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Comment by il | Hacker News Reader

If you're trolling this post with spectacularly bad advice about bad advice, well done. If you truly believe that, you have a very cynical worldview.

I am quite introverted but whenever I force myself to go to a social event where I don't know anyone and make friends, I always have a great time and meet awesome people, and it invariably goes better than I thought it would. If you just assume the people there WANT to be your friend, you don't look needy and your extroverted side comes out, and you can still be yourself.

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It sounds more like you're a shy extrovert rather than an introvert.

As I've heard it defined, extroverts gain energy from social interactions, introverts are fatigued by them. If, like me, after a few hours of small talk you feel exhausted and want to sit in front of a screen alone, you're probably an introvert. I have some extroverted friends who will not go to the grocery store unless someone goes with them to keep them company. I prefer taking walks alone, and so on.

> I have some extroverted friends who will not go to the grocery store unless someone goes with them

We did a teamwork exercise where they split the E's and I's. To both groups, they said that you have the next day off - tell us what you're going to do. The E's were going nuts with chartering a plane to Vegas, big party while all of the I's were going to do something alone, maybe even just catch up on laundry. The difference was shocking.

In another exercise, they had an E monitor a team of us I's on a logic puzzle. As the E later described, he was just basically watching us I's sit there and not say anything and then a few minutes later - we started talking. We won but the non-talking communication really weirded him out.

No, it doesn't. Introverts are perfectly capable of overcoming their personality tendencies. Introversion or extraversion refer to your natural inclination, but it determines nothing.

Back up a minute...

"Introverts are perfectly capable of overcoming their personality tendencies."

The first thing you're assuming is that introverts either want or need to overcome their introversion. There isn't anything wrong with being an introvert. There is something wrong with being an extreme introvert.

The first thing you're assuming is that introverts either want or need to overcome their introversion

I certainly did not mean to say that. I don't believe it. What I said was that introverts are capable of overcoming their tendencies. They're tendencies, not fate.

The commenter a few levels above said they had a great time at parties; the comment I responded to said that sounded like a shy extrovert. Not so, say I: introverts can have fun at parties too, even ones where they don't know anybody.

No value judgement intended in any direction. I'm a strong introvert who does well at parties because I need to for my work; but it's difficult and I don't have fun.

Introverts can increase their tolerance to being social in much the same way you can increase your physical stamina. However, as an introvert, I don't think I could ever train myself to recharge from social situations the way extroverts do.

> What I said was that introverts are capable of overcoming their tendencies

I think the person above was pointing out that by saying that introverts need to "overcome" their tendencies, you are effectively saying that introverts have an issue that needs to be overcome.

I'm fairly introverted myself so I can relate to the notion of just spending time by myself and feeling quite happy about it. However, you miss out on so many opportunities.

I just moved overseas to a new university and I've been forcing myself to go to many, many talks and chat with the people there. Some huge proportion of time I walk away with some useful bit of information "You have to read the new paper by x! It covers exactly what you're looking for." or "Y just got a grant and is looking for PhD students in your area."

Every connection you make adds potential access to another life times experience and knowledge.

[I'm vaguely expecting you to weasle word "Ah, but not doing that is being an /extreme/ introvert."]

I think the grandparent's point is that you shouldn't force yourself to be an extravert no matter what extraverts tell you. Yeah, it's good to engage your extraverted side, but there's a big difference between that and actually becoming an extravert.

> If you just assume the people there WANT to be your friend, you don't look needy and your extroverted side comes out, and you can still be yourself.

Sadly, I believe most introverts are pretty selfish - worrying what other people think of them when, in reality, most everyone is not thinking of them - and may not even notice them.

Another thing about Introverts - with most extroverts, it is fairly easy to figure out who a person is or at least who they primarily represent themselves as. With an introvert, a stranger is going to have to invest a lot more in getting to know who an introvert is - that's exhausting to some people - why expend energy figuring out the quiet ones when you can have fun talking to the loud ones.

>>I believe most introverts are pretty selfish - worrying what other people think of them

WTF? :-)

Did that come out wrong? Are you a non-native English speaker and don't know the word "selfish"?

That kind of worrying is normal insecurity. If you up the ante with e.g. unusual clothes, non-introvert people wills start worrying like that too. Introverts just start doing it at a lower threshold.

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