Have you ever said to an introvert, 'why are you so quiet?' or 'don't you ever talk?' And they probably blushed a little, said some snarky comment, and avoided eye contact with you for the rest of the night. Any introvert could tell you exactly what went wrong here, yet, the general populous still struggles with understanding why we introverts are the way we are. Well, one woman has cracked the code and made it plain and simple.
I first realized I was an introvert when I was at a loud party with a ton of people I didn't know. At the time, we were all in college and that was the only way you ever met new people outside of your circle, so since I was a total newbie and in need of some friendships, I got all dressed up. The problem is, when you go to a huge rager with people you don't know, that means you're not going to actually know anybody. Oof. Great, here comes the awkward small talk.
The friendship conundrum was sort of like the chicken and the egg debacle. Which comes first? Friends or parties? These questions flooded my collegiately adolescent mind back then. Where are all these people finding friends to party with…? How do you make friends at parties? But how do you get invited to parties if you don't have friends yet? Will I make friends at this party? The list goes on and on.
Obviously this presented a challenge when making actual meaningful connections with people. How do you talk about anything that matters when you're at a party with the base is booming and the lights flashing– plus, you're not even sure what they put in the jungle juice? My introverted self quickly got overwhelmed by the prospect of attempting to explain my name, my hometown, and my major (and therefore my entire life/career plan lol) to a complete stranger, so I fled to the bathroom.
From the solace of my porcelain prison, it became pretty obvious. With the dull thumping of the music outside the door and the smell of mildewy towels wafting around me, I decided that I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to be at a party trying to schmooze people I don't know into liking some weird curated version of me.
Perhaps, at that moment, I was a fully-actualized introvert.
I'd like to say I crawled out of the window to escape the prying eyes and questioning looks of everyone at the party, but I didn't. Unheroically, I wove through the crowd of dancing girls and dudes sloshing their red cups on their shoes, making my way to the front door for a final exit.
As I turned to face the party one last time before escaping into the cool, fresh air outside, I could finally breathe again. And right then and there, with my first ‘Irish goodbye' I was transformed into an introvert. I was happy to leave the superficiality of the party and already thinking about which cozy PJ's I was going to wear and which bottle of wine I was going to open at home.
See that's the thing. Introverts aren't UN-social. We just simply don't want to be around meaningless social frivolity. If I'm going to be at a party, it's going to be with a handful of close friends and we're going to talk about things we like. Introverts are just the people that have actually realized that small talk is useless, pickup lines are lame, and the real friends in life aren't the ones you meet at a party with strobe lights.
Scroll onward to watch how one woman on TikTok flushed out exactly what it's like to be an introvert in perfect clarity. Perhaps she can help a few extroverts adopt one of us in the future or maybe u/courtney_lolo27's introverted wisdom will fall on deaf ears. Either way, it was nice to hear some wholesome introvert truths online amidst all the other noise.
If you'd also like to partake in a delightfully relatable collection of introvert memes, here's this week's batch of antisocial goodness!