Am I an Introvert?

It’s funny how the deeper you delve into a topic, the more you discover that there’s so much you don’t know.

Maybe it’s because you’re up close to it. You just can’t get the kind of perspective that you’d get if you didn’t interact with it quite as much.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that you don’t know a lot or that you don’t have a great understanding. But it’s kind of like that scene in Clueless, where Cher shares why Amber is “such a Monet.” How she says from far away, the painting (Amber) looks great, but up close, it’s a mess.

A mess? That’s not exactly the word I’m looking for but the idea of things looking really different under close examination is.

So what am I talking about? Why, only my beloved Myers-Briggs.

I think part of the reason I have been as interested in Myers-Briggs (MBTI) for so long is because there are no definite answers. As we shift and grow as people, so does our understanding of this personality type system and ourselves. I like that it’s sort of elastic, flexible. I like that we can delve deeper into it and still find a fascinating world of discoveries.

So, anyway, the thing that’s been on my mind for the past few years is the question of whether or not I’m an introvert.

In actuality, it probably doesn’t matter. I know that all types find themselves somewhere along a spectrum — we are all capable of using each of the 8 preferences and developing them.

It’s not so much that you’re an introvert or not, that you’re sensing or you’re not, feeling or not, perceiving or not. It’s more: which preference do you use more often or more naturally? And even if you find yourself leaning towards one more than the other, it’s not as if that orientation has all the answers.

Anyway, it still fascinates me. Because I’ve straddled the line between introvert and extrovert since finding MBTI.

When I first took an online assessment, I got ENFP. I remember testing really strong for the intuitive (N) and perceiving (P) qualities and being really close to 50/50 on extroversion (E) vs. introversion (I) and thinking (T) vs. feeling (F).

I didn’t delve too deeply into the percentages, though, and instead looked up a description of ENFPs. And it felt like coming home!

I’ve already written about it before, but I had never seen myself described so accurately. And what’s more — it wasn’t just superficially. Some personality tests have results that say “You love going to the mall and singing songs” or something basic like that. But not with Myers-Briggs! MBTI seemed like it really knew who I was inside and got me more than I got myself!

At the time, I related way more to ENFP descriptions that I read. And even though I knew that INFPs and ENFPs were some — if not THE — closest types cognitively-speaking, the INFP descriptions never resonated with me.

That is, until I got to grad school.

During grad school, I had a lot of time to think and reflect and I started looking at my life and my experiences differently. Just through a different lens and filter.

I started thinking about how my friends often commented that I was one of the most introspective people they knew.

I started thinking about how, of all the people I knew, I spent the most time alone. And I didn’t mind it too much. Mostly.

I started thinking about how I liked being around people, but only people I felt I connected with or was comfortable around. I didn’t need just a warm body to hang out with. If I didn’t click with a person, I’d rather be alone. And that was fine.

One instance that really sticks out to me was being at a wedding reception a couple of years ago and sneaking out to the car for about an hour to get away from it all. I laughed about it to my friends later, but I thought: Hmm, I don’t see anyone else escaping to their cars to be alone. Maybe I am the introvert here?

But to be honest, I was confused about whether I was introverted or not because as much as I enjoyed spending time alone, NOTHING energized me the way being around other people did. Or, let me state it a bit more specifically: being around other people I really liked.

I’ve never been one to really get a lot of energy from random crowds. I’ve always been uncomfortable in those situations. Now, I’ll do things in spite of a crowd because there’s another reason why I want to be there, but I don’t see pictures of music festivals and think: wow, I bet that’s a lot of fun!

But if I am with people I really like and trust, nothing can beat it. I mean, I love a lot of activities I can do on my own, but there’s something about being with people I connect with that gives me energy in a way nothing else can.

So, of course, I assumed I was an extrovert.

But I’ll come back to this in a moment.

The other thing that made me think I was an extrovert was reading about shadow types. What’s a shadow type? It’s basically when you exhibit behaviors of a different type while you are “in the grip” or going through a challenging time. Some people are in the grip for years and years — to the point where we never really interact with their authentic or core type.

After realizing that my dream job was more of a personal nightmare, I definitely went more and more into a “shadow” type existence (that sounds so dramatic and shady!).

From what I read about ENFPs, I was definitely exhibiting the standard shadow behavior when I was in grad school. I was obsessive, and pessimistic, and isolated.

So, I assumed that I was just going through the grip and would hopefully get back to my sunny, outgoing, optimistic self.

Well, one day some months ago, I was listening to my favorite personality podcast: Personality Hacker. And they described introversion in a way I had never heard it explained before.

