Audience of One

E is for Extrovert

Some people, when they’re tired or worn out, just need to collapse away from people. They need to recharge. They may enjoy large meetings or going out with friends, but they might find it a bit tiring. Some people might be content to sit back and listen while others do the talking. Some people might be much more reserved until you really get to know them.

I am not any of those people. I am an extrovert.

To me extroversion is natural, and it’s taken me most of my eighteen years to understand how it’s possible not to be extroverted. People are so interesting! Talking is so much fun! Making friends is easy! It took a long time to sink in that for some people, while they may enjoy talking that didn’t mean they always wanted to be talking; that whereas other people agreed that people were interesting, that didn’t mean they were going to expend the energy needed to talk to them when they had their own friends right next to them; that some people liked having small groups of close friends, and striking up new intimacies around the place was their idea of a nightmare of stress and completely stupid.

I open up to people easily. If they’re of a nice, caring disposition (so as you can immediately see I’m talking about girls here) then I’ll tell them almost anything if they’re willing to listen. This blog in past incarnations was incredibly candid. I can’t mull over stuff inside: I need someone to talk to about it. I’ll explode otherwise (and have done).

Oftentimes (is that actually a word?) I’ll come home late, exhausted and really low. I’ll probably have been with a group of friends having a fantastic time, then as soon as I have to leave and walk home alone I’m down. Often when I come in late I’ll have something on my mind that I need to talk about to someone, and there’s no-one. I’ll stay up even later (even though I’m shattered) just so I can write it all down. There’s always a frustration within me when I can’t talk, and when I can’t let it out it builds up.

Other times I’m with someone and I have loads of things to say, yet they’re too tired to cope. For me, I thrive off conversation. If I come from school tired to the Youth Office and there are people there, I gain energy just by being with them. If there’s another strongly extroverted person there we’ll spark off each other and keep going for hours. (I’ll then walk home afterwards feeling incredibly depressed because we couldn’t continue the conversation longer.)

It’s amazing how completely differently people are wired.

Matthew @ 12:01, April 16, 2005 to ABC | Comments (3)