An Open Letter To My Introverted People

Hi! I’m your extroverted friend Rianna. I hope you’re having a fulfilling day and that you had all green lights on your way to work today.

Anyways, here’s what I want to talk to you about. Space.

Not the Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye space, I’m talking your personal space.

It’s something that everybody’s gonna need at one point or another. It’s completely normal to want some space to yourself. I know you don’t need to be around friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, and co-workers all the time. People are sometimes goddamn draining. It’s a completely reasonable thing to ask someone to give you. If you need space, ask for it, and the people who care about are going to try their hardest to give you the space you need.

Sometimes though, I find it difficult to ascertain how much space I need to give you and for how long. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years. I attract a lot of introverted people for reasons that I’m still not completely sure of. So I need to realize that my introvert friends (you) need a lot more “me” time than myself. I definitely understand the need for “me” time; I sometimes need a day or two to myself after extended amounts of time around new people. After that day or two, though, I’m okay to be around people again. And I realize that no two of you are exactly the same; you need wildly different time periods alone. Some of you only need a couple of days, others need a week, maybe even two.

I struggle with respecting your boundaries for (no) contact when you need alone time. I’m gonna be honest, I like to touch base with you to make sure you’re getting what you need and if you’re getting enough time to yourself. It’s a knee-jerk reaction for me to reach out just to touch base with you. It’s difficult for me to NOT occasionally send you something funny that reminds me of you, or something I think you’ll appreciate. In my head, I know you need time where you don’t feel like a slave to your phone or your social media (and if I’ve ever made you feel that way, I’m really, truly sorry, and I’m trying to work on not being so texty-texty; my thumbs are getting too swole anyway). I am also aware that my NOT sending those things to you during your alone time is appreciated, no matter how funny I find that Obama and Biden meme.

However, since I’m so used to communicating with most of my close friends via text and social media, I sometimes have a difficult time processing radio silence from pretty much anyone. Honestly, it’s embarrassing as fuck how often I misread a need for solitude as lack of interest in my friendship or straight-up dislike of me. I usually have to reach out to a friend of mine with a more objective perspective of my self-inflicted turmoil to tell me that I’m overreacting. And the thing is that it helps literally every time; if it doesn’t completely put me at ease, it at least alleviates my anxiety about our friendship to a point where I don’t feel the need to reach out to you to make sure they’re okay. It’s also the biggest tell that I’m an extrovert. I like to network and collaborate on issues as soon as they arise. You, however, like to internally process all that shit before you’re willing to share it with someone.

So bear with me. I’m trying to understand and respect your need for space. With a little patience, though, I’ll get it figured out, and I won’t be a huge, clingy, pain in the ass to you all the time.

Love from your extroverted friend,

Rianna

Eight Years of Face-crack and the Ceiling

As a self-proclaimed extrovert, I really love reaching out to people. I get the bulk of my energy from connecting with friends, sharing jokes, talking about current events (like the talking slug with the shitty toupee, get a load of that guy), and being around people. Since many of my friends don’t live in the same city as I do, I do a not insignificant amount of reaching out to people on social media. Usually this is a great way to connect with people, and I’m grateful for the people I can still keep in touch with through social media, even if I don’t speak to them every day. I can see all the great things my friends are up to, the strides they make as they evolve into professionals, homeowners, spouses, entrepreneurs, artists, whatever you can think of. It puts a genuine smile on my face that they’re doing fucking amazing things with their lives, and that I am someone they have chosen to share their proudest moments with. It’s like being a part of an exclusive club.

 

Sometimes, though, I’ll admit that I tend to grapple pretty fiercely with envy. I won’t deny it. Though I love to see people succeed, I tend to wonder why not me? Why don’t I have a house that I own? Why don’t I get to get married and settle down? What part of me is so awful that I don’t deserve to have those things in my life?

 

But then I put my goddamn whisky down for a second and reflect.

 

What do I post on social media? Well, only the really good things I want people to see, duh! I only have to look so far as my profile pictures to reaffirm that. I only post the most bomb-ass selfies where I look cute as fuck, I’m not gonna post the ugly-ass Snapchat pictures I send to people; those are reserved for the people who have seen me be genuinely ugly and still love me anyway. I’ll share a memory of a hilarious meme I found four years ago, not that self-indulgent, whiny Facebook status I made at the age of 17 about a guy not liking me back (spoiler alert: I wasted far more time than was necessary on Mr. Mediocre). Why share those when I can post self-indulgent, whiny blog posts at 24 under the guise of self-depreciating humour and self-actualization? It’s called being a twentysomething, dammit, and I’m doing it well!

 

I then wonder why would it be different for any of my peers? They’ll post pictures of their new home, not a picture of all the paperwork, moving pains, and sacrifices they had to make to be able to afford that down payment. Someone will post a picture of their toddler being adorable, probably not posting a picture about how said toddler, two hours later, threw their not-even-kind-of empty diaper across their room, getting shit literally EVERYWHERE! When I hear stories about poo getting on the ceiling, a small part of me is still mystified like “oh, holy shit, that can’t be real!” But I’ve seen the poop on the ceiling, guys.

 

Everybody chooses how they present themselves online, and, myself included, will put their best versions of themselves online. I’ll post the cute selfie, not the one that makes me look like I’ve got a wonky eye. I’m gonna post jokes about nihilism and pessimism while glossing over the fact that, yeah, maybe I’m sad about *insert insignificant thing I’ve turned into a huge issue here*. My chef friends are going to post photos of their finished creations, not that big-ass pile of dishes that now lie in the sink, or the hours of practice it took to perfect that souffle. My friends who hunt will post a picture of the buck they managed to shoot for the season, not document their entire time getting their hunting and firearms licenses.

 

The next time I peruse my Facebook feed, and start to feel a little blue about how someone is going to travel the world, I need to remember that everybody’s got their own metaphorical poop on the ceiling. Everyone.

 

Rianna