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[Loud Whispers]

I found someone reposted one of my edgy bismuth memes I made so many years ago on a jangladeshi curtain weaving board wholly unrelated to the nepalese goat shaving board I set it free. To see it having been so rare, so seen in such esoteric nature, to against all odds find its way back to me - a slight pride has swollen in the gorillion hours of mspaint I once spent so long ago. How remarkable that so many found it worth preserving for so long

[Harry Baldman]

Not true, at least not for me, i need breaks even from people that i like a lot. Even my brother. I know some people here have shit-tier siblings, but my brother is basically my closest friend, bar none. Shy i may be, but i much prefer being open and warm to other people, even if i might not know them. It's to such an extent that most people don't ever realize that i have social anxiety if i don't tell them. There are very, very few people i've met that i'd say i hate, and even "does not get along with" is much more uncommon than "i like this person" or just "i don't mind the existence of this person". Thing is, being social takes effort from me, being solitary does not. But, as with everything else that takes effort, that doesn't mean i hate it. :v

Might be an anxiety thing, or maybe I'm just unusually contemptuous of other individuals. Or perhaps it's a shifting of the mistrust, in that what is mistrusted is that they're interested at all in what you are, or would particularly care about what you actually, legitimately are rather than pleasantries. Anybody can make an effort at being open and pleasant. I can do pleasantries and I'm just about as close to goblinoid as people can get while desiring to actively improve. Embracing extroversion means that it comes to you naturally, that you're not fighting the urge to repress yourself.

It could also be a control thing or a vulnerability thing. You may like people, but how do you feel about them seeing you vulnerable? Was not the entire content of your happy that you were able to share your anxieties with people and not be rejected or fall apart from the stress? And how much of that exhaustion is the sense that you are fighting against a desire to fall apart, to let everything break down? This is what I mean by trust - being comfortable in showing your vulnerability with the knowledge that it won't be used against you because the person you're revealing it to is not at heart a wretched human being.

Truthfully, I don't really know though. I'm not a psychologist. I've just observed that my own social hangups tend to recede very much when I gain a respect and appreciation for my fellows, and so that's what I perceive introversion and extroversion as, and thus what I advance as an explanation for why it can be such a fluid thing.

[Flying Dice]

Not really that rigid, I think. Harry. Few people truly have behavior that remains that consistently uniform unless they have the emotional depth of a teaspoon.  Most everyone displays traits of both extroversion and introversion around everyone from total strangers to lovers and close friends at different times and in different situations.

I'd probably describe myself as an introvert-I can be (and often am) perfectly content living a solitary life, and often when I am around people it makes me happiest to just stay silent and fade into the wallpaper-but there are also times where I am a mile-a-minute chatterbox without personal space issues, usually when I'm around folks I trust.

Oh, I'm not saying it's rigid. That's why you get people with both tendencies. Extreme introverts are highly distrustful. Extreme extroverts trust people all too readily. Trusting that people will accept you and thus being more confident and interesting as a result is what extroversion is. It's not that you're hardwired to enjoy people more or less, it's something of a state of mind. Much like social anxiety, it's not something you should really celebrate. Instead you should try finding people you like and you feel you can trust. There's nothing in the world like good mates.

The problem with fixing introversion

You're still not getting it on that point, though. Introversion isn't a negative way to live. If someone is happy to spend their time alone, that's not something that you need to "fix". The whole notion of someone who is content to live with little human contact being "broken" and needing to be dragged around by an extrovert to force them to "open up" is a perspective created by people who are content when they're spending a lot of time socializing.

Yeah, the isolation can stem from other factors which are holding back a person who wants to socialize more, but you can't universalize that.

[Harry Baldman]

You're still not getting it on that point, though. Introversion isn't a negative way to live. If someone is happy to spend their time alone, that's not something that you need to "fix". The whole notion of someone who is content to live with little human contact being "broken" and needing to be dragged around by an extrovert to force them to "open up" is a perspective created by people who are content when they're spending a lot of time socializing.

Yeah, the isolation can stem from other factors which are holding back a person who wants to socialize more, but you can't universalize that.

