For those of you who may not know, an extroverted introvert is someone who may have the social skills of an extrovert, but have the mentality of an introvert. Being an extroverted introvert myself, I can say that this social lifestyle can be the best of both worlds. One moment we could be out in the social world, chatting it up with friends or dancing like a fool at a party, and then the next moment we're curled up in bed, ignoring the world around us at all costs.
With being a shy yet outgoing person, there are some things we extroverted introverts would love for the rest of the world to know so you can understand how our weird, social, and shy brains function.
After hours, or even days, of being around people, we NEED our alone time.
I honestly catch myself relating to Squidward during some social outings. But in all seriousness, this might be the most important thing to know about us extroverted introverts. We're not trying to be rude when we don't answer your texts after a night out, we just need some time to chill out! Our social batteries can be drained quick. After long hours of being around people, we need time for some R&R. A dream day for the day after a big social event may include sleeping, watching Netflix, and maybe going on an errands run alone. That's a huge maybe, though.
We can be social if we have to, but that doesn’t mean we want to.
There are some days where we have to attend social events like parties, brunches, or meetings. On the outside, we may seem cheerful and willing to talk to anyone there, but trust me. We can be faking it to the max. It's not that we are don't care about what is being said, we just aren't in the mood to be around people.
Just because we are at a party or in a huge crowd does not mean our “extrovert” switch will come on.
Don't get me wrong, we love a party scene from time to time, but other times we just like to sit back and watch what is happening around us. People watching? YES. PLEASE. We are not angry in these moments, we just don't feel like talking. Of course there will be times when we can be the life of the party, but then there are times we want to be the bystanders, especially around a new group of people!
Sometimes our introverted side gets the best of us
Personally, this happens quite often. When we have a few days of alone time, we can get anxious about returning to the social world. We've enjoyed this time alone for so long that we just want to stay away from people for weeks. It takes us some time to warm back up to the social life, but once we get there, we are right back to normal! (Also, P!nk is totally me returning to the social world after spending days in social isolation.)
We prefer hanging out one-on-one rather than in a large group.
Hanging out in a large group can be highly exhausting for us, especially if it's with new people or people we don't normally hang out with. When we hang out one-on-one, we feel like we can chill out more. Because of this, it feels like we have such a large diversity of friends. We have friends who we can do nothing with, friends who we can party with, and friends who we can just hang out with. Then there are those special friends who can do all three!
When we want alone time, we mean 100% isolation from everything and everyone.
We aren't ignoring your text messages or phone calls, we just can't handle any more contact with the outside world. Sometimes even texting seems like a lot of talking on a day to day basis, so please don't hate us if we don't respond right away. We all need our Netflix and snacking days.
We hate being the center of attention.
Some people tend to assume that because we show a fun, outgoing side, means we love the attention that comes along with it. That is far from the truth. Half of the time, we prefer to hang out in the background and not be recognized. If we do get recognized, we can act like we don't mind, but on the inside, we are panicking.
We love making others happy, and that can be frustrating at times.
This may be the worst one for me. We say we don't mind attending social events for our families and friends, but we really want to be by ourselves in our rooms. We exhaust ourselves and eventually crash and go back into social isolation.
No matter how many struggles we face, we wouldn't want to live any other way.
No matter how all over the place our social skills may be on a day-to-day basis, we wouldn't trade this lifestyle at all! It really is like we are Hannah Montana and living the best of both worlds.
