Today at work I was asking advice from my colleague about how I can 'be easier' around the team I work with. I am massively over-sensitive a lot of the time but sometimes I'm genuinely aware that I can sense when someone isn't into me and am modest enough to be aware that it can be due to my own doing.
My colleague explained how she saw my temperaments and that, as an extrovert, I don't think before I speak - and although she knew there was nothing intentionally selfish about my behaviour, I shouldn't be sensitive about how other people behaved, and reacted, differently. She is such a bright girl and was so intuitively spot on about her observation that I spent the bus journey home googling about extroverts. Standard.
When I have been told I'm one in the past I always found it a kind of insult. 'I'm an attention seeker, I'm loud, I'm annoying.' It wasn't until I read this blog that I found the true meaning of the word and it made me look at the people in my life and decide what they were too. YOU ARE WELCOME FRIENDS.
For those of you who haven't read up on it, in a bullet point, introverts can be outgoing social butterflies as much as the extrovert, but find that by being around people for a long period of time can drain their energy. To recoup, they need some alone time.
But for those of you reading this thinking "that ain't me", then join my club. The extroverts. We can be shy, insecure, vulnerable, BUT, and heres the big Kim K, we get our energy from being around people. My "alone time" consists of a couple of gym sessions a week and my bus journey to and from work - which I am sure is still cheating as I spend 90% of the time tweeting and whatsapping.
I hate being alone and its not because I fear my own thoughts. My own thoughts are A-OK. But being alone makes me tired, miserable, moody. I love being with people 24/7 and never need time alone.
I genuinely get my energy from people, friends or strangers. I don't function without it. Whereas an introvert might lose energy mingling with people for too long a time, I and other extroverts - feed off it.
Thats not to say you are either, most people are ambiverts. They swing both ways and sit comfortably in the middle, like the easy going sods they are.
I looked at my friends and realised how the general perception of the word now correlated with them. One of my loudest and funniest mates Annie is surprisingly an introvert. My best mate Kelly - who literally will dance for anyone who asks, is an introvert. My other best mate Jen, who is sweet and quiet and seemingly calm, is in fact an extrovert. She needs people to be around her all the time. All this brand spanking new information made me want to come home, drink a glass of red and blog to you all about my new, not new findings.
I really am hoping that whatever I googled today can help me be more understanding and adaptable with everyone I come across. And I hope it can to whomever is reading this too.
And to those introverts out there, when you next tell your friend they should "enjoy their own company," "read a book" or just "learn to be with themselves more"; remember to them, you might as well be asking them to speak French. That's if they aren't already French, because if they are, that would be easy. Or something.