Well, right in that bit after the snip I did mention that:

[...] trying to force people to have fun and open up creates perceived feelings of exclusion. If somebody tries to get you to have fun, that means they know you're not having fun to begin with, which signals that you're dragging the atmosphere down, which in turn magnifies the feeling of being alien and unsafe in a social setting. That, or they pity you, which is like being hated except more humiliating because unlike with hatred it means you're both despised and not a plausible threat to anyone.

Which means that yes, dragging people out of their shells doesn't actually work (and I should know, being on the receiving end of it on several occasions) and only makes things awkward and much, much worse. But I don't really buy that introverts crave validation and acceptance, the end goals of socialization, less than extroverts. It strikes me more as a difference in how much of it they expect and feel they can get away with, which accordingly informs their choices and feelings in social situations.

And also,

And then there's the question of what, if anything you need to fix. Do you have no friends and live a lonely existence where you hardly leave the house? You should probably fix that. Do you go out with people you barely know every night to get fucked up beyond all reason and human limitation? Dial up the suspicion. Do you have a couple of friends you like without serious reservations (not like a work friend that you make small talk with despite hating his stupid face and wishing he wasn't such a dick) and can hang out with to cheer yourself up? You're basically fine, congrats!

Yeah, it's a perfectly valid way to live, not being the life of the party, and there's nothing wrong with that. Going into extremes is where it becomes a thing that you should address. For instance, in the case of becoming a shut-in you have the issue that you're not going to get less isolated from your current position without instituting radical changes. And what I'm trying to do here is share why I think I tend to have trouble relating to people to a lesser or greater degree - a lack of trust in others (unrealistically low expectations of their integrity and better nature), and a lack of trust in myself (unrealistically low perception of my own potential value as an individual), rather than some inherent property of my innermost soul that sorts me into one category or another.

[Rolan7]

Look, Ma, I'm on TV! Wasn't expecting that to make it into a video; I was the BJ-3 in the first match.

...Wow, Mechwarrior Online looks *good*.  I want to check that out when I get home.
Related, I found a USB stick while packing which has MW4 (which I've beat 3 times, but not as Steiner), MW3, and MechCommander 2 which is a sweet tactics game.  I think I'll see if it runs on this laptop, it's pretty old.

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So today, at the usual daily morning gathering thing, i managed to go ahead and tell my fellow folk high school students about my anxiety. All of them. At once. Holy shit i haven't been so nervewracked in a long time, and i didn't get to say as much as i wanted to due to the violent fight/flight response going on in my system (i did at least get to thank them for all the respect i've been getting), but i'm so glad i did it. That's one big step towards dealing with it for good. c:

Madness shrivels away in the light, and being open to other human beings gets you out of the nightmare realm that your mind persistently inhabits. It's a wonderful thing, socialization. Especially if you're the kind of person who skirts the edge of an event horizon of self loathing and fear.

...
That's basically a happy that I'm currently experiencing and having trouble articulating so well.  My family, bunch of dicks assholes and pussies that they are, is really coming through for me right now.

It's so WEIRD being honest with them (well.  more than usual.)  And actually wanting to spend time with them.  I always saw them as a chore.  Or really, a trigger for my anxieties.  (They really were terrible to me at times, as I was terrible to them later)

I caught 8 fish today O_o
I say "currently" but this has been the last three weeks or so.

My friends are way more awesome and have helped me immeasurably, but we don't really feelings-jam so much as distract each other from the... whatever.

Edit:  If I joined a discussion I had no idea, huh.  I didn't read past what I quoted, no time, got to help cook fish

[hector13]

Yeah, it's a perfectly valid way to live, not being the life of the party, and there's nothing wrong with that. Going into extremes is where it becomes a thing that you should address. For instance, in the case of becoming a shut-in you have the issue that you're not going to get less isolated from your current position without instituting radical changes. And what I'm trying to do here is share why I think I tend to have trouble relating to people to a lesser or greater degree - a lack of trust in others (unrealistically low expectations of their integrity and better nature), and a lack of trust in myself (unrealistically low perception of my own potential value as an individual), rather than some inherent property of my innermost soul that sorts me into one category or another.

It seems to me that you identify as an introvert but... neither of those things have anything to do with introversion. You seem to be projecting your issues with introversion onto other people, and assuming that they feel the same. Yes I know, I'm assuming these things, hypocrite and all that, but this forms the basis of my issue with what you're saying, so you can understand my position.

