Here’s To All My Fellow Introverts –– This Is For You

You know who we are and you know where you can find us.

Way over there in the corner, hoping no one notices us, or wants to have a conversation with us, or bothers us, or sits next to us, or even looks at us.

OK- maybe that’s a little over exaggerated. But you get the picture.

We’re a different type. A different kind of human kind. We really don’t dislike people, or conversation, we’d just really rather not. (Kidding, kind of, not really though).

Our friends literally must talk us into leaving the house. I’m talking hour long conversations of why it’s even a good idea to stay up past the bedtime we’ve given ourselves.

We’re grandmas, we know this. We’re okay with this. It usually leads to bribing, which involves food. Let’s be honest, food will always change your mind and is always worth it.

At some point, we do give in. Darn you peer pressure and friends who like to stay out late and be young. (Who does that?!)

So often we are the flies on the wall. We kind of like the view from the outside looking in. It’s nice.

People don’t always get it. Why we don’t want to be a part of what’s going on, part of the rush. We’d rather just feel the rush, from where we are. Here feels nice.

We get interrogated with questions that make no sense. Like, why aren’t you smiling, why aren’t you moving, or talking, or leaving. WAIT, I’ll leave, no problem. I’ll be out the door before you turn around.

You see, being an introvert we’re fine with just showing up and existing in a space. There is no need for attention or the need to stand out. We don’t want to stand out. We’d probably much rather blend in.

This doesn’t make us any less social, or fit for society. This just makes us unique and collective.

We like time…..to ourselves. We need time to ourselves. We need to re-energize. We must recharge away from all the disorder.

We like comfort. We thrive off simplicity, peace, and quiet. We’d rather stay in, read a book, drink too much coffee, and catch up with friends.

Despite what you think, we love being an introvert. We love spending time with our self. We love real genuine conversations with genuine people. It’s what keeps us going. It’s what makes us, us.

We’ll take being the fly on the wall, or the awkward person in the corner booth. Whatever you want to call it, it’s who we are and we wouldn’t change it, even if we knew how.

If this is you, I hope you don’t want to change either. I hope you find this as a gift. I hope you find the power in it and love that it sets you apart from the rest. I hope you see that it also brings you together, because the worlds full of us. Just look around.

I hope you embrace every bit of your inner introvert. I hope you smile at the wrong time and you show up late because you couldn’t decide to go or not. (But I hope you do go.) I hope you find your comfort level and aren’t ashamed of staying within it. Maybe occasionally you leave your comfort zone, because you too can do that.

However, I hope you also know that you can be a heck of a good extrovert when you really need to. You can be loud, and fun, and awesome. You are awesome.

So cheers, to all my inner introverts, you’re not alone. We’re all out there. We’re getting by in the simplest and the purest ways we know.

You’re going to make it in the world, don’t forget it my dear.