The basic way they laid it out is this: introverts need to reconcile the outer world to their inner world — almost like an account ledger. Unlike a lot of extroverts, they have to go back to themselves and see if all their “external transactions” really add up to what’s going on inside. If the two worlds match up, then it’s likely that you will see an introvert be a lot more open — to the point that they seem extroverted. It’s because the outside world is very reflective of — and balanced with — their inner world. When that happens, it’s almost like an expansion of the self and they can spend a lot more time — maybe all of their time — with another person or even groups of people.

However, when those two worlds don’t add up, you’ll likely see the introvert stick more to themselves or at least need more time to process and recharge from those transactions.

This revelation was mind-blowing to me because suddenly a lot of things made sense to me.

In high school, I had been pretty introverted, leaning more on the quiet side. I had pockets where I felt comfortable (like improv club and summer camp and maybe French class), but mostly I felt awkward and like I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

But in college, I felt like I really found my “true” self. Not only did I love it, but for the first time in my life, I was actually popular! It was shocking to a nerd like me. I was super involved on campus and a leader in a variety of organizations. Although I was socially anxious when I first started college, I eventually opened up and found myself interacting with nearly everyone I came in contact with. I loved the people I was exposed to — genuinely cared about them — and wished I had more time to get to know them more. I discovered in college that I was a real people-person and I was the happiest I had ever been.

Even after college, I tried to carry that same confidence with me everywhere I went. It definitely worked for a while and by the time I was a year out and taking the MBTI assessment for the first time, I definitely related to the ENFP profile more than anything.

But then… then I had that dream-job gone bad. And it stopped everything in its tracks.

The job was supposed to be the perfect fit: I was a tour guide traveling around the world and leading families on “magical” vacations.

But I began to discover just how much I valued my alone time. Or not just valued it — needed it.

Because of the hectic schedule with touring, I barely had 6 hours a day to myself — and that included sleeping at night in addition to all the other stuff I had to do. All hours of the day were spent catering to other people’s needs, interacting with them, and preparing for the next experience. Because of the nature of the situation, I was having mostly superficial conversations. And after a week and a half, there would be nearly 50 more new people to do the same thing with all over again.

I couldn’t process it all. There was so much stimulation, so much going on. Everything was moving too fast and I was drained. And not just because the schedule was so hectic, but because there was no time for me to recharge. There was no time for me to really reflect, to sit back a little and process. It was all schedules, movement, organization, and little sleep.

I became a shell of myself. I became really depressed, although I tried not to show it while in front of the people I was leading. I felt like I deserved an Oscar for the acting job I was doing. But it was exhausting — draining at a soul-level — to pretend the day away. I was hardcore faking it and I had no time to process or reconcile it all.

If we go back to the Personality Hacker example, where being an introvert is like tallying up your interactions in the outer world against a ledger, then I was making a whole lot of transactions without checking my account. And I was severely overdrawn.

That experience made me see myself and just life in general differently. But back to the specific topic at hand: introversion. That experience made me think: wait a minute? Am I more introverted than I thought?

And of course, we have my experiences in grad school as well. I thought I would be so extroverted and walk into it being so social, especially after having some great work experiences that boosted my confidence after my stint as a tour guide.

But instead, I found the environment of my business-oriented program to be untrustworthy. Even though I can be a competitive person, it’s usually through fun pursuits. I’m competitive at board games and through performance.

However, I did not like the values I saw being put on a pedestal in that program; they seemed so opposite of my own.

I didn’t like how money was the center of conversations or how people found their worth. I felt like people made friends with other people based on what they could earn per hour. And it wasn’t so much that I didn’t feel that people wanted to be my friend or I couldn’t “succeed” in that environment, but more that I felt like I couldn’t trust people. I felt like a lot of people seemed like “users,” like they just wanted connections for what people could do for them, rather than what those people were truly like.

In that environment, I shut down. I didn’t feel open to be myself. I didn’t feel like my contributions were genuinely valued. Even if people said all the right things to me and expressed an interest in me, their words felt largely disingenuous.

And so, I had a bit of an identity crisis. If I had found myself while in college — my true, outgoing self — then why wasn’t she showing up in grad school?

If I was such a great extrovert, then why was I having trouble opening up? Shouldn’t I be “myself” no matter what kind of environment I was in?

However, with reflection and digging into thought-hobbies like MBTI and the Enneagram, I’ve realized: I was being myself. And something I have seen from when I was a teeny tiny tot until now, in my late twenties, is that: if I am uncomfortable, I’m not opening up.

To be honest, I have always been sort of slow to open up in new situations (with the exception of a few) and if I don’t feel like I will genuinely be accepted, then I keep my walls and guard up.

Does that make me an introvert? It’s something I’m still on the fence about. I know it doesn’t have to be either/or and that I don’t need a label to define me. But I still find it interesting (and perplexing) to think about.