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Hello everyone, here is the second article of the series “I’m an introvert”, in this article, I wanted to talk about being an introvert in the everyday life compared to being an extravert. Obviously since I am living in the Western part of the world, I base my judgement on life in this region.

I read several articles about being an introvert and the advantages that you have being one. I am currently reading the book “Introvert Power : Why your inner life is your hidden strength?”. I am still at the beginning of the book so I can’t really say anything about it. I have read many comments on Amazon about it calling it a “life changing” book, but I read those comments about a lot of books that weren’t so life changing to me, so I’ll make my opinion when I’ll finish reading it.

Nevertheless, what I already like in it is it’s realness. At the beginning of the book there was a sentence that express why I am thinking extraverts are advantaged. It says “an engaging extravert will look friendly, whether he really cares about your day or is trying to pick your pocket”. And I think that it’s true, an extravert will be able to get his way by playing with his “natural ” skills but he may not necessarily genuine. I obviously do not mean that extraverted people in general are not genuine but I have noticed that many introverts are underrated or misjudged just because they don’t act a certain (extraverted) way. Even though they have a genuine and kind heart and that’s what bothers me.

Anyway, this article was kind of useless but the rest of my thoughts on this book will follow soon.

It’s been a month now that I am living in Quebec. Changing my environment made me realize how me being an introvert was something that was shaping my life. Of course since I’m a teenager I’ve realised that I didn’t want to go out and talk as much as the other wanted but before I was putting that on the fact that I was shy or that I just wasn’t used to be with people which wasn’t entirely false. I’m not certain of when I have discovered the meaning of being an introvert but it sure helped me to understand myself. When I was still in France, I have made some friends that I really cared for and I felt good being around. Granted, it took me some time to build those friendships.

Moving to a different city, I lost all of that. Not my friends but being around them when wanted. In this new city, I don’t have somebody that really know me and that I can be myself with. I obviously have to build this friendship from scratch. So for the first couple of weeks, I tried to talk to people, to be around people, to go to as many events as I could, hoping to find the person that I can be friend with. I thought the more people I meet, the most chance I have to find a good friend. Now don’t get me wrong , I met people I have been around people, but forcing friendship is not really something that can work for me I guess, simply because I can try to come up to you and strike a conversation and everything is good, but I’m still an introvert, I can’t keep that up that long and this kind of interaction bores me quite rapidly.

Also strangely what happened was the contrary of what I wanted … I started to feel lonely. I tried to go out as much as I could, strike empty small talk to some people but most of the time, I didn’t find interest in most of these persons and this recurring every time saddened me. Why am I not able to find friends ? I do everything that those extraverts are doing and those stupid articles are telling me to do, right? (lol!). Well I guess me trying to act as an extrovert was the real problem. Going out by myself when I didn’t really feeling like it and then going back home and feeling too tired to do anything to fulfill my introverted side (like reading, writing or exercising my creativity ) was just too much. Being by myself or even spending my evening playing beerpong with people I didn’t really know, was not satisfying for me. Since before coming here, I was regularly going out, I figured I should do the same thing until I find somebody to do it with. I think I was missing the most important part, in France, I was enjoying going out because I was with people I really enjoyed the company.

So this month, I am going to try to embrace my introversion. Staying home if I don’t want to get out, but still going out when I want to. Trying to find friends while enjoying my alone time my way. I’ll try to use this time to better myself ( exercise, learn new things…) After all, as an introvert, I don’t need somebody else to have a good time!!