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
redheadrianna's Blog 