Top 10 Introvert Myths

There’s no short­age of intro­vert myths.

I enjoy being intro­ver­ted, and I’ve nev­er under­stood all the fuss about being an extro­vert. If noth­ing else, isn’t it great that we’re different?

Still, there are plenty of mis­con­cep­tions about what it means to be an introvert.

Therefore, I was glad to find the book The Introvert Advantage (How To Thrive in an Extrovert World) by Marti Laney, and from there, I found Carl Kingdom, who, based on Laney’s book, has com­piled a list of ten widely spread myths about introverts.

Here are excerpts describ­ing these intro­vert myths:

Myth 1: Introverts Don’t Like To Talk

“This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have some­thing to say. They hate small talk. Get an intro­vert talk­ing about some­thing they are inter­ested in, and they won’t shut up for days.”

I like to talk, and I often lead meet­ings and work­shops. I often get up on stage to speak in front of hun­dreds of people at the time. I don’t mind stand­ing up in a room full of strangers to make my case. However, if I have noth­ing sub­stan­tial to add, I say nothing. 

This is espe­cially true if I already want the social situ­ation to be over.

Myth 2: Introverts Are Shy

“Shyness has noth­ing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not neces­sar­ily afraid of people. What they need is a reas­on to inter­act. They don’t inter­act for the sake of inter­act­ing. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talk­ing. Don’t worry about being polite.”

This, in my opin­ion, is the worst intro­vert myth. I love to give advice, but I also know that unso­li­cited advice is a waste of breath. And if there’s no interest in what I might have to say, that’s fine, too. I’m not eas­ily offen­ded, and I don’t mind being quiet.

Myth 3: Introverts Are Rude

“Introverts often don’t see a reas­on for beat­ing around the bush with social pleas­ant­ries. They want every­one to just be real and hon­est. Unfortunately, this is not accept­able in most set­tings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pres­sure to fit in, which they find exhausting.”

Well, I’ve learned to fake social pleas­ant­ries. It’s exhaust­ing, but mak­ing the situ­ation uncom­fort­able for oth­ers might pro­long the social inter­ac­tion. I don’t con­sider myself rude, but I don’t want to be per­ceived as rude.

Myth 4: Introverts Don’t Like People

“On the con­trary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand. If you are lucky enough for an intro­vert to con­sider you a friend, you prob­ably have a loy­al ally for life. Once you have earned their respect as being a per­son of sub­stance, you’re in.”

So, I nev­er expect any­one to be excel­lent at everything. I don’t expect to like every facet of someone’s per­son­al­ity — and I don’t hope any­one to enjoy every aspect of mine. I want to think that I’m pragmatic.

Myth 5: Introverts Don’t Like To Go Out In Public

“Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in pub­lic FOR AS LONG. They also like to avoid the com­plic­a­tions that are involved in pub­lic activ­it­ies. They take in data and exper­i­ences very quickly, and as a res­ult, don’t need to be there for long to “get it.” They’re ready to go home, recharge, and pro­cess it all. In fact, rechar­ging is abso­lutely cru­cial for Introverts.”

The more people in a pub­lic set­ting, the more com­plex I prefer the inter­ac­tion. This is why I’m not too fond of con­certs; enjoy­ing music is a chal­len­ging exper­i­ence and, there­fore, best done alone.

Myth 6: Introverts Always Want To Be Alone

“Introverts are per­fectly com­fort­able with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They day­dream. They like to have prob­lems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incred­ibly lonely if they don’t have any­one to share their dis­cov­er­ies with. They crave an authen­t­ic and sin­cere con­nec­tion with ONE PERSON at a time.”

My think­ing goes like this: Since I’m deeply inter­ested in people, espe­cially when it comes to psy­cho­lo­gies and beha­viours, why would­n’t I prefer to con­nect with one per­son at a time? I don’t see the magic in spread­ing my atten­tion too thin.

Myth 7: Introverts Are Weird

“Introverts are often indi­vidu­al­ists. They don’t fol­low the crowd. They’d prefer to be val­ued for their nov­el ways of liv­ing. They think for them­selves, and because of that, they often chal­lenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is pop­u­lar or trendy.”

I don’t think that I’m an indi­vidu­al­ist by choice. I think first — and then I com­pare. And quite often, this think­ing turns out to be some­what dif­fer­ent from the norm. Once this pro­cess has occurred, I can­’t change my mind to con­form to exist­ing major­it­ies who have reached dif­fer­ent conclusions.

Myth 8: Introverts Are Aloof Nerds

“Introverts are people who primar­ily look inward, pay­ing close atten­tion to their thoughts and emo­tions. It’s not that they are incap­able of pay­ing atten­tion to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stim­u­lat­ing and reward­ing to them.”

I often find spe­cif­ic activ­it­ies that spark my interest, and when this hap­pens, I like to dive deep­er into them. I can appre­ci­ate that oth­er people prefer to breeze through many types of activ­it­ies; there are bene­fits to that, too.

Myth 9: Introverts Don’t Know How To Relax and Have Fun

“Introverts typ­ic­ally relax at home or in nature, not in busy pub­lic places. Introverts are not thrill seekers and adren­aline junkies. If there is too much talk­ing and noise going on, they shut down. Their brains are too sens­it­ive to the neur­o­trans­mit­ter called Dopamine. Introverts and Extroverts have dif­fer­ent dom­in­ant neuro-path­ways. Just look it up.”

It’s often prob­lem­at­ic for my friends to under­stand that I can be alone and have tons of fun inside my head for hours. It might look isol­ated from the out­set, but that’s only how it comes across.

Myth 10: Introverts Can Fix Themselves and Become Extroverts

“A world without Introverts would be a world with few sci­ent­ists, musi­cians, artists, poets, film­makers, doc­tors, math­em­aticians, writers, and philo­soph­ers. That being said, there are still plenty of tech­niques an Extrovert can learn in order to inter­act with Introverts. (Yes, I reversed these two terms on pur­pose to show you how biased our soci­ety is.) Introverts can­not “fix them­selves” and deserve respect for their nat­ur­al tem­pera­ment and con­tri­bu­tions to the human race. In fact, one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the per­cent­age of Introverts increases with IQ.”

Sure, I can fake being extro­ver­ted. I often do this. As long as I get to recharge, I don’t see this as a sig­ni­fic­ant prob­lem. We must all adapt to our sur­round­ings — that’s an evol­u­tion­ary pre­requis­ite. But nat­ur­al vari­ation is an evol­u­tion­ary strength, too.