tales of Suchita

I didn’t know that a word like ‘introvert’ existed for a long time. I was first introduced to this word when I reached college and people started to say I was very ‘reserved,’ not as an accusation to their credit, more as an observation and a surprise because they couldn’t fathom a human existed who didn’t like the sound of her own voice. Well maybe they were a little deprecating in their observation but the good thing was, I never took it as a ‘problem’ that needed to be solved. In that sense I’d like to believe I was self-aware enough to know that being an introvert was a-okay.

Now that I have become a little more worldly-wise, it fascinates me how misunderstood we are. For example, in a writer’s group, I read a comment asking if introverts could be good protagonists. First I got angry and then I laughed. I knew the person who was asking this question had to be someone who identified with being an ‘extrovert’ because it is only the extroverts who have such questions. We don’t go around asking if an extrovert would make a good protagonist.

It’s wholly possible this entire post is about that anger at being thought ‘introverts’ wouldn’t make good protagonists. So here’s a delayed attempt to explain what an ‘introvert’ is:

1. We like to think more than talk and we are happy to let you talk. Sometimes we’ll listen, sometimes we’ll tune out. But if we also happen to be polite, we’ll listen. And if the subject interests us, we’ll listen with not just our ears.
2. It’s not that we don’t like to talk. We do but since we value listening, we only talk when we know the person in front of us is paying attention. As soon as we realize you’re not, we shut up. And we may never talk after that. Ever!
3. We like to be sure of things before we open our mouths. This is why you can catch us talking for hours on things we love. It is also why we prefer written communication over oral communication.
4. It’s not we don’t like the limelight. We crave it as much as any person. But we prefer our work to be in the limelight than our person.
5. Of course we can be spontaneous! Just give us an hour or two to process the change in the plan and we’ll be onboard the fun train. And if we have planned for said well-mannered frivolity as Prof. McGonagall so beautifully said, we can go crazy.
6. Yes we love our own company and don’t see the need to constantly badger our senses with stimulation. In fact too much stimulation exhausts us. We have fun but our definition of what fun is differs from how you may define it.
7. We don’t like confrontations but that does not mean we are pushovers, soft, or don’t know how to stand up for ourselves. We have a higher threshold, yes, but once you get on our wrong side, beware. We will attack as viciously as a lioness defending her cubs.
8. Just because we say ‘no’ to some of your plans doesn’t mean you should stop inviting us. Sometimes your plans clash with our plan for sitting and staring into space. Sometimes they come as a boon to help us escape our own convoluted thought patterns. Keep trying. We will say ‘yes,’ eventually.
9. We are meticulous and like order. We like to do things our way because let’s face it, you’re doing it wrong.
10. Oh one last thing. Introvertedness is a part of our personality, not the whole personality. Just like it’s presumptuous to say extroverts are shallow and loud, it is presumptuous to say introverts are boring.

If you are a writer (and I hope someday this post reaches that girl in that writer’s group) reading this, I hope you have a better picture of who or what an ‘introvert’ is and can write a more three dimensional character who can either turn out to be the heir to the throne of Gondor or a serial killer who plans his murders down to the last detail of what he’ll wear when he goes to hunt at night.