Pros and cons of introversion

Favorite quotations, etc.
User avatar
Jean
Posts: 1890
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2013 8:49 am
Location: Switzterland

Re: Pros and cons of introversion

Post by Jean »

I mostly notice that rule enforcment was very lax at that Time.

UK-with-kids
Posts: 228
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2018 4:55 am
Location: Oxbridge, UK

Re: Pros and cons of introversion

Post by UK-with-kids »

I enjoyed reading this resurrected thread.

I'm INTJ with a very high "I" almost off the scale. My partner is a very strong 'E'. We have one daughter who is similar to me and one who is similar to my partner. Our family is like some kind of live experiment of how the interactions, pros and cons work.

Yes it's not always easy for a strong "I" in a relationship with a strong 'E'. But we find ways of making it work. Lockdown has been hard - for me as I never get peace and quiet anymore as everybody is at home all the time. And for my partner as she misses the social contact.

Jacob was spot on with the observation about how extroverts derive energy from socialising but introverts are exhausted by it and derive energy from quiet downtime.

I'm the one with the deferred gratification who got good exam results, a well paid job, and who saved a ton of money. My partner is the one who ignored the risks and just started a business without bothering too much with a plan. That's now our main income source.

For what it's worth, I'm the only one who has ever had any kind of a problem with alcohol (a long time ago, and just being a waster rather than a proper alcoholic). For my partner it was more for the fun of it. I'm also the one who's done a lot of travelling, but probably in a very different way to my partner. We did struggle a bit travelling together as we had different approaches.

With our daughters we see the raw pros and cons in people who haven't yet figured it out. My extroverted daughter is like the example further up this thread who hangs out in the front yard looking for people to talk to. My introverted daughter really struggles with too much social interaction.

The poster who mentioned being seen as arrogant made an interesting point - I've noticed people thinking that about me a few times and never understood why.

One thing I don't agree with is that introverts don't need other people. I get incredibly lonely if I'm on my own for too long. I do need people, but in small doses.

Hristo Botev
Posts: 1732
Joined: Tue Jul 17, 2018 3:42 am

Re: Pros and cons of introversion

Post by Hristo Botev »

UK-with-kids wrote:
Thu Aug 27, 2020 9:00 am
This all sounds very, very familiar to me; though for us, DW and I are a bit closer to the middle--I scored a 65% I and DW scored a 60% E. Basically, it means DW knows that she can't really rely on me for engaging in the polite, socially-expected surface-level discussions with neighbors, family, church folks, and school parents (she knows she has to run lead on those social interactions). But she also knows that I'll talk for hours to the exclusion of everything else if I find myself with 1 to 2 folks with similar personality types. With our kids we also have one I and one E, though I get the sense that both of them are much more extreme, respectively--our son is VERY much an E, who never, ever stops and who never wants to be alone (thankfully he's discovered that reading and writing are other ways to engage with people and not be alone). Our daughter, on the other hand, I think may be more of an I than me; she will certainly engage socially, but you can often see her steel herself before doing so, and she falls apart if she doesn't get a decent amount of time by herself to recharge her batteries.

Post Reply