Introversion is not something that can be easily explained to one who isn’t an introvert. Probably the best you could do is say it’s the state of mind you find yourself in when no one understands you but you alone. You’re your own companion, you can be alone, but never lonely. I wish I could say you get used to it. But truth be told, you don’t. I mean, you can cope for a while, but when you start to get somewhere in this world, it catches up to you. Enough time goes by, it gets so bad you become socially anxious. To quote Morgan Freeman (out of context, but I feel it applies here too), “that’s instituionalised.”
If you’re reading this and you’re socially awkward, I understand. You’re probably flicking through your timeline, looking at all the crazy shit your “friends” have been up to, wondering if you’ll be invited next time, and even if you were (invited), if you’d even go. I know it’s what I’d be doing right now. Social interactions don’t come easy to us introverts. If you’re anything like me, you’ll know how hard it is to fit in. You’ll probably find yourself constantly changing your opinions, hell, your whole personality according to the peers you hang out with, just to feel that feeling of belonging somewhere. Sometimes, you even find that one person with whom you feel like you can be completely open with, be yourself with. I know I did. But then someday, you’ll never realize when, you start pulling away from them. And the worst part? You aren’t even sure why. Perhaps you’re afraid that that person is changing you, or perhaps you feel like you’re now unable to live without companionship and you want to save yourself the pain of the inevitable “breakup” so to speak, or maybe it’s just an unfathomable reason why. Takes an antisocial mind to understand what another one’s going through.
Even the simplest social interactions can be Herculean for people like us. If you’re any bit as meticulous as I am, you’ll know how hard it is to make a decision as workaday as “wanna hang later?”If you are an extrovert, you probably wouldn’t understand the dilemma, you’d probably just say sure. This is my point of view;
Me: *I want to say yes, sounds like fun, but I don’t really know what to talk about with you, what if there are those long, awkward pauses, no one likes those, what if it’s just the two of us, I might need to write down a list of conversational topics in case that happens, what if they find it so awkward they cut early, what if they never wanna hang again, oh great, we’re finally having a conversation that I’m comfortable with but I don’t know what they’re thinking, is it boring, is it not, what do I do now, no, fuck this, stressing out already*
Me: Sorry, I’m busy.
Me: *No, dipshit, just say you wanna go, focus on the positives, just wing it, just get the fuck out of the house already*
Me: Another time?
Me: *Fuck, your, life*
And there goes your social life. Imagine not being able to tell the person you like how you feel, only to see them with someone else.
Sure, you can rationalise the situation to make it seem better. Hey, every cloud’s meant to have that silver lining, huh? It’s better being lonely, you never have to be codependent, you learn to value an acquaintance’s company, if you have a falling out, well hey, you’re already used to being lonely. But rationalisations, they’re just lies we tell ourselves to make us feel better. Remember that. You may be waiting for something significant in your life to change so you can finally have that new start. Don’t wait. Just do. Because, coming from an introvert, it’s a terrible thing to live in, anxiety.