Five Minute Fridays - Write for 5 straight minutes whatever is on your mind with no surplus of time spent editing or proof reading. 5 Minutes is the minimum, max is up to you and your creative juices.
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I have been thinking about the differences in characteristics of the extrovert vs. the introvert. I have to be honest and say that I have been a little defensive about it actually.
Matt Walsh does a great job writing about how he is an introvert in his blog post here. But I have to cringe a little when he talks about the man who rudely yanked him out of his imagination to talk to him. I wonder how many people I have offended by merely wanting to talk to them. I have all these scenarios running through my head. I love people. I love all sorts of people. I love hearing about their stories and their background. I love learning what they believe and why they believe it. It is never my attention to ruin someone's day by merely having a conversation with them.
Now that I think about it, a lot of people that I thought were rude were probably thinking that I was rude for talking to them in the first place. If I start a conversation with someone, I either have something that I wanted to say or I really am genuinely interested in knowing about that person. Is that then selfish of me to interrupt their precious silence? Should I just then defy my natural desire to conform more to be an introvert? Isn't that the opposite of embracing diversity? I don't know. It seems grumpy to me.
I just think a lot of the time, introverts are these highly intelligent coffee drinking poetry reading "where's waldo?" looking people sitting alone in the corner of a book store while extroverts are depicted as these big dumb incoherent blabber mouths that never have anything intelligent to say. I know that's not what Matt is saying, but it's often depicted in that light.
When I took that "what state do you belong in?" quiz, it asked me if I was an extrovert. Immediately, I wanted to say yes, but then I had to think about it. I don't like to talk for the sake of just talking but I do say hello to random people in the elevators. Is that contradictory? It makes me happy to connect with people. Even if only for a short moment. But I guess an introvert would question if that really was a connection at all? But my thinking is that even if for only a moment you made me smile or possibly said something that I could learn from then I am that mush better of a person.
I once asked a man how he was doing in an airport while waiting to board the plane. He grumpily looked over to me and asked, "Do you really want to know?" I told him that I did indeed care to hear what he had to say and we carried a conversation for the next 20 minutes before he left to board his plane. For the duration of my flight, all I could think about was how most people who ask that question don't really care to know the answer. It helped me rethink my greetings to people and focus on being genuine in all my encounters. If I had just sat by myself in the corner lost in my thoughts, I wouldn't have had that great conversation.
So am I an introvert or an extrovert? I don't know. I guess I feel like I don't fit into either categories.
I like to be alone.
I like big crowds.
I like a small gathering of friends.
I like in-depth talks about meaningful subjects.
I like a enjoy a casual conversation with a stranger in the cashier line at Wal-Mart.
I'm category-less, I guess.
The more categories that I am finding I DON'T fit into, the better I feel about it.
That's wonderfully strange.
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