At my cousin’s wedding last weekend, we played a little game.
The DJ/emcee asked everyone to pass a dollar around the table; the person stuck holding the dollar bill when the music stopped would get to take home the centerpiece. At least, that was the implication. Instead, the person holding the bill was eliminated from the game, the music started up again, and the dollar bill went sailing around the table once more. Eventually, it landed in my hands.
“Now,” the DJ/emcee said, “if you’re holding the dollar bill I want you to come to the dance floor and form a line. When the music starts, I want you to give the dollar bill to the bride and groom while showing off your best dance moves.” “WHAT?” I screamed, as everyone at my table roared with laughter and got out their cameras. My natural inclination, of course, was to hide under the table. Performing in front of people is only my phobia, and it doesn’t help when it involves something I’m bad at, like dancing. But when you’re at a wedding you’re supposed to be a good sport about stuff like this, and so, heart pounding, I made my way to the dance floor.
The fact is, I do not like to be the center of attention. I do not like to be put on the spot. In school, I never, ever spoke in class, and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to star on a reality TV show, or, for that matter, share their life story with a reporter. I don’t appreciate it when people tell me to smile more, or that I’m too quiet, or that I seem sad. Well-meaning efforts to draw me out of my shell usually make me feel like retreating back inside of it.
My phobia isn’t a phobia so much as an intrinsic aspect of my personality. I am, you see, an introvert. This means that social settings make me tired, and that after an evening out I need time to recuperate. It’s not that I don’t like being around people. Sometimes I love it. But after a weekend with friends or family, I often find myself looking forward to the long drive home alone. Solitude is a source of delight.
Though being shy is not the same thing as being an introvert, many introverts, myself included, are shy. The way I cope with my fears is through practice and preparation — by reading speeches aloud before I deliver them, or studying up on a subject. That’s why the dollar game bill caused such anxiety — there was no time to practice my best dance moves, or even figure out what they were. I just had to get up there and do them.
Extroverts, in contrast, find other people energizing. They don’t like to be alone. They are dynamic, and can light up room. One of my most extroverted friends served as the mascot at the University of Vermont, spent a semester at Disney World giving tours and briefly contemplated starting a professional mascot business. You’d certainly never catch me doing any of those things, except in my nightmares.
My introversion has been causing problems ever since I was a child. My kindergarten teacher recommended I attend an extra grade called readiness, rather than go directly to the first grade, because I was “socially withdrawn” and had “poor motor coordination.” My mother conceded that perhaps readiness would do me some good, but remembers observing, “She is always going to be that way.” Recently I asked her whether she ever played with me as a child, because I keep encountering these parents who play with their children and I can’t recall my mom doing much of that, and she said, “You played by yourself more than most children.” So it’s not that my mom wouldn’t play with me — it’s that I wouldn’t play with her. I also spent a good deal of time playing with my imaginary friends, Waxy and Jenny — so much time, that an old friend of mine remembers me ditching her to go hang out with Waxy and Jenny in the woods.
Eventually I learned to accept my introversion, because there’s really nothing that can be done about it, and because I now have a better understanding of what it means to be an introvert. My friend Dave, also an introvert, believes that the world is biased against introverts, and maybe he’s right, as introverts only make up an estimated 25 to 35 percent of the population. In a world where so much is based on networking and making chit-chat at cocktail parties, we’re at a distinct disadvantage.
Writer Jonathan Rauch attempted to address this in a 2003 essay in The Atlantic titled “Caring for Your Introvert.” “The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put through,” he wrote. “Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books — written, no doubt, by extroverts — regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward.” (You can read the entire article here.)
Anyway, after gamely participating in the dollar bill dance at the wedding I thought that perhaps I could sit out the bouquet toss, but alas, it was not to be. The bride scanned the room, pointed out all the people who were hiding in the back, and got the DJ/emcee to call us back to the dance floor. It made me think about how so many of these wedding rituals are simply designed to embarrass single people, but perhaps that’s a topic for another column.
Are you an introvert and afraid to admit it? Comment below or e-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.
Foss Forward makes a weekly appearance in print, in The Gazette’s Saturday Lifestyles section.
