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Yes, extroverts do understand this limited capacity. It's like when you live an ultra sedentary lifestyle, and one day you realize you can't catch your breath a

Yes, extroverts do understand this limited capacity. It's like when you live an ultra sedentary lifestyle, and one day you realize you can't catch your breath after walking up four flights of stairs. Like any capacity, socializing requires exercise. We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. It's only in the last decade or two that it became possible to live a productive live by text, alone, without the intense realtime, full mind and full body experience of being with other people. Use it or lose it. And don't assume socialization is easy for some class of "extroverts" who are dominating "introverts" into being full members of the organizations which they work for. It's hard, worthwhile work for everyone. Socialization capacity is like any trait. You have to use it or you'll lose it. I say this because I think modern life is depopulating as people decide they have a condition that's some kind of innate disability. I wish y'all would accept that it's just hard, but worth it.

vouaobrasil 2y ago
Good counterpoint but I think there's definitely a variance in ease amongst the population. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I am the kind of person that will socialize because I know it's a good thing in general. But I do think some people can perform "socialization feats" just in the same way the best bodybuilders can get super jacked whereas there is no way I'm lookin' like Arnold. haha.
jrs235 2y ago
Extroverts also need to work on sitting in silence, IMO... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42517790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42517790
ACow_Adonis 2y ago
So what you're saying is that extroversion is curable with a bit of a change of social behaviours and environment, and with a bit of practice, discipline and repetition we can turn them into mathematicians, farmers, hunters, philosophers, scientists, monks, priests and witch doctors and negate this artificial always networking and hustling environment that's only been created in the last 200 years with the industrial revolution, communication revolution and growth obsessed capitalism :) This gives me hope: there's no silver bullet, but one day we can find a cure for our modern curse of excessive extroversion :)
- inciampati 2y ago
  FWIW, I'm "extroverted" in the terms used in this thread, but I'm also all of these: mathemetician, farmer, scientist. We can work on monk or priest but those might be mutually exclusive!
blueflow 2y ago
Or maybe "I'm introverted" i just the nice form for "You are annoying and i don't enjoy being around you".
- halfcat 2y ago
  Yes. I always thought this captured it well: ”I used to think I was introverted because I really liked being alone but it turns out I just like being at peace and I am very extroverted when I’m around people who bring me peace.”
  - MoreMoore 2y ago
    As an introvert, no. Socializing is always draining. I enjoy being around other people and I enjoy socializing, I like going to parties and meeting people and whatever else, but it's extremely tiring for me. No matter how much I like the person it's with, I'll be exhausted afterwards and I'll need a lot of time in solitude and isolation to get all that energy back. It has nothing to do with how much peace a person brings me. Being social to any degree takes energy and I need to be alone to get that energy back. That's introversion. Not "I don't like people".
    - inciampati 2y ago
      Socializing is always draining. It's a physical fact that it simply takes a huge amount of energy to engage with other people, no matter what you think your personality type is. Dealing with socialization is a big part of why we have these huge energy-intensive brains. I think the discussion here suggests it's an issue of perspective. Is socialization a fact of life, or is it something you are allowed to opt out of? It's okay to be tired. A day that leaves you exhausted should be celebrated and followed up with rest to prepare for the next day!
      - MoreMoore 2y ago
        Having known plenty of extroverts, I don't see how this is true. The discussion here is wrong and at odds with the science I've seen and my anecdotal experience. You can't just decide we're all the same and that some of us just have an attitude problem. That's asinine and irritating.
Dalewyn 2y ago
>We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. Just because something was a necessity for a greater cause in ye olde days does not mean that it is also a good thing in itself. Now that it's not a strict necessity, a not insignificant number of people are admitting they don't like it. Personally I consider myself more intro- than extrovert. I find people dishonest (even the most honest ones) and dealing with that reality is extremely tiring.
