Seven reasons why it’s great to be an introvert and having introverted friends

Many of us are introverts but are in denial about this and trying fervently to be extroverted, pushing ourselves to exhaustion trying to make small talk about bullshit that doesn’t matter, often dealing with obnoxious people who have loud voices and often (but not always) boring and generic thoughts on the world.

Here’s a list inspired by a conversation I was having on here with a fellow blogger recently. It’s actually really fun to be an introvert if you have a couple of friends who are also introverted. Or you may actually have one particularly special and amazing introverted person who you can spend time with. This kind of arrangement can be a win-win for introverts who congregate together.

1. No bullshit conversations: You can discuss things that really matter like geopolitics, or AI, the future of the internet, or psychology or Zen Buddhism, consciousness whatever and not have to discuss sports, the weather or any other lame topic that is the typical default topics that most people use to fill the silence.
2. Comfortable silence: You can have comfortable moments of silence, or co-exist together in large tracts of silence with no awkwardness.
3. Just chilling: You don’t have to be ‘on’ with this person/group of people and can instead languish in reflective mode, just chilling out without having to try too hard, do or say anything.
4. Low maintenance: You don’t need to commit to spending time with your introvert friend, because they don’t expect this of you. Infact they appreciate independence, time by themselves as much as you do. It is therefore great because you can both be non-clingy friends together and place zero pressure on each other.
5. Secret world: If you are with introverted friends, things can tend to default to become a secret world that is only understandable to those in the inner circle, replete with its own memes, language, sense of humour and shared memories.
6. You really know each other: Introverts rarely open up to the outside world fully, and yet with introverted friends you can gain unprecendented access to the person in a privileged way. It becomes an honour and a privilege.
7. Together you are stronger: With your keen powers of perception, intuition and insight that being introverted gives you, x 2 you can gain unprecedented insight into the way things are, and in certain ways, you can push each other to become even more genuinely yourself.

Shyness is nice, shyness can stop you, from doing all the things in life that you’d like to…

[Unless you find others who are quiet like you]

Morrissey and Content Catnip

It’s not that extroversion is bad, it’s the way the entire world communicates and runs after all. Extroversion is the YANG energy. The active energy of doing. But often the quieter people, in touch with the YIN energy of ‘being’ rather than doing, who are far more compelling, complex and full of surprises.