Recently, I have realized that I often try to disregard my introverted personality. In fact, I sometimes think I have spent a lot of my life trying to be an extrovert to the extent that freshmen year, my closest friends were convinced I was one. Growing up as a missionary kid definitely has it's advantages and I loved it, but it also forced me to be an extrovert a lot of the time. During many summers, my family and I would drive across the country to visit supporters who contributed financially to our ministry. This meant being on our best behavior whenever we went somewhere, long hours of being with people in the car, and new friends every night if we stopped at a home with kids our ages. For an introvert, that is hard to handle and I can even remember a few times that I would just go out and sit in the van all alone after dinner to read or just be quiet. My parents were good at letting us just be ourselves, but there is a certain amount of pressure that goes with being in front of people so much and many times people expected me to be able to hold good conversations, and have flawless social skills. Or at least, that is how I felt sometimes.
After moving to Florida, these bad patterns of pretending to be an extrovert continued. If you have ever moved you may understand this a little better, but it is difficult for an introvert to make friends quickly in a new place. It is not that I do not like people; in fact, I love people, but I tend to have only a few close friends and those take time to make. So, as a reaction to loneliness and in competition with my sister who makes friends very quickly, I made myself an extrovert. Every weekend, I was out with friends doing something and I ended up almost running myself ragged my senior year because I wanted to get everything in and did not want to feel left out of anything. Now, my version of business is probably a lot less busy than most people's (introverted lifestyle), but since I was with people all the time, it felt that way to me sometimes. Our culture does not warmly welcome introverts. In fact, it is very difficult to be accepted as an introvert in our society. We are busy people and if people are quiet or do not open up right away (instant gratification), sometimes it does not appear that they are worth spending time pursuing as friends. Now, let me clarify and say that is a huge generalization and I am guilty of even doing that to my friends who are introverted. Also, much of this may be influenced by the fact that I have always lived in big cities and the culture of our country varies greatly depending on where you live. Thankfully, I have had people in my life who have pursued me as a friend even if I was slower to open up, but I have struggled with feeling accepted for who I really am, and since I saw that extroverts are often accepted in our culture, I decided I needed to change or continue to adjust my personality. I can change my personality right? It is not like I was born with it or anything. (sarcasm, in case you were wondering).
As you may guess, the bad habit of trying to make myself an extrovert continued into college. I was so scared of being lonely and not being accepted that I spent tons of time with people. I did not want to be known as that weird home school girl who does not have social skills and sits in her room all the time. I was worried that people would find me socially awkward and equate my desire to be alone with the lie that I do not like people. So, instead, I completely ignored my introverted personality and exhausted myself freshman year. Thankfully, I realized what I was doing after mulling it over in my head all summer, and when I got back to school I was determined to take better care of myself. I have never struggled with accepting the fact that I am an introvert, but I did and still do struggle with how others view me which translated in my mind that people would not accept me as an introvert. So, with these great plans in my head, I was armed and ready for the year . . . to enter my position as a resident assistant. Now, I do not regret my decision to be an RA for two years of my college experience, and in fact, I have greatly enjoyed reaching out to and building community with the women on my floor; however, for someone who gains energy from alone time, it is not quite the perfect job opportunity.
Disclaimer: this summer I am processing through a lot of this which is one reason I am writing about it on this blog and since that is true, my thoughts may change and I may have incorrect feelings about things that I will continue to think about (hopefully logically) and end up finding truth.
Back to being an RA. After a long day of classes and homework on a campus where it is very difficult to get away from people, I would have evenings full of meetings, events, Bible studies, or just times when I felt like I needed to be with my girls. It seemed selfish to spend as much time as I needed by myself and I did not feel like I was fulfilling my job description. So, I compensated and pretended to be an extrovert, but took a little more time for myself to recharge. College is also just a busy time of life socially and it is difficult to experience everything while making sure I am taking care of myself (that whole not wanting to miss out thing). As I reflect on the past three years, I realize that, coupled with some major other life changes going on in my life at the same time, not taking enough time out for myself resulted in burnout. I hate burnout. During college I have been burnt out on friends, being an RA, teaching (which is my major), and pretty much everything. That is something that I want to change, but I am not sure how to become true to my real self again since I have been living somewhat as a pretend self for 75% of my college years. How will people react if I do not spend as much time with them? Will people still accept me? If I don't initiate with others, will they initiate with me or will I experience loneliness which I dread? What happens if my close friends are busy when I want to hang out and have people time? What if our schedules just don't match up and I miss out on experiences and memories because at that point in time I need alone time? How can I say no?
As you can see, I have not been able to fix this problem yet or even find a solution, and it is driving my "fixer" crazy. So, for the time being, I am reevaluating my goals for the semester, trying to get up the courage to say no in a loving way, and praying . . . a lot.
PS. This is a very interesting article that my roommate Amanda found about introverts and I think it goes well with this post so I recommend reading it whether or not you are an introvert because it explains many misconceptions about us. Enjoy.
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