I still go out and drink sometimes, but there are often times where I don't want to. In fact, there are times where I kind of don't want to do much at all. This happens often, and it hurts me. It makes me feel like that shady caricature my friends joked that I once was.
It's not the fact that I'm not drinking which bothers me. It's that I feel no need to go out, and for some reason I am uncomfortable in how comfortable I am with that. Society doesn't really look at introversion as the "normal" thing. People like to get out of their houses, meet people, to party. Sometimes I don't.
I am writing this at 8 o'clock on a Friday night. I have no intention of leaving the house. I just returned from Jersey to visit my father and oversee some slight surgery he was having. Even though I traveled quite a bit today and am wiped out, part of me still feels bad for not wanting to go do something.
Most people would consider what I do alone to be laziness. I do dumb stuff online, I daydream, I read things and write in notebooks, I play video games and watch movies. Until tonight, though, I never questioned why I did this, I just figured what everybody considered to be correct; I'm a lazy, shady sad sack individual.
Here's what I do know about myself: I feel like I need to recharge on occasion. Sometimes it's after a busy weekend, and sometimes it's after doing something as simple as going to a movie. I feel the need to process things that happen in the day, because my mind moves very quickly and I analyze, admittedly, too much. What I didn't know was that this was normal.
I don't know why I forgot all this information, but there's many books out there about introverts, and my old therapist was telling me about one at some point. Maybe I wrote it off because I didn't like him all that much and kinda ended up firing him. Regardless, I did some more digging tonight and found the author he was talking about. Her name is Marti Laney and she's a researcher, therapist, public speaker, and many other things. The point is she knows what she's talking about and this isn't some random self-help nonsense. Her book deals with myths about introverts and why they act the way they do.
Introversion is not about being shy or awkward (me being awkward is completely my own fault). Introversion does not mean the introvert is afraid of or hates crowds. Introverts still go to parties, they still find significant others, and they still talk to other people. Introversion is not a disease, but a personality trait. It is seen as normal to be an extrovert, and while this isn't problematic in any way, it leaves some introverts feeling lonely, isolated, or weird. I am reminded of Kids in The Hall alum Bruce Mccullough, who, on his comedy album, asked "why are there so many lonely people? Can't they just, you know, buddy up?" Only 25% percent of the population are true introverts, and introverts actually like hanging out with introverts, but that's hard to do, considering they're, well...introverts. And just so I can say that word one more time in this paragraph: introverts.
I am slowly coming to terms with being an introvert, and I feel significantly less weird about not doing much right now. In fact, I plan on going to a block party on the 4th, having a lot of fun, and then spending the rest of the week to myself.
And I won't feel bad about it.
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