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I was introverted my entire life. I enjoyed it. I never really needed any contact with others except for a small circle of people and that too quite infrequentl

I was introverted my entire life. I enjoyed it. I never really needed any contact with others except for a small circle of people and that too quite infrequently. I definitely recharge by being alone. Sitting in front of my favorite book, listening to music, watching a movie... doing all of these activities alone were something I always looked forward to. Walking along the beach coast, driving a motorcycle all alone were some of my most memorable activities. Then. I got into a relationship briefly for around 6 months. She was extroverted. After 6 months I slowly became gregarious. I enjoyed being around people and going out. I enjoyed building a community of people around me. My entire personality changed. Those who knew me from years back were surprised by my transformation. Previously, I wouldn't say much but now I can talk quite a bit. Its night and day. The problem with labeling oneself is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes your identity and you start putting limitations on yourself. My life was good as an introvert but it was great when I became outgoing. Aaron Swartz had a similar experience. " I believe fervently that intelligence can change and that talents can be learned. Indeed, I’d say I’m almost pathologically growth mindset. But even I began to notice there are some things I have a fixed mindset about. For example, I used to think I was introverted. Everyone had always told me that you were either an extroverted person or an introverted person. From a young age, I was quite shy and bookish, so it seemed obvious: I was an introvert. But as I’ve grown, I’ve found that’s hardly the end of the story. I’ve started to get good at leading a conversation or cracking people up with a joke. I like telling stories at a party a story or buzzing about a room saying ‘hi’ to people. I get a rush from it! Sure, I’m still not the most party-oriented person I know, but I no longer think we fit into any neat introversion/extroversion buckets."

moe091 4y ago
Carl Jung, the first person to create a personality typology and to popularize(create?) the introvert/extrovert dichotomy, insisted that engaging your "opposite" type is important for personal growth. "Live what you have not yet lived." That said, he also believed that people do have relatively fixed personality types on a fundamental level - you have both traits(introversion and extraversion) but are inclined to express one more than the other. I don't know if he thought it was impossible to drastically change from one end of the spectrum to the other on a fundamental level, but I know he spoke of cases where peoples superior trait was suppressed(e.g an extrovert might suppress their extroversion if they had bad/traumatic experiences interacting with the outer world) - in those case someone can appear to be an introvert and then reclaim their natural extroversion later in life after dealing with the underlying complex related to their suppression. That's just based on his model of the psyche though - maybe he's wrong and there is no real difference fundamentally, and intro/extrovert is simply a matter of what you express throughout your life without some deeper aspect of the personality guiding it, but his explanation makes more sense to me
tarboreus 4y ago
Yeah, I also made the switch. It was something like a ten-year process, and I have a lot more relationships and connections from pushing myself a bit to be more outgoing and social. With the changes in behavior my personality shifted as well, and I now like a balance of intro and extro to recharge.
mft_ 4y ago
You’re replying to a post about the frequent misuse of “introversion”, and are (I believe) misusing the term in the manner discussed, yourself :)
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  It was mentioned above that in USA there's a forced meme that introverts should be extraverts, it was just an instance of that astroturfing.
dwallin 4y ago
I went through something similar in high school and college, my personal theory is that extroversion is very similar in a lot of ways to physical fitness. Some people are naturally predisposed to a higher baseline, it's easier for them to maintain muscle mass, etc. However most people can significantly improve their fitness level with dedicated effort. If you are in good physical shape something like going for a short run might be a massive mood/energy boost, but for someone out of shape they will find themselves exhausted very quickly.

moe091 4y ago

Carl Jung, the first person to create a personality typology and to popularize(create?) the introvert/extrovert dichotomy, insisted that engaging your "opposite" type is important for personal growth. "Live what you have not yet lived." That said, he also believed that people do have relatively fixed personality types on a fundamental level - you have both traits(introversion and extraversion) but are inclined to express one more than the other. I don't know if he thought it was impossible to drastically change from one end of the spectrum to the other on a fundamental level, but I know he spoke of cases where peoples superior trait was suppressed(e.g an extrovert might suppress their extroversion if they had bad/traumatic experiences interacting with the outer world) - in those case someone can appear to be an introvert and then reclaim their natural extroversion later in life after dealing with the underlying complex related to their suppression. That's just based on his model of the psyche though - maybe he's wrong and there is no real difference fundamentally, and intro/extrovert is simply a matter of what you express throughout your life without some deeper aspect of the personality guiding it, but his explanation makes more sense to me

tarboreus 4y ago

Yeah, I also made the switch. It was something like a ten-year process, and I have a lot more relationships and connections from pushing myself a bit to be more outgoing and social. With the changes in behavior my personality shifted as well, and I now like a balance of intro and extro to recharge.

mft_ 4y ago

You’re replying to a post about the frequent misuse of “introversion”, and are (I believe) misusing the term in the manner discussed, yourself :)

GoblinSlayer 4y ago
It was mentioned above that in USA there's a forced meme that introverts should be extraverts, it was just an instance of that astroturfing.

dwallin 4y ago

I went through something similar in high school and college, my personal theory is that extroversion is very similar in a lot of ways to physical fitness. Some people are naturally predisposed to a higher baseline, it's easier for them to maintain muscle mass, etc. However most people can significantly improve their fitness level with dedicated effort. If you are in good physical shape something like going for a short run might be a massive mood/energy boost, but for someone out of shape they will find themselves exhausted very quickly.