Ranting On...Being Misunderstood as an Introvert

I distinctly remember the first time I went to a movie by myself.  It was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and I wanted to see it for the second time, but I had no one that would go with me.  I hemmed and hawed and begged both of my parents, but to no avail.  Finally, the movie was about to be in town (I grew up in a small rural community with a one-screen theater) and I declared that I would just go by myself, which my mother said, "no, people will think that's strange."  I then said that there had to be a compromise here so she agreed that I could drive to a theater an hour away in a multiplex and go to the movie there.  This exchange is something that sort of informed that eventually I'd want to live in a larger city, and since then my mom and I both have gotten less uptight about going to a movie theater by ourselves, but the point is still there.  As was chronicled in an article by New York magazine recently, people frequently don't go to events they want to see like concerts, restaurant trips, travel, and yes, even the movies just because of the social stigma surrounding attending solo, and since this is something that I do with regularity, I figured it was worth chiming in on for our rant.

Honestly, I love going to the movies by myself.  With the exception of maybe three people who happen to be related to me, going solo to the movies trumps going with someone every time.  I'm not saying I don't enjoy people, and I do have fun at the movies with other people, but the movies for me are a cathartic experience-a time to recharge and just let moving pictures entertain me for several hours.  I like the ritual of picking out my seat, sitting and waiting for the trailer to start, pouring my M&M's on the popcorn and getting my coat or concessions situated just so.  I love the idea of going to a movie on a whim, that same sort of delicious naughtiness that people get when they decide to splurge on dessert at a restaurant; that's the equivalent of for me of deciding on a random Wednesday that I'm going to hit the movies.  There's something wonderfully kind about giving that to yourself.  You don't have to worry if the movie is garbage after begging to see it or whether or not the date is going well for two hours.  It's just blissful quiet for 90-120 minutes (longer if it's a Lars von Trier movie), even if the movie is terrible.

I actually feel this way about a lot of activities in real-life, though.  I heart to pieces going to the theater alone.  Traveling alone is the best-your interests are your own compass.  I honestly am desperate to find a nice guy who realizes that alone time is not an insult, but just something I need to recharge before we spend more time together.  I even enjoy eating alone at a restaurant, though I will admit that that one occasionally gives me a little of the social anxiety (more so, I'd just rather get take-out to go, which is a dangerous thing that more and more restaurants now employ).  All-in-all, I love all of this, which occasionally brings with it some guilt and social stigma.

For all of the talk about personality types, I feel like introversion is one of those things everyone says they are but in reality aren't.  Introversion is not just hating public speaking or going out to the bars or needing to "recharge" after a long weekend with the family.  I feel like those are things that literally everyone needs, and thanks to introversion being something cool-and-trendy (no one likes to come out and say "I'm an extrovert!" in the same way) it's become wildly misunderstood.  Introverts yes, are not necessarily socially awkward, but they do tend to prefer their own company or company of just people extremely close to them.  This isn't everyone, and it pisses me off when people claim they are something they aren't because then I look like a jerk when I hear "well, I'm an introvert too but I did it," especially when that person isn't an introvert.

This is one of my top pet peeves, to be honest, and it sort of leads to the stigmatization that I'm referring to above as to why people don't do more things they'd love on their own.  For starters, introverts regularly get called out for being unfriendly.  I, for one, try to be as friendly and as nice as possible, but I LOATHE small talk.  It's like the bane of my existence.  I have texted my brother on multiple occasions saying my idea of hell is an endless string of small talk with people I only kind of know.  So when someone wants to have a group activity, particularly someone whom I only know in a limited capacity, like a coworker or a friend-of-a-friend, I recoil internally and secretly wish that I wasn't going.  Cancellations for these types of events are like nirvana.  It's not a reflection of that person (oftentimes I might even like that person), but group activities are my Kryptonite.

As an introvert, instead, I like structure, and I wish people would just realize that.  With close friends I can get around this, particularly if we're one-on-one, but groups of people-forget it.  It's why I love meetings at work, even if I have to present, far more than I like social activities at work-because there's structure.  There's a specific task at-hand that I need to tackle and I know once the task is done I will get to leave. Structured events are exactly what I'm looking for in life.  It's also why I like dating, at least on-paper: there is a set of things you'll find out about each other on the first date, and it's routine, easy, and you know what you expect.  Social interactions or parties are predicated on the assumption that you're having a good time (meetings and first dates, not so much), and if you're not it's more on you as a person and less on the fact that you just don't like parties or random lunches with a bunch of people.  So if you're one of the people forcing these sorts of interactions, stop it, and realize you are not an introvert.

While we're in this vicinity, can we also put a kibosh on another phrase I'm sick of hearing from people who aren't this way: "I'm a dork/nerd" ("I'm fat" when you're not is also a terrible one, but I covered that in more depth here if you want to take a look).  I don't know when it became trendy to call yourself a dork or nerd, but particularly with the latter, you shouldn't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk.  A nerd is not a poindexter style-Robert Carradine person, and nor is it simply the opposite of a jock/fratboy.  It's not a ying yang situation.  A nerd is someone who actually has a specific, oblivious to social-ridicule style obsession with a specific subject, such as film, science, politics, baseball, anything where you can't get enough on the subject and are constantly seeking out reasons to talk about it and introduce it into a conversation.  If you don't have these traits, you're not a nerd.  I had a guy recently whom I was chatting with say, as if to either get a fishing-style compliment or to try and seem more relatable, "I'm a total nerd," but when I asked him "what are you a nerd about?" he said, "everything."  You can't be a nerd about everything-you're not the encyclopedia.  If you don't have a passion that you're trumpeting, you're not a nerd.  You're just probably not a jock.  We don't live in Mean Girls-you can be a third thing.

And if you constantly want people around or want to push social situations, you're not an introvert.  But regardless of whether you are or aren't an introvert, I think it's important to give yourself the okay to try things by yourself that could theoretically be in a group situation.  Depriving yourself of happiness, particularly over something you're passionate about, is rarely a good decision, so go and see that movie no one else wants to see by yourself.  Head to that art exhibit you can't recruit a friend for by yourself.  You might just find that you have a better time with it and that you're slowly making your free time more valued and fitted to what you want.