lolinder 2y ago
> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. It's only in the last decade or two that it became possible to live a productive live by text, alone, without the intense realtime, full mind and full body experience of being with other people. Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis. Sure, we spent a lot of time with those 30 people in the past, but calling that "extremely social" is pretty misleading in the modern context—today that kind of wording evokes a very different image than the small-scale village life that dominated our ancestors' lives. I'm a hardcore introvert by modern standards, but for me that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy spending time with my small circle of friends and family, it means that when I branch out beyond that small circle socialization is actively draining. I'd have done just fine in village life, it's the completely unnatural modern world that is overwhelming to my social limits, and I get rather tired of extroverts telling me that it's just because I don't try hard enough to "exercise".
- tayo42 2y ago
  > Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis. I would be surprised if this is true. Ancient civilizations were complex. When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there. Having the chance to walk around part of it. Everything was dense and close and there were large city centers and markets. I'm sure the rest of Rome is just as big and same for the other cities and empires going back thousands of years.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there. And Rome (the city) had a population of 1 million or more, but that doesn't change the fact that demographers estimate at most a 10–20% urbanization rate in the Roman empire—meaning at least 80% of the population lived outside of cities in rural areas. And that's Rome, which had a notably high urbanization rate compared to periods before or after, not matched in Europe until the industrial revolution. Compare that with an 80% urbanization rate in the US today and we're looking at almost exactly the inverse from where we were 2000 years ago in the Mediterranean. And it's even worse if we're just looking at the US, which had a 5% urbanization rate in the 1790 census and didn't even get to 20% until 1860. Where we're at now is simply unparalleled in history, and there's ample evidence that we're not well adapted as a species to this kind of density.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
siva7 2y ago
So you seriously think that humans two, three decades ago were extroverted because they couldn't live a productive life by not being extremely sociable and introverted is an unnatural condition where you just need more social excercise? Is this the intellectual level of this community now?
yabatopia 2y ago
Socializing is a skill and requires exercise, but everyone has its own unique limitations and skill levels. Not everyone throughout history has led an exceptionally social life filled with constant conversation. There are plenty of references to quiet and seclusive people in the bible, for instance. In the Middle Ages, you could join a monastery or convent, which provided a community more suited for introverts. Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if many introverts feel there is no escape from the extrovert modern life.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yep. It's notable to me every time this topic comes up on HN that an extrovert invariably comes on and straight up tries to argue that introverts are just people who don't try hard enough. When that happens to people with other biological differences it's immediately and rightly decried—even other mental differences have become increasingly recognized and protected from that kind of condescending judgement—but the combination of the hidden-ness of the difference and the fact that those with this difference are less prone to speak up to defend themselves means that it's okay to tell a whole class of people that the difference between them and the average case is that average people try harder.
theshrike79 2y ago
> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives Do you think the hunters who were huntering kept chatting all the time? Or the gatherers looking for berries/mushrooms just talked and talked and talked and judged anyone who went by themselves? Did the goat herder have people walk up the hill with them to prattle on about their family life or could they perhaps be alone in there? Or any craftsman for that matter. The cobbler could just spend time making shoes, they didn't need to talk to customers for 12 hours a day constantly.
SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
> And don't assume socialization is easy for some class of "extroverts" who are dominating "introverts" into being full members of the organizations which they work for. I don’t assume that - people tell me as much! I have close friends who assure me that socializing is not hard work for them, and they’d yap all day if they didn’t control themselves the same way that I would read or play games all day if I didn’t control myself.
NikolaNovak 2y ago
None of that jives with any of my observations. In my immediate circle alone - my sister is a strong extrovert and always has been. She thrives on large groups. If she's stressed and wants to relax she'll go to a party or downtown dance club or hang out with a dozen acquaintances. She's been that way since tween. I bring her up because she's very upfront, and I trust and believe her, that social engagements alone are NOT, and never have been, hard work or effort. They're natural to her, she gains energy from them, she enjoys them tremendously, and gets recharged through them. This is not my external observation but her convincing expression. I know others like that. Then there's me :-). Lot of that, such as parties and dance clubs and even large groups of friends, sounds awful to me. Easy on assumptions though : As per my parallel comment, I've been a client-facing consultant for 20 years. I practice and teach soft skills and emotional intelligence at fairly high level at work. Having started as a hands-on techie for the first decade of my career, I haven't written a line of code since 2018 - ALL I do now is talk to and manage and coach and mentor people, meet with clients, etc. I spend about 7 hrs a day actively engaging people professionally. And it's still as draining as it is rewarding and enjoyable. 20 years of active practice and daily high level socialization has not meaningfully moved the needle on whether I gain energy from people, like my sister always has, or drain energy even with people I enjoy doing activity I like. Absolutely there's detail and granularity to this - I love teaching and have been a visiting professor for 3 years at local college. I love mentoring and coaching and do it daily. But at the end do the day I strongly crave alone time to recharge after social activities (which is what I call "being an introvert"), whereas I know people (I call them extrovert) who simply don't need that, at all. The notion that simply practice can change that, hasn't been the case for anybody I know. You can gain skills and that's indeed worthwhile! But that does not automatically alter the energy management situation. So my apologies, but your post is the most literal proof that some extroverts don't understand this, at all, and like Freud, make wild assumptions based on limited internal experience :-/. It's less of a capacity thing, which I'll agree may get expanded, and more of what does activity do and how does it draw on that capacity.
antonvs 2y ago
> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. This is an incorrect rationalization of your own prejudices, nothing more. > I wish y'all would accept that it's just hard, but worth it. You need to accept that your personal experience is not universal. It's one of the most basic realizations a thinking human needs to have.
irobeth 2y ago
Is anyone else like me? A little socializing goes a really long way for me. I don't hate it, it's not exhausting, I can do it well, and I'm generally seen as a fun person to talk with. I'm an introvert but not because my "social battery" is discharged by socializing, but instead because I need to discharge in solitude I have unlimited social stamina and can do it forever, if by forever you mean that if I'm left in socializing without that necessary solitude I will spin off into mania and eventually get in serious trouble
- x0 2y ago
  That's definitely me. I'm generally not social, but I love clubbing, dancing and raves. Not just the music (top reason) or the physical aspect, but all the chatting with randoms too. I love the bullshit we talk, the temporary friendships and the places you find yourself at 5am. (and if anyone's wondering, nope, just alcohol) But I can go once and be good for months. See friends a few times a year as well, and I'm sorted. This is hard to explain, but I think it's about "who you are/how you see yourself". As if there's a tension in my head, "am I my thoughts, or am I how other people see me?" When I have been more social recently, I ruminate less and am generally happier, but I feel I lose a bit of "depth" in my psyche. I just feel kind of "thin", like a minor character in a TV show. Though writing that, maybe that's just depression trying to pull me back in.

