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I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contented
by fernly 3y ago
I think the word that Rosenstock was searching for, was "Introvert"[1]. I'm an introvert who had the good fortune to marry another introvert, and live contentedly with her for 40+ years. Following her death a few years ago I reflected on the differences between being part of a couple, and being solitary. There were many.
Health maintenance was one; somebody else in this thread has already commented on married men living longer. It works both ways, too. Each partner keeps tabs on the other, notices problems, encourages them to stick to health resolutions, etc. Plus you both are much less likely to forget things or miss appointments, because the other one is there to say, "Didn't you say..." or "Weren't you going to...?" and so on.
There were other, more subtle but still powerful effects. In general, I and my wife, as a couple, were a bolder, smarter, more adventurous "person" than either of us was alone.
So my advice to Rosenstock would be to seek another dedicated introvert. Of course it's hard to get their attention...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraversion_and_introversion
"Introversion is the state of primarily obtaining gratification from one's own mental life". There is a considerable popular literature on the benefits and drawbacks of being introverted.
- amelius 3y ago> "Introversion is the state of primarily obtaining gratification from one's own mental life". If this is true, then why do we find so many introverts in online forums?
- bayindirh 3y agoBeing an introvert doesn’t mean they don’t like to share or communicate. It means they don’t crave real world human interaction as much. I’m also an introvert. I like to communicate at my own pace. Online forums allows me to do that. I can leisurely check for progress on the discussion where I participate, or don’t check at all, after adding my two cents.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoAt the risk of everyone wanting my head on a pike: A. We don't really know what introversion and extroversion are. B. The higher the IQ, the more likely they are to qualify for the label "introvert." So in at least some cases, it's possible smart people just give up on trying to connect socially because they get a lot of negative feedback from other people and it's mostly downside for them, so they stop bothering. Most people marry people within about 10 IQ points of themselves. If you are "introverted" because talking at most people is an extremely negative experience due to you having a high IQ, it's not unrealistic to shoot for finding a means to connect with someone of similar IQ in hopes of establishing a relationship. If your IQ is high enough, odds are good they will also be labeled "an introvert" by the world. Please note this is not saying "introversion indicates high IQ." That's not what it says at all.
- hgsgm 3y agoI suspect introversion is correlated with my IQ because high IQ people enjoy thinking, and thinking is easier when you're by yourself without distractions.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoI think it's more complicated than that. I did volunteer work eons ago for tagfam.org and I test as a middle-of-the-road extrovert but spend a lot of time in geeky circles where most people are basically painfully shy and many people interpret my middle-of-the-road extroversion as "God, what a ridiculous attention monger!!!!!" I've gotten enough negative feedback over it, I spend less time on forums than I used to. I'm not an introvert but even I eventually give up on bothering if it's mostly downside.
- User23 3y agoIt can be isolating when one has thoughts and ideas that the people around one simply cannot follow or understand. Of course it’s also often the case that introverts are simply low social status and thus find social interaction generally unrewarding. In that case pretensions of high intelligence are usually just a coping mechanism.
- supriyo-biswas 3y agoYou can also just be labeled as a weirdo and become the target of bullying for sharing your ideas which aren’t well understood by your peers, and therefore you just keep your mouth shut and become an introvert.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoI really think this nails it. My completely unscientific experience (n=1) of having a major mental health breakthrough and “becoming” and extrovert after years testing as an introvert tells me a few things. 1. For a variety of reasons, some people have extreme difficulty making mutually supportive connections and/or have no service familial attachments 2. There are compensating structures in the form of small safe groups that are lower risk or share a common yet outsider connection (obscure music, complex systems, historical or obsolete collections etc…) that lend themselves to a different “pace.” 3. In some cases, a combination of factors, mental health issues, lifestyle and life issues etc… mask a self love that can represent as something shameful in being expressive and thus after perceived or real rejection or failure many people just give up trying to put the effort in and become comfortable in that lifestyle. That’s in the best case however, and assumes you can find an affinity group. Unfortunately it’s getting harder to get people together cause everyone’s just trying to survive they don’t feel like they have time to spend building community.
