly checking their screens are missing some incredible stuff.

We miss the eye contact with strangers at a coffee shop that turns into the observation that they, too, visit the same coffee shop every morning, which maybe then becomes a friendship. We miss the opportunity to ask people about their days. We miss noticing the puppy walking down the street. We miss real, genuine smiles to and from strangers that over the course of an entire day can change a person's emotional wellbeing. The things I notice that others don't notice baffles me. The things I've noticed and enjoyed since this year's No Phones While Waiting rule baffle me.

While you watch that video of that (probably adorable) kitty on your phone, you're missing your own cat's short nine lives. While you're letting your child sit on that tablet at the dinner table, you're missing an incredible conversation about his life -- he is missing an incredible interaction with his family.

Here's the truth: Nothing on your phone will ever be more remarkable than the person sitting in front of you.

I would like to challenge you to tickle your curiosity muscle every now and then. I would rather have friends who don't know but want to know than friends who know everything. I would rather have friends who can find answers with me than friends who tell me all the answers. (Chances are if you think you know everything you're probably wrong because there is no possible way that you do.) Read ahead and find the swear words. Get distracted with a new hobby. Use your freaking imagination.

There is nothing more attractive than a person who has curiosity.

Put down your phones and step away from your screens. Because they don't have the answers. Go explore the world.

people observation #14: some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this

today is a beautiful day. It's 10:00a.m. and almost sixty degrees. I am loving life. Everyone has an extra little skip in their step. It's actually quite cute.

I'm not saying this is all of you guys, but I have already heard complaints...About the weather. Come on folks! The sun is shining. The sky is blue. It's Thursday, and in the world of college that means it's the freakin' weekend baby, I'm about to have me some fun.

What could there possibly be complain about, right?

Take the girl in my 8:00 a.m. class this morning.

[ sidenote: yes, I take 8a.ms. actually, I swear by 8a.ms.
I love waking up with the sunshine and
having a grapefruit and an egg and getting finished
with my days early. Before you judge I encourage
you to try for yourself. Maybe not the grapefruit,
that took getting used to. If my brother is
reading this right now, he's probably cringing.
But 8.ams. Seriously! Scheduling is going on right now.
Do it. Take the leap of faith. I dare you. End sidenote.]

This girl: Maybe she isn't a morning person like me, maybe she's what I call a 'mourning person'. She explained that the weather was "just teasing her" and that it wasn't a funny joke.

Then, I asked the hip gentleman at the coffee place today how he was doing this morning and his response was something along the lines that the weather was just going to be cold next week anyways so why should he get excited?

Really dude? Is that how you want to live your life? Oh, something shitty is just going to happen to me tomorrow so why enjoy today? Oh, my hot coffee is just going to get cold in the next half hour, so why enjoy it now? Oh, I'm just going to go to sleep tonight anyways, so why wake up now? Why should I even freaking live right?
This all reminds me of a section of the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book, I said. She's explaining how she has a friend who is never able to live in the moment. They'll go somewhere to visit and her friend will be in awe saying, "wow! this place is beautiful! We need to come back here someday!" and Gilbert takes all of her energy into explaining to her friend "honey, you're here right now! Enjoy it while you're here!"

What I'm saying is to just live in the moment. It's as simple as that.

Our minds remember things because memories are great. I have an incredible one. I can remember every school teacher that every person in my graduating class had from 1st grade to senior year. I can remember getting a pair of roller skates, the plastic-strap kind you don't have to take your shoes off for, when I was three years old and living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I remember the little things people tell me, and I notice all of the quirks. If you introduce yourself to me, I will remember your name. Why? It's not some special superpower. It's because I take the time, and because at the time that memory was made, I was in the moment. I was soaking it all in. I was living.

These times of being a Power Ranger for Halloween, pretending to eat your vegetables but really just spreading them out on your plate, and taking that plunge off the high-dive are to be celebrated. This period of kissing your "boyfriend" on the cheek at the dance as all your friends watched.. and then running away, period of zits the size of a large horsefly, and slamming your door because nobody "gets you" are to be celebrated. These four years of getting rejected and accepted, proud and humiliated, figuring out who we might actually be, the four years of school spirit, team dinners, ..prom? .. are to be celebrated. These 4-or-so years we spend in college, this period of our life traveling, and learning, and falling in love. It is all to be celebrated.

Look, I'm not saying life isn't hard and it's always going to be kittens and rainbows if you live in the moment. Adversity strikes. Hard times define inevitability. What I am saying is don't take one sunny day, and choose to not celebrate it because the next might not be. The fact that tomorrow might fall under winter's trap of gloom and doom is all the more reason to get excited about today.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die