vouaobrasil 2y ago

Good counterpoint but I think there's definitely a variance in ease amongst the population. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. I am the kind of person that will socialize because I know it's a good thing in general. But I do think some people can perform "socialization feats" just in the same way the best bodybuilders can get super jacked whereas there is no way I'm lookin' like Arnold. haha.

jrs235 2y ago

Extroverts also need to work on sitting in silence, IMO... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42517790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42517790

ACow_Adonis 2y ago

So what you're saying is that extroversion is curable with a bit of a change of social behaviours and environment, and with a bit of practice, discipline and repetition we can turn them into mathematicians, farmers, hunters, philosophers, scientists, monks, priests and witch doctors and negate this artificial always networking and hustling environment that's only been created in the last 200 years with the industrial revolution, communication revolution and growth obsessed capitalism :) This gives me hope: there's no silver bullet, but one day we can find a cure for our modern curse of excessive extroversion :)

inciampati 2y ago
FWIW, I'm "extroverted" in the terms used in this thread, but I'm also all of these: mathemetician, farmer, scientist. We can work on monk or priest but those might be mutually exclusive!

blueflow 2y ago

Or maybe "I'm introverted" i just the nice form for "You are annoying and i don't enjoy being around you".

halfcat 2y ago
Yes. I always thought this captured it well: ”I used to think I was introverted because I really liked being alone but it turns out I just like being at peace and I am very extroverted when I’m around people who bring me peace.”
- MoreMoore 2y ago
  As an introvert, no. Socializing is always draining. I enjoy being around other people and I enjoy socializing, I like going to parties and meeting people and whatever else, but it's extremely tiring for me. No matter how much I like the person it's with, I'll be exhausted afterwards and I'll need a lot of time in solitude and isolation to get all that energy back. It has nothing to do with how much peace a person brings me. Being social to any degree takes energy and I need to be alone to get that energy back. That's introversion. Not "I don't like people".
  - inciampati 2y ago
    Socializing is always draining. It's a physical fact that it simply takes a huge amount of energy to engage with other people, no matter what you think your personality type is. Dealing with socialization is a big part of why we have these huge energy-intensive brains. I think the discussion here suggests it's an issue of perspective. Is socialization a fact of life, or is it something you are allowed to opt out of? It's okay to be tired. A day that leaves you exhausted should be celebrated and followed up with rest to prepare for the next day!
    - MoreMoore 2y ago
      Having known plenty of extroverts, I don't see how this is true. The discussion here is wrong and at odds with the science I've seen and my anecdotal experience. You can't just decide we're all the same and that some of us just have an attitude problem. That's asinine and irritating.

Dalewyn 2y ago

>We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. Just because something was a necessity for a greater cause in ye olde days does not mean that it is also a good thing in itself. Now that it's not a strict necessity, a not insignificant number of people are admitting they don't like it. Personally I consider myself more intro- than extrovert. I find people dishonest (even the most honest ones) and dealing with that reality is extremely tiring.

lolinder 2y ago

> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. It's only in the last decade or two that it became possible to live a productive live by text, alone, without the intense realtime, full mind and full body experience of being with other people. Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis. Sure, we spent a lot of time with those 30 people in the past, but calling that "extremely social" is pretty misleading in the modern context—today that kind of wording evokes a very different image than the small-scale village life that dominated our ancestors' lives. I'm a hardcore introvert by modern standards, but for me that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy spending time with my small circle of friends and family, it means that when I branch out beyond that small circle socialization is actively draining. I'd have done just fine in village life, it's the completely unnatural modern world that is overwhelming to my social limits, and I get rather tired of extroverts telling me that it's just because I don't try hard enough to "exercise".

tayo42 2y ago
> Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis. I would be surprised if this is true. Ancient civilizations were complex. When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there. Having the chance to walk around part of it. Everything was dense and close and there were large city centers and markets. I'm sure the rest of Rome is just as big and same for the other cities and empires going back thousands of years.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there. And Rome (the city) had a population of 1 million or more, but that doesn't change the fact that demographers estimate at most a 10–20% urbanization rate in the Roman empire—meaning at least 80% of the population lived outside of cities in rural areas. And that's Rome, which had a notably high urbanization rate compared to periods before or after, not matched in Europe until the industrial revolution. Compare that with an 80% urbanization rate in the US today and we're looking at almost exactly the inverse from where we were 2000 years ago in the Mediterranean. And it's even worse if we're just looking at the US, which had a 5% urbanization rate in the 1790 census and didn't even get to 20% until 1860. Where we're at now is simply unparalleled in history, and there's ample evidence that we're not well adapted as a species to this kind of density.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

siva7 2y ago

So you seriously think that humans two, three decades ago were extroverted because they couldn't live a productive life by not being extremely sociable and introverted is an unnatural condition where you just need more social excercise? Is this the intellectual level of this community now?

yabatopia 2y ago

Socializing is a skill and requires exercise, but everyone has its own unique limitations and skill levels. Not everyone throughout history has led an exceptionally social life filled with constant conversation. There are plenty of references to quiet and seclusive people in the bible, for instance. In the Middle Ages, you could join a monastery or convent, which provided a community more suited for introverts. Right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if many introverts feel there is no escape from the extrovert modern life.

lolinder 2y ago
Yep. It's notable to me every time this topic comes up on HN that an extrovert invariably comes on and straight up tries to argue that introverts are just people who don't try hard enough. When that happens to people with other biological differences it's immediately and rightly decried—even other mental differences have become increasingly recognized and protected from that kind of condescending judgement—but the combination of the hidden-ness of the difference and the fact that those with this difference are less prone to speak up to defend themselves means that it's okay to tell a whole class of people that the difference between them and the average case is that average people try harder.

