the first five commandments of the anxious extrovert
the first five commandments of the anxious extrovert
what i must remind myself of as i navigate the world
PART I:
I’m an extrovert. It’s pretty obvious. No one ever thinks I’m not, especially after they see my DMs buzzing and I have 0 overwhelm about ignoring or answering them all in due time. I’ve been called “legendary” for my response times. I have to stockpile at least 10 social events a week, and I average 5-6 calls a day between my many clients. I tweet furiously and use social media primarily to DM hundreds over the months. My To Do list includes people to respond to, conversations to initiate, plans to make, facts to remember about birthdays coming up, concepts I came up with in discussion with a friend that I must now write about.
Even from my messaging style, apparently I can’t hide my nature — online friends often point out that my consciousness spills all over the page when I write, reflecting a myriad, a flurry, an onslaught of a lot of brain activity. It’s indicative of my real life tendency to chatter on and on. When I say things, they’re packaged in such a way that it’s very clear I know what I am saying, and I know I’m saying it to the world, not musing reservedly to myself.
My writing voice is loud, clear, and unignorable. I take up a lot of Internet real estate, someone once said. I leave a mark that’s clear as day to all that stumble upon it, whether it’s someone I follow on Twitter or an old colleague from my journalism days or a random cashier at the indie grocery store in San Francisco.
I’ve made a living off meeting people, and I won’t stop anytime soon. I was told I basically “sped ran” New York, many introvert friends marveled, and managed to have the biggest birthday party I’d ever had within the 3 months I moved here, despite being a newbie.
It’s great, I guess.
…
Actually, I have really really mixed feelings about it. I’m not sure if I’m quite at the point where I can take pride in this.
I was tapped on the shoulder once by a girl in a coffee shop who’d seen me on YouTube and was shocked to find me casually at Alchemist Coffee Project in Koreatown LA. We began striking up a conversation that I greatly enjoyed, as I do many of mine.
When we were about to part ways, she remarked that she could tell I did this often. “How?” I asked.
“Because you act exactly like you do in your videos, but to a total stranger,” she said. “I felt literally like I was watching a video of yours, except I can actually talk to the person on the screen now!”
It hit me then that she was probably an introvert. Haha. But it also struck me that, this is apparently not normal. It’s apparently not normal to experience the personability I exude, in real life, on the street. Every time someone has a parasocial connection with my minor social presence, they’ve also confirmed they feel the same vibe in real life as they do online.
One doesn’t recognize that to be this extroverted, I had to do a lot of inner work. I’m still doing that inner work.
Years of social isolation up until high school made me really prize putting myself first. Often, putting myself first entailed connecting with people, but it doesn’t entail merging with people. It seems many assume that, to be this outgoing, I give away a lot of my sense of self.
I was just as happy with a couple close friends when I lived in North Dakota for 3 months, as I am now with hundreds of new people to meet in New York City. I know how to make the most of wherever I am planted, and that’s been in 8 states across the West Coast, Midwest, and East Coast. I believe the world is a friendly place that can bring me much opportunity, but I’m also very aware of what I have to watch out for.
Thus, here is what I live by:
Thou shalt not turn to “do, do, do” instead of reflect
I often find myself wanting to take action when I’m in an uncomfortable situation. Why should I stick around if I have optionality and agency and an ability to navigate the world from daring to live in so many places? I can do my reflecting later; I have life to seize, thank you very much!
… Anddd this gets me in trouble sometimes. I’m tempted to throw analysis at the problem so I can pivot into a new solution. Learning to not run my mouth at the first sign of trouble, or go and socialize instead of sitting inside and letting myself rest, were disciplines I had to learn when I was bingeing on new friendships in my freshman year of college. I’m re-learning this now in New York, when I often would rather hang out with people (even if I don’t really like them much) instead of feeling my real feelings.
I’ve learned over the last few years that I do really value my alone, reflective time but in open spaces. I furiously scribble in my journal on subway rides, walk around parks and malls and gaze at the passerby who don’t know me and let memories and visions and pain and joy all run through me at once. Often these things are running through me in real time as I speak to a new individual.
I also learned I process very efficiently. I can get to the core of my emotions pretty fast, as observed by every therapist and life coach. I’m able to constantly maintain a deep sense of honesty. I can journal about my feelings and write 5 pages of musings in 20 minutes.
But remembering that sometimes I’m actually not aligned with doing anything when the instinct is to “reflect so I can do~!”… that’s been a struggle my whole life. But I got this.
At the end of the day, I’m extroverted because I keep an intense inner boundary up. The reflection reminds me to do that.
Thou shalt not abuse external distractions
New York is full of these. But even if I didn’t live in this bustling metropolis, there are so many things I could be paying attention to constantly. TV shows, movies, YouTube videos, other people’s essays, books, friend conversations, Twitter feed. I forget that I want to listen to myself but it’s so tempting to want to always go go go. There’s also so many social events in New York to keep track of.
I never resonated with being “addicted” to substances like alcohol or drugs, but I can say that I have a bit of a social addiction. I never have time to even doom scroll on Twitter because I’m too busy DMing people constantly.