I mean if you see introversion as a problem, then... that's literally your problem. You need to work to fix it. Telling the introverts that you have a problem with the way they live and that the reason they live like that is essentially because they hate people is pretty stupid, if you'll excuse the bluntness.

Why is it a problem if someone chooses to have minimal social contact? If they're content with that and causing themselves no harm, why does it need to be fixed?

I mean, society pretty much demands extroversion, which can cause an introvert who doesn't know any better to think they're somehow wrong or broken, but that doesn't mean they are.

[saigo]

I found someone reposted one of my edgy bismuth memes I made so many years ago

Congratulations!

[Helgoland]

Oooooor it's a shitty model of human social behaviour and we should try and find better ones instead of keeping them down by continuing to use this one.

It's not a model of social behaviour, it's personality types. Personality isn't a static thing.

Who claimed it was? And it doesn't matter whether you call the thing to be described 'social behaviour' or 'personality types' or 'gloobiflarpflarp'.* Fact is: The introversion-extraversion model does about as good a job describing it as the the Aristotelian model does for describing the motion of the planets. It might do as a very rough approximation, but oh boy do we need a better one.

I mean, society pretty much demands extroversion, which can cause an introvert who doesn't know any better to think they're somehow wrong or broken, but that doesn't mean they are.

Are you sure that's true in that generality? Sure, there's shitty people like that who push folks to do stuff they're not comfortable doing, but I've never heard anyone call a kid with one or two close friends and not much social life beyond that a horrible freak who should be purged from the gene pool or something. Might be skewed perception on your side.
(Or on mine, since I never really had that sort of trouble. But eh, that's a possiblity that's impossible to rule out, I guess.)




*Actually it does, since 'personality types' suggests that there's a limited number of types of personalities and everyone can be neatly assigned a little label like that. So yeah, that's a shitty name.

[hector13]

There were a lot of qualifiers to that generalization, but it happened to me. Anecdotal is best evidence.

Re: personality types: perhaps it may be more accurate to say personality type at the time the test to determine it was taken

[Frumple]

Are you sure that's true in that generality? Sure, there's shitty people like that who push folks to do stuff they're not comfortable doing, but I've never heard anyone call a kid with one or two close friends and not much social life beyond that a horrible freak who should be purged from the gene pool or something. Might be skewed perception on your side.
(Or on mine, since I never really had that sort of trouble. But eh, that's a possibility that's impossible to rule out, I guess.)

Nah, that's pretty much dead on. Go look at the advice for pretty much anything related to business interviews,* everything related to college entrance stuff (particularly re: extracurriculars), probably 60-70+% of more-or-less universal advice for workplace relations... there's basically a list that covers everything (that people use to measure success in life, or at least not!failure, and usually happiness, too) that says "Act extroverted or have a much harder/impossible time of things" to varying (usually fairly significant) degrees.

It's not so much calling people freaks or whatever (though that does actually happen, if not that exact wording), as having pretty much every behavior pattern attributed to introversion disparaged or be told is ineffective, suboptimal, how you fail to compete, and so on. There's a pretty extreme bias towards extroversion in, at the very least, most western societies. Probably the rest, too, but I've not enough interaction with 'em to say.

*Amusingly enough, there's actually a fair amount of advice there vis a vis employment interviews and introversion. From what I've seen said advice generally boils down to saying, with a great deal more tact and less succinctness, "Play extrovert or you're fucked."

[Yoink]

Don't have time to read this whole discussion closely, but someone once described me as an "introverted extrovert" and that seemed pretty much bang-on. I enjoy interacting with people and desire to interact with them, but I'm also incredibly shy and socially anxious.

A total basket case, in other words.

[hector13]

There were a lot of qualifiers to that generalization, but it happened to me. Anecdotal is best evidence.

Re: personality types: perhaps it may be more accurate to say personality type at the time the test to determine it was taken

That was meant to be personality tendency at the time... rather than personality type.

[SalmonGod]

I mean, society pretty much demands extroversion, which can cause an introvert who doesn't know any better to think they're somehow wrong or broken, but that doesn't mean they are.

Are you sure that's true in that generality? Sure, there's shitty people like that who push folks to do stuff they're not comfortable doing, but I've never heard anyone call a kid with one or two close friends and not much social life beyond that a horrible freak who should be purged from the gene pool or something. Might be skewed perception on your side.
(Or on mine, since I never really had that sort of trouble. But eh, that's a possiblity that's impossible to rule out, I guess.)

