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You seem to be framing the issue as a rational rather than emotional problem -- i.e., not knowing the social conventions. I don't buy it. Stick an extroverted

You seem to be framing the issue as a rational rather than emotional problem -- i.e., not knowing the social conventions. I don't buy it. Stick an extroverted people person and an introverted shy guy in an unfamiliar social situation (in a foreign country, say). The way they deal with it will differ greatly. The extrovert will plow ahead, not worry too much about making mistakes, and figure out how to play the social game pretty quickly. The introvert will probably be too scared of doing things wrong to even start. Learning to play the social game is not hard: make eye contact, open your mouth, and start talking. Building the courage to actually do it is hard. That's crux for most shy people (as it was for me). If you're out there talking to people and still can't find shared context, then you're not shy, you're just talking to the wrong people. Time to seek out different social gatherings. For those that have difficulty learning from social interactions (autistic spectrum folks), things may admittedly be different. This is outside my experience so I can't speak to it.

bkovitz 18y ago
Indeed I am framing this as a rational rather than emotional problem. I think you made a very good point about the difference in the way extraverts and introverts enter new social situations. That really does make a huge difference: just dive in, mess up, and adjust (a lot like, say, running a start-up). That will get the learning process going. I think there's another element, though: that incomprehension of "lite" social interaction. Regarding the courage hypothesis, here's how I've often heard it put: "Oh, don't be afraid, don't care what other people think, just say what you really want to say." To me, this misses what's happening. What's really happening is simply not having a clue how to participate. A dial tone on the brain. The reason, if I pick up a guitar, I don't play music, isn't because I'm afraid to, but because I don't know how to play guitar. I tried going to bars a bunch (I seem to have lots of social courage), but I didn't really get anywhere until some friends explained various social protocols: posture, how to make physical contact, how to pick out clothes, what to not talk about (decorators in Python, cryonics), etc. Here's a weird piece of evidence: extraverts have exactly the same feeling of disorientation in our world. Get a strong extravert into a conversation that pursues something in depth (not so much breadth), and they get a dial tone on the brain, too. They quickly bail, the same way introverts bail out of social situations. Hmm... mild autism. Maybe that's what I've got (and many other shy, geeky people). That's a new angle, and it might be right. Another possibility: optimal stimulation level.
- rms 18y ago
  Mild autism is too harsh of a term for most shy, geeky people I think. Things like this in psychology are a bell curved spectrum. Being a little to the left or right doesn't mean you are autistic, it just means you have more characteristics that are associated with one side of the spectrum or another.
deleted 18y ago
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bkovitz 18y ago

Indeed I am framing this as a rational rather than emotional problem. I think you made a very good point about the difference in the way extraverts and introverts enter new social situations. That really does make a huge difference: just dive in, mess up, and adjust (a lot like, say, running a start-up). That will get the learning process going. I think there's another element, though: that incomprehension of "lite" social interaction. Regarding the courage hypothesis, here's how I've often heard it put: "Oh, don't be afraid, don't care what other people think, just say what you really want to say." To me, this misses what's happening. What's really happening is simply not having a clue how to participate. A dial tone on the brain. The reason, if I pick up a guitar, I don't play music, isn't because I'm afraid to, but because I don't know how to play guitar. I tried going to bars a bunch (I seem to have lots of social courage), but I didn't really get anywhere until some friends explained various social protocols: posture, how to make physical contact, how to pick out clothes, what to not talk about (decorators in Python, cryonics), etc. Here's a weird piece of evidence: extraverts have exactly the same feeling of disorientation in our world. Get a strong extravert into a conversation that pursues something in depth (not so much breadth), and they get a dial tone on the brain, too. They quickly bail, the same way introverts bail out of social situations. Hmm... mild autism. Maybe that's what I've got (and many other shy, geeky people). That's a new angle, and it might be right. Another possibility: optimal stimulation level.

rms 18y ago
Mild autism is too harsh of a term for most shy, geeky people I think. Things like this in psychology are a bell curved spectrum. Being a little to the left or right doesn't mean you are autistic, it just means you have more characteristics that are associated with one side of the spectrum or another.

deleted 18y ago

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