I’m an introverted person coming from an introverted family of computer programmers, bike mechanics and accountants. On top of that, introversion is quite accepted in the country I come from, which is probably one of the most introverted countries in Europe.
As a consequence, I never saw my introversion as a problem. I only ever had introverted friends and my strategy with dealing with extroverts was simply to avoid them. Of course, I did not do this consciously and I never thought about the introvert/extrovert divide in any detail. There were just noisy and self-confident people I did not like and that did not like me either and I stayed away from them.
In the last two year, this has changed. My colleagues are mostly Northern Americans and some Dutch, which are decidedly more extroverted cultures like the one I am coming from, and most of them are either extroverted or act like them. The introverted people at our institute are so freaked out by the extroverted culture that they have mostly totally gone into hiding.
Consequently, I have been spending a lot of time with extroverts for the first time in my life, which has been surprisingly difficult.
Of course, maybe there are extroverts which are different, but my extroverted colleagues just seems to want to get as much airtime as possible, telling their stories, presenting themselves in a good light, and no real conversation ever seems to occur. People do not ask each other follow-up question. There is never a real, honest reaction to what someone else says. When I spend time with extroverts, I am first entertained to some degree, but then things start to feel increasingly unreal to me. I feel like no actual contact between human beings is occurring, I feel like everyone is totally on their own and that scares me. I start to crave human connection. I try to ask questions, to give an honest reaction to something someone says, but I continually feel like I am sand in a machine which has a purpose that I just don’t get. After an evening with extroverts, I honestly feel like life has no meaning. Probably because for me the meaning of life is people understanding and empathizing with each other, which most extroverts are not very interested in.
The truth is that given my upbringing I cannot avoid seeing the extroverts as the ones being not normal and deficient to some degree. How sad that they cannot listen to each other, that they do not tolerate being alone well, that they always want to have more people around them to distract them from some kind of inner emptiness. I wonder if they are unable to be really close to another human being and I feel sorry for them.
Of course, the extroverts coming from extroverted cultures, on the other hand, are convinced that they are like people are supposed to be, and my way of being introverted and not trying to at least appear to be extroverted, seems to irritate them greatly. I am probably not very good at hiding when I am annoyed or bored with the conversation, and when I say my opinion it is often the opposite of what every one else is thinking. Consequently I get comments about “being negative” or even “being aggressive”, and it is clear from many small signs that my colleagues do not really like me. This was, I think, what triggered my social anxiety and what made me so unhappy during my time here.
At the moment, I mostly stay away from my extroverted colleagues. I eat lunch alone, I avoid coffee breaks, I have stopped going out with them. To an extrovert, that sounds probably like a massive disaster, but it is a huge relief to me and I feel more at peace with myself. It is as if I have tried to have a conversation with another species for two years, and it never worked out in the least. I am just glad to be able to accept this now. It is neither their fault, nor mine. It is just a huge cultural difference that I cannot get over. Now that I know, it seems very interesting to me that the Dutch and Northern American cultures are so different than my own. Their preference for extroversion that is so strong that even most scientist are extroverts or try to behave like they are. I always believed that scientists must be introverts by default, but apparently I was completely wrong.
hi there, I feel you.. this is exactly what I’m going through as well. When you realized that your extroverted or seemingly extroverted friends are incompatible with you.. maybe I should just learn to be at peace with myself
I am an introvert from North America, so I’ve been dealing with this problem you describe my whole life. That thing you said about sand in a machine you don’t understand? Your inability to be fake? I completely relate to those feelings. Did they also always look at you as though you had sprouted tentacles when you asked your questions and expressed differing opinions? By choosing to stay away from them, I think you have found the best solution. Best of luck to you.
Thank you. I exactly know what you mean with feeling like you have sprouted tentacles. Sometimes in social events I go to the bathroom, look in the mirror and am surprised that I still look like a normal human being.