- nitwit005 3y agoYou can find streamers who will talk about difficulties going outside due to social anxiety problems, and yet are broadcasting themselves live. It's enough of a barrier for them somehow.
- misssocrates 3y agoHow? What's their technique for overcoming the anxiety with a live stream audience?
- xena 3y agoNone of the audience members are in the same room. They're just words on a screen. It's not as "real" in comparison.
- the_gipsy 3y agoMaybe they didn't overcome anything, there are just different sources of anxiety.
- red-iron-pine 3y agoThere is no control outside; via the stream they control visibility, access, set, and setting. Streams are also heavily one-sided; nothing to throw you off. The technique is to control everything, basically.
- watwut 3y agoSocial anxiety are two different things. Much different, you can have social anxiety and be extrovert. Or be introvert and have none.
- randomdata 3y agoNo doubt because forums are entirely about the individual. The prompts that spark one’s own mental state may technically come from other humans, but that is ultimately immaterial. If those prompts were generated by some kind of GPT-like model nothing would change. For all I know you are a GPT model, but it matters not. The entertainment derived from writing this comment is the same. Interaction with real people is a shared experience; something very different.
- layoff_payoff 3y ago> If this is true, then why do we find so many introverts in online forums? I find writing is more cerebral than verbalizing. I can take an idea, interrogate it before putting it in writing - and then read, edit and re-read it before posting. Also - have you considered the number of introverts not posting in online forums vs those who do?
- throwaway290 3y agoBecause mental life is impossible in a vacuum, you are nothing without others even if you are an introvert...
- NoboruWataya 3y agoI think it's because forums are asynchronous and low-commitment. If you find a conversation tedious you can just not reply. Harder to do when you're involved in an in-person conversation with someone. The cited definition from Wikipedia is rather vague and I'm not sure it's entirely accurate. I've always understood introversion vs extraversion as being about where you derive social energy, rather than gratification. I consider myself an introvert. A weekend spent socialising with friends is very gratifying to me, but it is also exhausting, and I am likely to want to spend the next weekend chilling on my own.
- vjerancrnjak 3y agoThat sentence does sound weird. Obtaining gratification from one's own mental life in a significant way, that you do not desire to communicate with others, or that you only like communicating through text where you are free to imagine the personalities of the people you're chatting with, should mean one probably suffers from a personality disorder (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal etc.). If you were to have a partner where you still primarily obtain gratification from your own mental life, I can't imagine how this partner could feel any love from you, if your priority is to be alone with your dreams most of the time.
- shrimp_emoji 3y ago> should mean one probably suffers from a personality disorder (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal etc.). It does not. > If you were to have a partner where you still primarily obtain gratification from your own mental life, I can't imagine how this partner could feel any love from you, if your priority is to be alone with your dreams most of the time. Exactly ;)
- hgsgm 3y ago> I and my wife, as a couple, were a bolder, smarter, more adventurous "person" than either of us was alone. George: "Maybe the two of us, working together at full capacity, could do the job of one normal man."
- notch898b 3y agoMarrying another introvert is great until it leads to offspring. Then the kid sucks and sucks your mental energy for dealing with people to the point you barely even want to interact with the spouse or anyone else.
- joeyfranklin 3y ago> So my advice to Rosenstock would be to seek another dedicated introvert. With respect; why? 40 years ago the future looked very different. None of you felt urgency regarding global warming, faced the same cost of living fiasco, spread of drought, fire, mass migrations, political instability, and whatever conspiracy driven idiocy social media will unleash next. There is no divine mandate humanity carry on a particular way. No reward for sticking it out with these entitled, self aggrandizing creatures.
- effingwewt 3y agoYou statement could be made about literally any time in human history and hold true. It's defeatist. I feel you, sure- but it's like religion or politics- to each their own.
- joeyfranklin 3y agoExactly; why give people long term life advice when “to each their own” and the unknown nature of the future? Why recite one’s personal story as the key to happiness for everyone else? Go away Tony Robbins, Musk, and Dolly Parton; be happy with who you are. The rest of us will do the same without your guidance. It’s a really entitled and selfish energy to constantly emit.
