Understanding the Introvert Part One: When People Make Me Tired

Because this blog is about my life as an introvert, I thought I would do a series of posts called "Understanding the Introvert." I decided to do this, because I have a handful of extroverted friends, and whenever I try to explain my deeply ingrained fear and dislike of talking to people, the response I get is "your just shy." No. I'm not just shy. There are shy extroverts I'm sure. No, this goes a lot deeper than "just shy."

And here's why (reason number one, at least):

Social interaction makes us introverts tired. This is honestly one of the biggest problems I face. My school has quite a few...we'll call them 'peppy people.' These 'peppy people' feel the need to interact with those around them. For this reason, I tend to map my way around the school traveling through the most secluded stairwells and hallways. However, on the unfortunate and off change that I do run into one of the 'peppy people' here's what usually happens. 

Peppy person: Hey hey!!!!!

Me: Uh...hi.

Peppy person: I haven't talked to you in SO long!! Remember when we had all those classes together?!?!? That was SO MUCH FUN!!!! And there was that time.....blah blah!!! blah! blah blah blah!!!!!!!......And remember....

Me: (thinking--Can we continue this conversation on Facebook? Because as much as I really completely enjoy this, the truth is I don't at all. And writing would be a whole lot easier. Plus then I wouldn't have to respond) Oh... (forced laughter)(thinking--was I supposed to laugh there? What were we talking about? HOW DOES SHE HAVE SO MUCH ENERGY?)

Honestly though, the exclamation points in these people's sentences are almost tangible. They're so peppy and high energy all the time that talking to them is like running a marathon, because I always feel as if I have to reciprocate in terms of peppiness, and I end up running myself down completely in the process.  Afterwards I feel like

And the thing is, it's not just the peppy people. Any social interaction leaves me a little more tired than before. Talking to people is hard and uses up my energy. Then responding to people at all, even if it's not verbal--just a nod or fake laugh (god fake laughs are the worst. I think they might be my number one energy zapper).  And as the school day goes on and my social interaction count builds up, my energy level goes down. 

Here's a neat little graph to explain.

Usually I manage to squeeze out the very last drops of energy from inside me in order to make it through the school day and extracurriculars. 

But by the time I get home I'm a mess. 

And I just want to run up to my room and curl up in my nice warm bed with my lovely, understanding, silent computer to write away my exhaustion. 

But my parents have other plans. My parents want to talk. It's always "How was your day?" "Can you do this?" "What classes did you have?" "Is X in your class?" "Did you eat lunch today?" "What did you eat?" "Did you have any tests?" "What homework do you have?" "How long will it take?"

So you can only imagine that I feel like I'm in an interrogation room. Because I'm already frustrated and tired, I generally end up being quite snippy with my parents in response. Which, as you can imagine ends in a bit of a lecture about manners, which only runs me down even more, before I can escape to my room to finally fall into bed and enjoy the lack of people. 

Why Jenga Should be Your Favorite Game

As you should know by now, I am quite the introvert. I need my time alone and get completely exhausted from having to talk to people. Honestly though: this hermit crab is my spirit animal.

I am also an only child, which makes being alone pretty easy most of the time. 

To be perfectly frank I'm really for that introvert lifestyle. I am completely happy with my introvertedness (why is that not a word?), and I definitely do not wish I was an extrovert...except when it snows. 

I don't know why, but for some reason I really love the idea of coming in to a warm house after a cold but beautiful walk in the snow, and then making yourself a nice steamy much of dark hot chocolate with extra marshmallows and sitting by the fire playing a nice board game with the family. I mean, doesn't everybody love the idea of that. Isn't that, like, the American Dream or something? 

I still have these feelings now, but especially when it would snow when I was younger it was as if that was all I wanted out of life (that and to be able to build awesome snow sculptures like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes).

(in case you have no clue what Calvin and Hobbes is, here's a picture of some of Calvin's snowmen)

Anyway, at a very young age my hopes and dreams were dashed because either

a) my parents didn't really enjoy playing children's board games with me and frequently looked for an excuse to get out of it...

or

b) I was way to cool to be playing board games with my parents of all people.

And then I discovered Jenga.

For those of you who don't know, Jenga is a game that starts out looking like this

Then the player or players slowly remove the rectangle blocks from anywhere but the very top of the tower. Like this

The object of the game is basically to see how long you can go with out the tower going like this

So I started liking Jenga because it's fun, and better yet it's fun to play alone. There aren't many games like that. I don't know if you've tried playing Monopoly or Apples to Apples by yourself, but I can promise you from experience they're much better with other people (games are as a rule one of the few things that people do make better). 

So as I grew older and continued playing Jenga, and then discovered my love for writing and analyzing text metaphors and symbolism, I realized the other reason why Jenga is so fantastic...

   

It's a metaphor. 

Now I realize, that you probably think I'm nuts (may or may not be true) and that this theory of mine is far fetched, but I'm asking you to hear me (or I guess read me?) out first. Then, if you decide I'm crazy and my metaphor makes no sense that's fine by me. As long as you read my reasoning.

Basically, the way I see it, Jenga is a metaphor for people. Every person starts as a clean, innocent, fresh newborn baby. Like that first tower. 

But then, the baby enters the world and starts to grow up, and that's when the trouble starts. 

The players in the game of Jenga are also people. They're the people who laughed at that baby when she fell, the people who bullied her, and lied to her, and talked about her behind her back. And every time they do one of those things, they push her just a little closer to her breaking point. Like removing the pieces.

Finally, one day, the baby has had enough and...she falls. Just like the tower. 

So, I think Jenga is really important to realize as a metaphor, because it makes us think about the way we affect people: how even if it's something so little, so insignificant, to us, it could be the equivalent of removing that person's final block. I think that in some indirect way, playing Jenga actually helps us in our relationships with other's by teaching us the concept of pushing something too far past it's limits, and by making us aware of how our decisions (i.e. which block to pull) effect everyone around us as well.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently because it's snowing, and also because I've been dealing with a lot of social anxiety and depression recently, and sometimes I wonder how many blocks I have left.