In Defence of the Introverts!

A Response to Kat Rosenfield.

Photo by Matias North on Unsplash

Kat Rosenfield recently wrote a thoughtful piece for Unherd about the ongoing cost of social distancing and the #MeToo movement on innocent human physical contact and face to face interaction. Much of this, I agree with. We are, indeed, social mammals and, for nearly of us, face to face interaction and physical contact with fellow humans is essential to our mental health. Extroverts and introverts alike are almost certain to become seriously mentally unwell if completely deprived of it as studies into the effects of solitary confinement have found time and time again. The difference between people who are decidedly extroverted and those who are decidedly introverted is mostly a matter of how much of this they require and with how many people balanced with how much time they need in ‘their own space’ to maintain their mental health.

I have had cause to think about this a great deal recently because my mother, a stand-up comedian and the only decided extrovert in a family of decided introverts, became widowed shortly before lockdown. Within the space of a few years, not only had her husband died, but also her brother, her best friend and her gym partner. Another close friend suffered a stroke which severely damaged her speech abilities and her eyesight and reflexes deteriorated to an extent where it was no longer safe to drive. For most of her life, my highly extroverted mother, had successfully met her own social needs by having a large circle of friends and, following retirement, driving daily to a leisure centre where she met up with ‘the girls’ ( a group of ladies aged between 70 and 90) for exercise classes followed by lunch. After this, she was generally happy to return home and watch television and write and occasionally see my father when he emerged from his silent sitting room and solitary activities ready for social interaction and cuddles.

“Ladies Who Lunch” by Mo Woods (a comedic poem by my mother, read by my mother)

The impact of lockdown and the sudden loss of her social life was incredibly difficult for my mother while, for me, I must admit, the guilty silver lining of a pandemic that took was the relief of a dramatically reduced pressure to be “sociable.” Lockdown was not remotely psychologically difficult for me, but the need to support my mother and prevent her from becoming seriously mentally unwell was a constant worry and required much thought and planning. It also required me to be unselfish and push myself, as the only person in my mother’s ‘bubble’ to do a lot more in the way of talking and cuddling than I was used to. Hitherto, I had generally believed that it was the responsibility of extroverts to meet their own social needs and that there were plenty of other extroverts with which they could do this and there was no justification for forcing or pressuring introverts, who generally make no demands upon anybody, into providing for those needs. This was not the case in this situation where lockdown, disablement and the deaths of many of her social circle made it literally impossible for my mother to meet her own social needs.

Lockdown was a special case in which the social needs of extroverts really could not be neglected and made their own responsibility. Introverts who were able to meet some of those needs had a responsibility to set aside their own need for solitude and space more and help the extroverts in their lives get through a particularly difficult time. It is not as though extroversion (or introversion) is a choice, after all, and those with more extroverted traits can’t just choose to be perfectly mentally well with only a few phone calls and Zoom chats.

I agree too with Rosenfield’s recognition of a rather self-indulgent tendency of some introverts to make their introversion into an identity and be smug and superior about it, although I had spoken about this in the context of a pretentious introvert movement that briefly existed a decade earlier. I had initially been attracted to this following a lifetime of being told and believing that there was something wrong with me because I wanted mostly to be left alone in my spare time. However, I soon became repelled by the movement which had a tendency towards a victim mentality. In reality, it is not generally at all difficult for introverts to spend their spare time as they wish. What is the worst that can happen if you decline social invitations and deter attempts at social interaction? People stop talking to you. Win/win, surely?

This was my experience, anyway. Following an intervention by some of the mums at school demanding to know why I declined to walk my dogs with them or meet up for lunch in which I was informed that I was getting a reputation for being unsociable, I simply replied politely that this was because I was unsociable and then the invitations just stopped to the satisfaction of all. This is not misanthropy which, as Rosenfield rightly observes, is a different thing to introversion. I am a humanist and very fond of my own species and have a close circle of friends whose company I enjoy as well as online connections that mean a lot to me. I simply choose the spend most of the limited amount of time I have to myself between work, parenting and spending time with my husband and small circle of friends on my own. As this lifestyle choice of mine makes me happy while harming absolutely no-one else, it absolutely fits the liberal requirement for things that are acceptable to do. Nor do I demand that everybody else understand and respect this. It’d be nice if they did, but if they don’t, that’s fine because I’ll be somewhere else on my own not having to hear about it.

This was not the case during the lockdown and introverts really had to “take one for the team” to help extroverts get through it. It is also true that moving face to face meetings to virtual ones was appreciated by many introverts who now have case to argue that as this has been shown to be quite doable, perhaps we could do more of it? This may not suit extroverts who thrive on the energy of face to face interaction so some kind of negotiation is likely to be needed in many work environments. This is a genuine issue that will likely need addressing with full consideration of the needs of different kinds of psychologies. If part of your workforce is energised and more productive if they get a lot of in-person social interaction and part of it is drained and less productive, some recognition of individual differences needs to happen. I am sure this can be done without either personality type claiming either moral superiority or victimhood status and remembering that most people are neither highly extroverted nor deeply introverted but work best somewhere in the middle.

