Today is habitually a day I dread – the annual Tenant Appreciation Picnic for the tenants around my building.
It’s not that the food is bad – far from it! That’s usually the best part!
It’s about me being comfy being “me.” At these kinds of functions, I feel unusually reticent to take any part at all.
I’m an introvert.
Or rather, I’m really an ambivert. A hybrid of sorts between an extrovert and an introvert.
I appear to be extroverted on the outside, but on the inside, I’m very much of an introvert.
This day always starts with “the walk.”
I have to gear myself up for “the walk” – the small, little walk from my office doors through the parking lot that culminates in the tented areas to get their wonderful food, and see the dreaded seating area.
The seating area is especially tough. I usually don’t know anyone, so I usually get a plate to eat and bring it upstairs to my offices again – never (or hardly ever) talking to anyone along the way to or from the tents.
“They won’t like me,” I say to myself as I walk past everyone, heading back to my offices.
“And I won’t have anything to say.” “I’m not worth getting to know.” “No one will sit next to me.”
I cannot talk small talk. All I can talk is “big talk” – big theoretical thinking kinds of big talk. Even in my silences, there is a vast amount of big talk going on inside my head. It’s this way with all introverts and ambiverts. I’m not sure if anyone really wants to have big talk, so I usually don’t talk at all.
It’s been this way forever. I set myself up for failure hours before anything starts. That way, if it all goes south, according to my internal plan, I can grab my plate of food and slink away without anyone noticing I’ve been there at all. I then go back to my safe haven – my office – without talking to anyone. That’s where I eat my picnic lunch.
It doesn’t matter how I got here. What matters is that this is never going to go away. This feeling of inadequacy. The feeling that all the world is extroverted, while I alone stay introverted, with a fanbase of one: myself.
But that’s not how it played out this year.
First, I answered a Qwoted opportunity looking for pitches regarding Ambiversion. While this, at first blush, would seem like something especially suited to me, I didn’t think for a minute that the journalist would select my pitch. After all, I wasn’t a psychologist or anything. But I am a person who has identified with ambiversion for about eight years now. I had a “lived experience” with it.
And yet, the journalist picked me – over everyone else, they picked me! How could this be?! That article will be coming out shortly in a week or two.
But more than anything, the upcoming article will help readers question whether they are true extroverts or introverts, or might be something in between. From then on, it falls to those of us who’ve experienced this already to help others understand it.
And – the article kept the word and its concepts front and center in my mind for the last couple of weeks.
Secondly, I got into a conversation with one of the Leasing Brokers at my office complex about the concept a week later.
We bonded over it.
Bonded over our extreme experiences inside introverted recharging that needs to happen after these kinds of events.
It is grueling to recharge from them.
For me, after I facilitate a teaming teaching event, I need access to a very small conference room after the event – away from everyone. Teaching always goes well, and those I teach tell me that they learned so much and enjoyed it, which makes me feel amazing – that’s my aim! But afterward, I’m down for the count.
In the small room, I start to shake. Sometimes it gets so bad that I can’t stand up or walk. I know this now, so I prepare for it upfront. I drink lots of water before the event and have tea and my own supplies with me so I can try to regain control of my body.
For the Broker, she has one week straight of these Tenant Appreciation Picnics because they have so many properties (I can’t even imagine this level of anxiousness!). She’s called to serve at every one of them, serving hundreds of people each day with BBQ’d chicken or pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, cookies and drinkage. What can she say to all these people? People who she may see only for a few minutes each year, and yet, she knows every one of their names!
She knows enough that after each event, she must go straight home and into seclusion. As long as the picnics continue for the week, she’s at the mercy of continual introverted recharging in seclusion. Her family knows to leave her alone; they make dinner each night so she can relax and recharge.
I was grateful to know this wasn’t just me experiencing these things!
As I got my plate of BBQ’d pork with all the other things, we gave each other knowing looks and laughed a bit. It came from our shared discomfort with these types of gatherings, which take the normalcy of work to the brink of our ability to cope with them.
Then, I had to turn around to face the dreaded seating tables underneath the tents. Why did I even bother to look for someone I knew to sit with?! “Just go upstairs and into your office, and it will all be fine,” I told myself. As I turned around to leave, I heard,
“Margaret! Margaret! Over here!! Come sit with us!”
That’s when I saw my neighbor in the office suite next to me, and his associate, beckoning me to come sit with them and two other people.
Instantly, joy surged through me – I had no control over the emotion!
Someone wanted me. Someone knew me. Someone was making room at their table for me!
Did they even know what this meant to me?! Probably not. In the four years that I’ve been attending this event, this was the first time that anyone had acknowledged knowing me.
All was not lost.
Moral of the story:
For introverts or ambiverts: The world might not seem that it loves you, but it can! Share your internal world with others when possible. Hopefully, there will be a time when you can add your own thoughts to a conversation. If so, be courageous and join in the conversation. Let us into your “big talk” world. We’d love to know more!
For extroverts: Be inclusive! Be gregarious! Be yourselves, but also be someone an introvert/ambivert can share a table with. Sometimes, pause and ask for their thoughts. Open yourselves up to the internal beauty of someone unlike yourself.
For all of us: Be Humanity, together!