theshrike79 2y ago

> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives Do you think the hunters who were huntering kept chatting all the time? Or the gatherers looking for berries/mushrooms just talked and talked and talked and judged anyone who went by themselves? Did the goat herder have people walk up the hill with them to prattle on about their family life or could they perhaps be alone in there? Or any craftsman for that matter. The cobbler could just spend time making shoes, they didn't need to talk to customers for 12 hours a day constantly.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

> And don't assume socialization is easy for some class of "extroverts" who are dominating "introverts" into being full members of the organizations which they work for. I don’t assume that - people tell me as much! I have close friends who assure me that socializing is not hard work for them, and they’d yap all day if they didn’t control themselves the same way that I would read or play games all day if I didn’t control myself.

NikolaNovak 2y ago

None of that jives with any of my observations. In my immediate circle alone - my sister is a strong extrovert and always has been. She thrives on large groups. If she's stressed and wants to relax she'll go to a party or downtown dance club or hang out with a dozen acquaintances. She's been that way since tween. I bring her up because she's very upfront, and I trust and believe her, that social engagements alone are NOT, and never have been, hard work or effort. They're natural to her, she gains energy from them, she enjoys them tremendously, and gets recharged through them. This is not my external observation but her convincing expression. I know others like that. Then there's me :-). Lot of that, such as parties and dance clubs and even large groups of friends, sounds awful to me. Easy on assumptions though : As per my parallel comment, I've been a client-facing consultant for 20 years. I practice and teach soft skills and emotional intelligence at fairly high level at work. Having started as a hands-on techie for the first decade of my career, I haven't written a line of code since 2018 - ALL I do now is talk to and manage and coach and mentor people, meet with clients, etc. I spend about 7 hrs a day actively engaging people professionally. And it's still as draining as it is rewarding and enjoyable. 20 years of active practice and daily high level socialization has not meaningfully moved the needle on whether I gain energy from people, like my sister always has, or drain energy even with people I enjoy doing activity I like. Absolutely there's detail and granularity to this - I love teaching and have been a visiting professor for 3 years at local college. I love mentoring and coaching and do it daily. But at the end do the day I strongly crave alone time to recharge after social activities (which is what I call "being an introvert"), whereas I know people (I call them extrovert) who simply don't need that, at all. The notion that simply practice can change that, hasn't been the case for anybody I know. You can gain skills and that's indeed worthwhile! But that does not automatically alter the energy management situation. So my apologies, but your post is the most literal proof that some extroverts don't understand this, at all, and like Freud, make wild assumptions based on limited internal experience :-/. It's less of a capacity thing, which I'll agree may get expanded, and more of what does activity do and how does it draw on that capacity.

antonvs 2y ago

> We are all descended from a long line of people who lived extremely social lives. This is an incorrect rationalization of your own prejudices, nothing more. > I wish y'all would accept that it's just hard, but worth it. You need to accept that your personal experience is not universal. It's one of the most basic realizations a thinking human needs to have.

irobeth 2y ago

Is anyone else like me? A little socializing goes a really long way for me. I don't hate it, it's not exhausting, I can do it well, and I'm generally seen as a fun person to talk with. I'm an introvert but not because my "social battery" is discharged by socializing, but instead because I need to discharge in solitude I have unlimited social stamina and can do it forever, if by forever you mean that if I'm left in socializing without that necessary solitude I will spin off into mania and eventually get in serious trouble

x0 2y ago
That's definitely me. I'm generally not social, but I love clubbing, dancing and raves. Not just the music (top reason) or the physical aspect, but all the chatting with randoms too. I love the bullshit we talk, the temporary friendships and the places you find yourself at 5am. (and if anyone's wondering, nope, just alcohol) But I can go once and be good for months. See friends a few times a year as well, and I'm sorted. This is hard to explain, but I think it's about "who you are/how you see yourself". As if there's a tension in my head, "am I my thoughts, or am I how other people see me?" When I have been more social recently, I ruminate less and am generally happier, but I feel I lose a bit of "depth" in my psyche. I just feel kind of "thin", like a minor character in a TV show. Though writing that, maybe that's just depression trying to pull me back in.