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

How To Not Suck At Being A Person

Throughout my time in the service and retail industries, I’ve been granted the privilege to interact and get to know several different kinds of people. Some of them are the nicest, most genuine people I can think of; these people take a genuine interest in my life and they share about their lives, and talking to them is the most natural thing in the world.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, however, I also got to know people that completely disregard other people; their feelings, wants, needs, and impulses rank above anything and everything else. Some people don’t seem to realize that my power is not omnipotent throughout the whole store and it’s policies (though some days I wish it was), and that I have very little say in what you see in the store.

 

Oh, a product’s been discontinued? I have no idea what I’m talking about, of course my store has it. She bought the same product here a year ago so it must be here!!!

 

The cooler’s broken, leaving your beer kinda warm? Clearly, that’s all my fault that I can’t fix it, never mind the fact that I have no training whatsoever in fixing any kind of cooler.

 

I didn’t do dishes one time? Oh, sorry, I thought you could haul your 300 pound ass off the couch for a half hour to do dishes for once in your life. Sorry I was busy working late for the fifth day in a row. Oops.

 

All of these things have happened. 

 

And I’ve had just about enough of this. So, without further ado, I’m going to make a very simple list of what someone can do so they aren’t regarded as a complete asshole for the rest of their lives.

 

1) Don’t just  shrug off something a friend is really excited and passionate about. Even if you have no interest in this project or topic your friend is, it’s a lot better to be a little bit curious about the project than to disinterestedly be playing Temple Run on your phone. I can’t tell you how happy I get when a friend asks me a question or two about my job; it shows that they care, and that they’re interested in what I’ve been up to.

 

For example, most of my friends are really into the Magic card game. I, personally, have no interest in playing whatsoever (and they’ve offered to cobble together a basic deck for me, too, which was hugely flattering). But it is rather entertaining to listen in when they’re all playing against each other. And I was curious about the different characteristics of different cards, so I went right ahead and asked about them, which led to a 15-ish minute conversation about the different classes and what they all did. It was pretty interesting. Too reminiscent of the Pokemon cards I used to play with as a kid, but interesting.

 

2) Be humble! No matter how smart, funny, hot, or brilliant you are, there will always be someone that’s smarter, funnier, hotter, and brilliant-er than you.

 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to take pride in something done well, or to be proud of something that you have worked countless hours to master.

 

It’s not okay to talk about how “terrible” everyone else is at your talent in comparison, or that you’re “sooooo far ahead of everyone else”. If you’re a person who does this, know that you’re tacky and I hate you.

 

Speaking of which…

 

3) Pick your battles. Not everything needs to be up for debate, or argued about. You don’t need to waste a ton of energy raging over something tiny, like if someone puts the toilet paper roll on the roller the wrong way. Seriously, it would take as much effort to change it to your preferred orientation than to go hunt down your roommate and scream at them. At least wipe your butt first.

 

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Because at the end of the day, is this worth it?

 

For me, I find what works best for me is asking myself this:

 

“Will it be more effort to get angry about this or would it take more effort to just fix it?”

 

Usually sorts it out for me.

 

But if it’s something that’s genuinely something worth arguing about, by all means, bring it up! If you’re the only one cleaning up after your roommates, it’s totally okay to bring that up. You should remember though…

 

4) If something’s an issue, bring it up (respectfully). 

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve let resentment about something that really wasn’t a big deal boil over into a huge yelling match with someone. Personally, it’s one of my worst traits and makes me a bit of a shit to live with. How can you know what’s wrong if I never say anything? And it’s certainly not fair to yell at someone for something that they didn’t know was an issue in the first place.

 

In most cases, bringing up the target in such a way that nobody’s on the defensive is the best way to start. It makes it easier to communicate what the problem has been, and how it’s been making you feel. 

 

Though in every case ever, don’t forget to bring a solution to the problem in with you.

 

5) Know when do joke, know when to keep your mouth shut.

 

In the years that I’ve been in retail, the most common joke I hear after an item doesn’t scan onto someone’s total (whether it be because the bar code was scratched to hell, my scanner had a freak-out…) is “well, I guess it’s free.”

 

And nothing makes me want to put someone’s head through a window so much as that little zinger.

 

It’s a joke as old as time itself, and anyone who has worked in any kind of sales environment has heard that joke at least a dozen times. Where I do understand that you’re trying to make a joke out of the situation, it’s as old and stale as the bread I found at the back of my pantry once. And it’s not that witty, it’s not that funny, so please stop.

 

Most of the time in the service industry, if you think you have a witty remark about something, you don’t. Just…don’t.

 

On the other hand, though, if it’s a legitimately thought-provoking, funny, insightful remark, I’d love to hear it! I’m running out of material!

 

xoxo

Rianna