More about the amount of forced social interaction in schools and workplaces, and how life is much, much easier for those people who are naturally energized by those environments.  I am at a huge disadvantage in an office environment mostly keeping to myself as much as I can get away with and just doing good work vs the social butterfly who is the first to know everything, makes friends with all the right people, and goes home fucking refreshed at the end of the day.  Since becoming a manager and increasing the amount and nature of my workplace social interaction, I literally have a social hangover every Saturday, where the weight of it all caves in on me and I feel sick and exhausted and don't feel like doing anything the entire day.

And maybe it's not the best model of social behavior, but being on the less understood side of things, it's wonderful to have that model to help explain and teach people to appreciate my needs vs theirs.  When I discovered this concept and started reading up on it, I found countless introverts who grew up actually believing there was something wrong with them or that they really didn't like people, because that's what their social environment raised them to believe about themselves, until this model provided them an alternative.

And it definitely has nothing to do with having any sort of misanthropic nature.  There are social groups that actually makes me feel energized when I'm around them, and I truly enjoy the interaction.  But afterwards, I crash.  Hard.  And the extroverts in my life can't relate to why whatever I do next has to in isolation.

I suspect that part of the reason you can't relate to this, Helgo, is because U.S. culture favors extroversion to an extreme.  A boisterous nature is heavily idealized here, even if it's mean-spirited, and automatically wins you favor much of the time.  It's possible to literally get by better than most in this country by socially muscling your way around with nothing but puff and bluster.  Look at Trump.

Edit:

Also, this isn't entirely anecdotal, pseudo-scientific junk.  Introverts have generally lower thresholds of stimulation than extroverts.  This has been studied and linked to brain chemistry.  And it's not about putting people's personalities in strict categories.  It's a spectrum that describes tendencies.

[Flying Dice]

Look, Ma, I'm on TV! Wasn't expecting that to make it into a video; I was the BJ-3 in the first match.

...Wow, Mechwarrior Online looks *good*.  I want to check that out when I get home.
Related, I found a USB stick while packing which has MW4 (which I've beat 3 times, but not as Steiner), MW3, and MechCommander 2 which is a sweet tactics game.  I think I'll see if it runs on this laptop, it's pretty old.

Definitely do. Plenty of people like to whine, but I think that PGI have done a pretty damned good job of it. Especially considering that they're running a F2P model with no P2W (the Clan fiasco &c. happened before they took total control, IIRC)--it's pretty much all about getting access to new 'mechs a few weeks before they're available for C-bills, cosmetic crap, and Hero 'mechs (which get +30% C-bills earned--they're certainly not P2W given how some of those potatoes perform). The only real real-cash bottleneck is with mechbays, but you can win those in events, from crates (which have keys given out in every weekend event), and can also be slowly accumulated by hording the MC you win every weekend (normally it's 50; mechbays are 300).

But honestly if you like it, you can just wait for Christmas, since they usually have a MC sale closely followed by a half-off sale on mechbays, so you can pick up like 25 for the price of a sandwich and coffee.

Just be warned, when you're playing trial mechs and racking up the Cadet C-bill bonuses, work out what sort of 'mech you like playing and research a good one for that role then fully kit it out. Having something that you love to pilot early on really helps, since for a while it's basically going to be that and the trial shitheaps. IS lights and mediums are good for this since they're cheap, but if you can stand to save for a Clan 'mech those are usually already good stock and you only need to buy new weapons since omnimechs have a lot of shit hard-locked. IS stuff tends to be a lot cheaper (except for certain variants with really good quirks), but you gotta pay basically the price or more again after that for double heatsinks, endosteel, new weapons, an engine that doesn't suck ass, &c.

[Gunner-Chan]

On the introverted and extroverted topic, that's gone on long enough it would be best if there's any more discussion on it to spin it off into it's own thing.

As a rule of thumb, if somehow a discussion goes for more than a whole page or two consider placing it elsewhere, if this topic really has any real use, creating new discussion from posts that bring up topics that attract discussion should actually be one of them. Otherwise you might get people not wanting to post their own unrelated stuff because it might be seen as off topic or get buried under the ongoing discussion.