Introverts get a bad reputation in today’s society. The majority of people are extroverts who don’t understand what it really means to be an introvert. As a result, there are many misconceptions and misunderstandings about introversion. These can put a lot of strain on relationships in which one person in introverted and the other is not. If you’re the extrovert in the relationship, below is a list of 19 things that you should know.
1. We need our alone time.
2. This means that there may be times when you want to hang out, and we decline. But don’t take it personally.
3. On the other hand, if we like spending a lot of time with you, it’s a sign that we must really like you and must feel really comfortable with you.
4. Meeting a lot of new people at once can be very overwhelming.
5. This doesn’t mean that we don’t want to meet your friends and family. In fact, we do want to get to know your family and friends and we want to feel included.
6. We would just prefer to meet only a few new people at once.
7. So don’t be offended if we are hesitant to accept an invitation to go to your big family party or to hang out with a bunch of your friends.
8. Events like these, especially if they last for hours, are exhausting.
9. If your family and friends are extroverts, they may not understand why we are so reserved.
10. In fact, they may even go so far as to assume that we are cold or unfriendly.
11. If they express this to you, we would very much appreciate it if you tried to explain that we are simply introverted. (Or you can share this article with them and let them read about it for themselves.)
12. Social events in which we are the only introvert amongst a group of extroverts can sometimes feel alienating.
13. If we’re left alone in a large group of people, we might opt to sit back and be quiet. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re unhappy.
14. But, sometimes we may unintentionally isolate ourselves if we are feeling overwhelmed.
15. We might not be very close with your friends and/or family after the first time we meet them.
16. It, in fact, may take many times of meeting them before we feel truly comfortable with them.
17. Just remember #6. The way to expedite our comfort with your friends and family is to have us spend time with them in much smaller groups. We have a hard time really getting to know people when there just seems to be too many people to get to know.
18. All of this may make us sound difficult to please, but we really aren’t.
19. All we want is to be respected and understood.