Introversion as a way of life

Here at Mod-Blog, we have more than our fair share of introverts. Sean and I hold the prize for "most introverted", I think, but most of us trend toward that end of the spectrum. This is often a cause for consternation among my friends and coworkers, who don't get why I'd rather not go with them after work for drinks or attend the annual company picnic. (Of course, some of that is also a teetotaller not wanting to remember his friends as soddenly drunk.) This article from the Atlantic is a great window into my world.

Are introverts misunderstood? Wildly. That, it appears, is our lot in life. "It is very difficult for an extrovert to understand an introvert," write the education experts Jill D. Burruss and Lisa Kaenzig. (They are also the source of the quotation in the previous paragraph.) Extroverts are easy for introverts to understand, because extroverts spend so much of their time working out who they are in voluble, and frequently inescapable, interaction with other people. They are as inscrutable as puppy dogs. But the street does not run both ways. Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion. They assume that company, especially their own, is always welcome. They cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone; indeed, they often take umbrage at the suggestion.

This matches my experience exactly. I can almost always predict the behavior and responses of extroverted coworkers, but most of them view me as a mystery wrapped in an enigma.