- joeyfranklin 3y ago[flagged]
- joeyfranklin 3y agoPersonally I feel comfortable and content with who I am. If you feel defeated by my words that says more about your emotionally inflated sense of importance, need to be validated
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago40 years ago terrorists blew up something almost weekly worldwide, Russia was genociding a neighboring country all the same, cold war was in full swing, a computer glitch almost caused an all out nuclear war, and 4 million people died of hunger in Ethiopia alone.
- TheNewsIsHere 3y agoHealth maintenance is one I can relate to. I’m at my healthiest weight since my early teenage years, and I regularly visit my dentist, doctor, and ophthalmologist. None of this was the case before my spouse came along. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m glad she so enriched you. :-)
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago>> married men living longer Could it be just healthier and wealthier men getting ringed more often? >> forget things or miss appointments Don't see how that is a problem in the age of smartphones. If you insist on a person, you can hire a virtual assistant for way cheaper than a wife.
- fortissimohn 3y agoYour virtual assistant is not going to remind you of things that you did not devote to telling a virtual assistant in the first place. Your spouse is more likely to help fill in the unintentional places you might have missed in your intentional day to day actions.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y agoWell, it's way easier to replace a bad assistant than a wife.
- trashface 3y agoIntroversion has drastically different effects for men and women in the dating market. An introverted woman will still get approached by men, so even if she intentionally opts out of dating, she can always opt back in pretty much on the fly if a guy she likes approaches her. So she will still get relationships, if she wants them. Introverted men, on the other hand, often just don't pursue women, especially if they have low testosterone (or sex drive) as the OP probably does. Since in most cultures men are expected to do the initial approach, this can translate into very long spells (decades or more) of singleness for them. Even worse, introverted men are often very bad at reading women's signals. Those are often quite subtle, because for extroverted men interested in dating (the majority), women just don't need to signal that much to get results.
- karpierz 3y agoInteresting, I hadn't heard about research into how introversion affects dating outcomes. Can you post the sources you're relying on here? I want to read more on this.
- moi2388 3y agoThere aren’t any, because it’s nonsense. Even introvert and extravert is mainly a myth; during experiments there are no clear measurable differences. One recent study even claimed the only difference was that introverts were slightly smarter. There is also no measured connection between being an introvert and having low testosterone. And in fact around 2/3 of all psychological research cannot be reproduced. Take any psychological claim with a giant pinch of salt.
- karpierz 3y agoThat's my base assumption, but I figured my message would be more likely to create a dialog to clear up the nonsense.
- luckylion 3y agoSounds like he made a few claims: 1) "An introverted woman will still get approached by men", 2) "Introverted men, on the other hand, often just don't pursue women, especially if they have low testosterone (or sex drive) as the OP probably does", 3) "In most cultures men are expected to do the initial approach", 4) "introverted men are often very bad at reading women's signals", 5) "women just don't need to signal that much to get results". 1, 3 and 5 feel like super common sense to me, were you asking for sources on that? I'm asking mostly because I wonder whether my intuition is completely off when it comes to these things, or if there are people who live in completely different realities where women are expected to make the first step, more women approach men than the opposite and men really don't need to signal interest because they get so many offers.
- mcv 3y agoIntrovert is not the same thing as celibate, but completely orthogonal to it. Lots of introverts are happily married, sometimes even to extraverts! The word he's searching for could also be "asexual". It's recently been added to the increasingly cumbersome LGBTQIA abbreviation, so it's good it's getting some more attention.
- rchaud 3y agoYes, "asexual" is the feeling I got from reading the article. He says that his blog posts almost never mention a partner. But even this post, specifically about relationships, failed to mention a single potential partner. That to me says he just may not be interested enough.
- kk6mrp 3y ago> "Introversion is the state of primarily obtaining gratification from one's own mental life". There is a considerable popular literature on the benefits and drawbacks of being introverted. This really got me thinking after recently coming across it: "The mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled." ~ Plutarch