Hey there,
I’m working in research as well, just graduated and in my first job as a research assistant. I definitely have the same problems you talked about, and had real trouble settling in and relating to anyone during the first few months, everyone just seemed so loud and fake. There aren’t any cubicles in the office, just long desks, and any conversation you have can be heard by everyone else, who can then chip in (and are often expected to). I still feel really weird and conscious at times, and even sometimes feel like I’m almost having a panic attack when I’m expected to respond to something the whole office is listening in to.
It has gotten better with time though.. Avoiding everyone and not going out for lunch and stuff really didn’t work for me, since this is an incredibly social lab and I didn’t want to stand out in a bad way either. I guess everyone’s gotten used to me being less jumpy and excitable than they are. Also, having gotten to know them, I realised they are actually really nice and decent people, who just happen to be very loud.. Most of the time I find I can get out of feeling anxious in conversations by asking questions about their lives, and extroverts are more than happy to prattle on, and leave me with some breathing space to listen and settle in to a conversation.
Yeah, I always felt I’d be happy in science because I could just do my own thing and not ever have to work in a group. Its really not like that, research now requires a lot of collaborations and social interactions. On the bright side, I realised this can help me when I get stuck during an experiment. Being on friendly terms with people at work makes it less awkward for me to ask for help and I’ve seen others are definitely more willing to help once they got to know me better personally. Some really do go out of their way which will of course helps with the science- and I always try and treat them to a coffee afterwards
Yup that’s just what I’ve observed so far
Oh yea, me being very introverted, and some family members being very extroverted, I’ve had too many clashes to handle that I think ended up lowering all of our self-esteem. If only people could get some education about this in school and learn how to talk to others and stuff. Thanks.
i’m a big introvert! i feel your pain and related to this post in so many ways! http://newfaculty.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/introvert-in-an-extrovert-world/
i blogged about it too last year!
Very late to this party… A lot of it is cultural. I have been in the US for nearly 14 years, and I still cannot get over the superficiality of the interpersonal interactions (at least in the part of the country I am in). As you say, there is no honest human interaction, it’s just exchanging pleasantries. Extroverts also smother you to death with their self-centeredness, but American academic introverts are vaguely pleasant but really clammed up and you can’t penetrate their inner sanctum. I am going to posit that Americans as a culture are actually very guarded — they will chat/do small talk with anyone, but they will never talk about real stuff (or at least not for a very very long time, until they get to know you very, very well).
I have the same impression about Americans being very guarded in some way. When working with Southern or Central Europeans, it is normal to quickly find out about some of their personal life, like health problems, relationship with parents etc. The Americans always seem to be hiding themselves behind jokes. Maybe it is because they are so afraid to appear “negative”. To me they appear teflon-like and I feel like I don’t know them at all after spending hours and hours with them, which frustrates me a lot.
I love this thread. Me: American expat science geek in the Netherlands. I feel the same way about americans…and myself…that it is quite difficult to open up to people about personal things because it does appear quite negative. Also I have a huge fear of being judged for my personal life stuff. My experience with other expats from Europe is that everyone has their guard up though….and it is quite superficial conversation with everyone in work. The key to opening up is to just hit up a borrel or pub with colleagues and have some drinks. It’s amazing how fast you can get to know the people you see everyday.
Very interesting post. I’m really curious as to where you are from, though you seem to intentionally avoid saying! Your country sounds like it might suit me! I’m a rather introverted scientist from the UK, and have spent time in Germany, the US, the Netherlands, Sweden and Poland. Of all those, the people in Poland seemed the most genuine and pleasant. The Americans seemed to be either bombastic egotists or pretty nice actually. It’s actually been in the Netherlands (most), then Germany, the UK and Sweden where I’ve felt most under pressure to be more outgoing, though that was there in the US too. The main problem with the Netherlands/Germany was that the Dutch and the Germans would actually explicitly criticize my introversion, whereas the British, Swedes and Americans (the nice ones) were generally too polite to do so.