I think this is where I come to the first of my two disagreements with Rosenfield. I think that just as that brief moment of ‘Introvert Pride’ inevitably turned into a self-indulgent, self-victimisation fest which included demands that extroverts stop claiming moral superiority and trying to make others like them, any movement that claims that introverts have “triumphed” and are now forcing their own psychological traits onto others is likely to go in the same way. If it did so, it would have even less evidence to support its claim. Extroverts actually can impose their own preferences on introverts by compelling them to attend social events and listen to endless talking if an introvert is not assertive enough or not in a position to simply decline this. I did not have the confidence to do so until my late twenties for fear of being thought “boring.” Outside of lockdown, however, nobody has any power to compel extroverts to stop socialising with and talking to each other. Nor do introverts, as a general rule, want to. As long as you are not doing it in our house, knock yourselves out. We won’t even know because we’ll be cosily ensconced on the sofa at home with our nose in a good book.

I am simply not convinced that:

In trying to persuade ourselves of the superiority of a socially distant life, we gave our most anti-social tendencies not just a pass but the imprimatur of moral authority.

I don’t think we did. You can certainly quote people saying so quite callously to those suffering from loneliness as in the example Rosenfield provides from the Guardian, but this will always be the case. We will never be without people trying to convince us that their own personal preferences are somehow morally superior. We see this when certain feminists insist that women are conditioned into believing that their lives should revolve around domesticity and childcare and certain social conservatives insist that we are all conditioned by feminists into believing that we should be childless workaholics. Meanwhile, in reality, women continue to have their own minds and preferences and do their own thing as far as their financial circumstances allow. There will always be people who think the way they prefer to live their lives is the way that everybody should and is somehow more noble, natural or good. We can still mostly ignore them, however.

There is also a vital difference between “anti-social” and “unsociable” that is being missed in that statement. Here in the UK “Anti-Social Behaviour Orders” (ASBOS) are not being given to people who have declined after-work drinks in favour of curling up in front of a boxset, but to people who are acting in ways that disrupt the lives of others usually in the form of damaging property or making mess and noise. If you really have antisocial tendencies, they probably need to be curbed. If you just have unsociable ones, you can probably just be left alone without this requiring a pass from anyone. It’s not as though there is any deficit of extroverts you can go out with instead.

Nor does there seem to be any connection between this issue and the #MeToo movement. I very much doubt that anybody who defends their child’s wish not to be cuddled and kissed by grandma fears that grandma’s cuddly tendencies actually hide her true nature as a sexual predator. Allowing children to choose whether or not to be cuddled and kissed by other people is about consent, certainly, but is not an extreme or unreasonable position to take. Somebody does not have to fear sexual motivations to prefer not to have somebody else’s body and lips pressed against them. I think few people would really want to force hugs and kisses on anybody if they were aware they did not want them. If this is true, then enabling children to be able to say they don’t want them is a good thing. My own child never felt able to say she did not like such contact but the fact that she went ramrod straight, screwed up her face and held her breath until it was over conveyed this message to all but the most emotionally unintelligent of people and most felt no wish to try to force cuddles on her again.

There is very little doubt that the #MeToo movement did blur these lines between innocently intended friendly touch and sexual assault in a way that was highly counterproductive to addressing cases of sexual assault. I agree that it is highly unreasonable to describe a kiss on the cheek in greeting as sexual assault even if it was exuberant, sudden and startling. It is entirely possible to be clear that one prefers not to be kissed on the cheek without confusing this personal preference with being the victim of a sexual assault. Also, one must accept that if they decline greetings with kisses, which are standard in many cultures, they might well cause offence or embarrassment and lose a potential friend or contact and the person whose greeting has been rejected has the right to feel that way. This comes down mostly to a matter of manners and cultural custom and is not to be confused with sexual assault but also not, I would suggest, with introversion.

If it is the case that Americans are choosing to spend increasing amounts of time alone, as the study cited suggests, this may or may not be reason for a moral panic. On reading Susan McCain’s 2013, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, I was struck by the different levels of sociability expected in the US than in the UK. The book simply did not apply to me as I had hoped. As a Brit, I had never been subjected to the expectations of sociability discussed by the American author as typical in the US. It made me suspect that nearly all Brits would be regarded as introverts in an American culture. If, as I suspect, Brits really are more solitary and reclusive than Americans culturally, it could be a problem. We have had to appoint a Minister for Loneliness, after all, and this problem, affecting elderly people particularly, is not to be underestimated.

Given this reality, Americans fearing that more of their citizens choosing to spend more time alone could be a negative development might well be right. It is certainly something that should be kept an eye on and more studies conducted to see whether this is being experienced as a problem and accompanied by increasing degrees of loneliness. However, there is also the possibility that it is not a bad thing, but simply a natural development of more Americans being able to choose to have more time to themselves than they did before lockdown and more of them taking advantage of that choice.

Either way, it is certainly not the fault of introverts. We are not generally evangelists trying to make the world into introverts. (That would involve way too much social interaction, anyway). Nor do we generally claim any moral superiority for introversion over extroversion. I, for one, am very glad that extroverts exist as many important jobs require people who can spend whole days talking and interacting with others without falling into an exhausted, sobbing heap. I would feel no sense of triumph if the number of extroverts decreased and would strongly argue against anybody claiming extroversion to be a character flaw. Society is better for containing outgoing, sociable people and even introverts have been known to enjoy their vivacity and free-flowing conversation. In small doses. ;-)