I sometimes have to ask myself if I’m talking to people to distract myself, or if I could be doing something better with my time that I really want. I don’t put too many restrictions on myself with most things, because I trust my ability to execute, except for the fact that I’ve sucked at being honest about how people are a huge addiction for me. They’re a bigger money suck than not cooking, because if I socialized less, then I’d eat out less, which is my biggest income drain.
I asked myself recently what the need of “socializing” [as an external distraction] came from. I think I haven’t recognized yet that I’m a real person in this world today and I didn’t end up just killing myself when I was 11 in this timeline. Instead, I’m here, and I deserve love and respect and camaraderie and emotional safety.
Socializing and outside noise proves to me I’m here. That I exist.
Abusing my need to prove it to myself is what will kill me the fastest.
Thou shalt track one’s capacity
… Because if I burn out, then I can’t keep doing what fuels me.
Extroversion is also wired to “reward me” if I perform well at work, or help me relax if I’m having a tough time with it.
I justify myself a lot when I “spend” my extrovert budget, but I’ve noticed lately that I’m chronically burnt out from the hours on the subway between friend hangouts. But I forget to check in and ask myself if I want to do this, because I make time for all the other things I need to do, so why shouldn’t I have a treat?
But these days, my cup is too full to “consume” more good conversation, to “meet” with more vibes and presences. If I’m honest with myself, I’m too tired to socialize at times, but I already set my life up assuming I can hit three after work dinners a week and squeeze 3-4 social events a day on the weekend. I want to maximize the time spent with people, who I consider God’s gift, but I forget that sometimes I’m giving way more than I want to in terms of inspiration, interesting conversation, and insight, and I don’t keep track of if I “get” inspiration back.
This is hard to remember, because I have so much energy I want to give back… and if I’m honest, energy I feel I need to give back.
If I don’t give it back and use it wisely, what if it gets taken away? What if it drains, little by little?
But if I don’t preserve it… won’t the same happen?
A catch-22 indeed.
Thou shalt notice when you annoy others
This one is the most nerve wracking of all of them. I worry constantly that I talk too much and that people don’t want to hear what I have to say. I worry so much that if I stop talking, no one would ever ask me to talk, so I have to do it first.
This neurosis and inability to regulate my deepest trauma — feeling invisible for the entire duration of middle and high school — has led to me being really bad at reading the room. Call it autism, call it CPTSD, regardless I am not always cognizant when I take up space in the room. My closest friends have often been fellow extroverts, or introverts who are good at telling me to shut up.
But learning to navigate this social scene as an eager, puppy dog kid was living hell. At some point, I gave up trying to guess at the politics of being “socially appropriate” and flat out stated that you’d have to tell me straight up your preferences and boundaries. My greatest boundary is that if you are repressing an emotion toward me and it comes back to haunt me, I will not tolerate being terrorized and walk away. This has saved me from a few toxic relationships.
On the other hand, this boundary is also a curse, because I feel like a fucking rambly idiot that I can’t just tell when I’m being annoying. I’m careful with professional settings, so I never had trouble as a journalist. It was my job to interview others and have them do the talking.
When the spotlight’s on me, I often feel like I can’t flip off the switch in my brain. If many socially anxious introverts clam up, I will just start rambling if I don’t prepare myself or take a breath.
My social anxiety is definitely manageable, and most people don’t realize I even have it. But it’s there, always haunting me. I always assume I’m a few monologues away from being abandoned, again and again.
People tell me that they often like that I’m so easy to talk to, and it’s very refreshing that they don’t have to attempt to make conversation with me. I’ll make someone feel like the most interesting person in the world because I’m just as good at listening as I am at talking… that is, if I remember to shut up sometimes.
Thou shalt not overly worry you annoy others
When I found out guys like extroverted girls, I was so confused. What, you guys don’t sit around waiting for me to shut the fuck up? Constantly?
Hence, it’s a learning process of having grace for myself and not worrying that I’m just a rejectable, undeserving moron that should never speak ever if I make a mistake.
It definitely comes from my mom scolding me when I was a kid. She often joked that she wished I were a more introverted, submissive girl when I’d excitedly chatter to her and only her for hours. That made me clam up real fast.
Sometimes I idealize being an introvert. I idealize thinking things through more slowly, having more intentional, drawn out ways of reasoning and being intimate with my inner world in a way that’s constant. I feel like I’m always running a race and I can’t allow myself to stop. I’m burnt out from having so many connections, but I have zero clue how to manage them better because most people I know are far more introverted than me.
I don’t know how to believe that my extroversion is a gift. I can logically reason it so, but I’m still escaping this shadow fear that I’m just one big burden, and the world doesn’t need me as I am because I’m not using my extroversion to be some fancy start up CEO. Instead, I resemble a socialite in many ways.
I wish for respect above all. But a big part is not letting myself disrespect myself first. Not making myself resent how I wish I had less of a big mouth, and trying to remember I can be a charming girl in many other ways that don’t include how little I speak, how passive I am, how much less I should yearn to be seen.
I don’t know if I’ll ever trust I can be seen. I know though that I’d rather be heard, if given the chance.
But maybe this year, I can work on really experiencing how deeply I can have both.