On Introversion

Season 2, #5: A few notes on what it is like to feel removed from a gathering, to want to be apart or away from it all, and why that might be.

Nov 16, 2023

As a Person Socialising.

How does it come across, when you look to be dead to the world? In a room with friends, family, visitors, whoever. You appear as present as the wallpaper. Physically you are there, hearing it all, seeing it happen, taking it all in. But emotionally you are missing, your mind is giving nothing back out; the whole body is consumed by a menacing tranquillity. The minimum possible reaction is all that projects as honest or legitimate; a slight smile, a croak of laughter at a funny story, or simply just looking in the right direction and paying attention.

And it is legitimate; you care, you understand, but you just can’t find a way to give any more than this. This should be enough, it is who you are after all; but you worry. You worry how it comes across, behaviour like this that is so obtuse, so different. So you try to act differently, you try to do what is not natural. It’s when you try that it becomes false.

It is the effort that betrays you.

Too much eye contact, laughing too hard, nodding at everything regardless of the topic or the sentiment. It pushes you off the flow, creates a friction in the conversation that everyone can’t help but notice and the social fabric rips against it - pulling at the thread until the dynamic of the room begins to unravel.

It starts as a subtle look in your direction, just to double check the meaning of what you are saying or doing; a meaning that to this point had been effortless. It is now being lost in the moment and this disrupts the flow enough to unsettle those around you. They are now trying harder just to get you.

That look; it is barely there but you see it. It shoots a dart of panic to the far side of your head; a jolt just above the spine where your skin jumps imperceptibly with fright. Your heart lumps in your chest and you know you’ve been caught. The rest of the body tries to hold it together. Doubling down on the effort that betrayed you at the outset. You now work even harder as you rush to achieve the right tone, the right meaning, whatever it is they want to hear. All the while you feel your skin fizzle and sweat across the wide areas of your chest and back, pins and needles beneath your clothes; a crisis hidden from view. It feels like time is running out. Not long before it is too much to handle and the harder you try the worse it gets. With every gesture that follows the further you are from the mark…

It’s the effort that betrays you.

You need to move away. You need to just stop. And you might just achieve that if the situation allows it. You might find a stillness again, disappearing into the wall or the sofa, a fly on the window watching life happen around you. It’s where you want to be, its where you want to be left; to be yourself.

As a Person Amongst People.

This is about people, other people, how you think they are thinking and how the way you think about that affects every moment of every interaction with them - in real time.

There are those that are the exception, be they family or friends, or both. Some people that just do not require the effort. And why should it require effort to say the right thing or be the right way? You find yourself escaping to these people. For some reason your mind just does not process them as intently. Perhaps at some point in the past they grew to understand you a little better, and to some extent you feel they accepted the other side of you that is not typical. So you are relying on this understanding that you have built up over years.

However, these select few are a limited resource. They are precious. Only so many people in your life reach this level of understanding; it takes time, trust, experience. The older you get the harder it is to find others, the harder everything gets to start over. And yet, even with this select group it is not cut and dry; there are some that allow for less effort than others. The closest, most intimate of companions can still become too much; everyone has their limits.

In almost every situation you find yourself planning an escape of sorts. It might be an early exit from a party, or a quick step outside into the cold night, or even just stepping into another room in the house during the day. Ultimately you seek the one thing that works above all else; quiet solitude. The mind at rest; silence, darkness. Not because you do not like others or because you only ever want to be alone, but because it allows you to hear yourself; to breath, reset and try again. It allows you to take stock and understand what is happening. To process it into something meaningful to you. Something that makes you feel good, charges you up, gives you energy.

As a Person Alone.

You find most peace when the world is asleep. In the darkness, when quiet rhythmic snores float through the house, reassuring you that your are truly alone. The mind stops flipping through the groundless worries of others: Why are they still awake? What are they up to? Why don’t they come to bed? You no longer need to consider every possible thought of every person you encounter and how they might be thinking; how they might think of you, how they might think of what you are doing. Their thoughts are locked up in their dreams, unaffected by your presence or by your actions.

They are at peace, and so are you.

Often you are stood silent at the window watching the still world sleep. In a dark room a window becomes a frame around the drama of the night. It pulls you in - it’s fascinating - and your eyes pour over every detail that rolls out in a mute scene. The street lamps illuminate a suburban landscape as if snapped in the white light of a camera flash. Tree branches, leaves, pavements, parked cars; all etched out of the black in a sharp relief. Everything is resting, waiting for daybreak. You stand as still as the world, waiting for some disruption to occur, something to draw the eye; a passing taxi, a hungry fox sleeking over a low wall, a distant flicker of a passing plane, the dramatic sweep of a headlight. You feel anonymous. Watching the world and its innumerable stories held in stasis… or at least appearing to be. That is how it feels. Like everything is taking a breather; a moment to assess the situation.

And most of the time nothing happens. The eye is drawn to the imperfections; the dirt on the glass, the plastic bag caught high up in a branch of a nearby tree, your own reflection looking back at you. You wonder if there is anyone else looking back from the dark. Another anonymous watcher. You wonder what they would think of you looking out at them. Wouldn’t that be strange? Are you strange?

“Can they even see me?”

There is also an urgency in this moment, a sense that this time of peace is expiring. It is finite and you feel the darkness slipping silently through the hourglass, grain by grain. You feel it overcoming your mind and body - exhausted after navigating the day. Just as you attain this precious solitude you know that it comes too late. You write, but the mind is worn out and the words do not come so easy. You turn to your instruments but the silence weighs heavy on the room and must be preserved. The night holds you back even as it brings relief.

So too does the obligation on the day to come; the need to be alert, to perform, to be present. Gone are the days of waking up when you want and starting the day when it felt right. In those days you could own the solitude of the night and find satisfaction in its emptiness. Now you feel this part of the world lap over you for only a brief moment each night, like a temporary fix; a reminder that these moments exist. Afraid that if you weigh in too deep you may lose yourself completely, impact on the day, lose focus on the people you live and work with, lose your presence.

No wonder you feel this way. Thinking and rethinking every moment of every day and not able to recharge in the peace of the night like you had done for so long. It is a trade off for a life you love. You love these people you share it with, you love these days that you have together and this space in the world that you share. You love it all. To experience it is exhilarating but terrifying. It is exhausting but fulfilling.

As a Person Observing.

You are fulfilled by observation. Just as you enjoy quietly overseeing the subtle dramatics of a middle class housing estate at 2am, so too do you find yourself indulging in the interactions of the day. Interactions that are vastly more chaotic and unpredictable than anonymous window gazing; hence the exhaustion. The more you engage the harder it is to remove yourself, to be the observer, to take an objective viewpoint. This is certainly not why you do it - you simply don’t always feel the urge to interact - but it is definitely a positive aspect to your inclinations.

You might note the way those around you are sitting in a room, their positions in relation to one another, the subtlety of how they talk or what they say. You quickly run through the meanings behind it all, the endless possibilities. You see subtleties that are not even there and invent dynamics that, at their most harmless, are comical fictions you explore for fun, at their most damaging, can throw your mind into spiral of full blown panic; something out of nothing.

You watch it all unfold and you enjoy being the watcher, having that role. Endless data ploughing through your pupils. Processing it all to the point of exhaustion and yet exhilarated by the interactions and discovery. You also feel the pull, the urge to escape even when you are enjoying yourself. You just look for a way out because you can feel your energy draining fast, or you know it is bound to happen soon. There is some part of you that just wants to exist away from the sounds and smells and hugs and jokes - there is some level of satisfaction in not being part of it.

You enter into every situation already thinking of the limit. The point at which, despite any really good reason other than that you want to, you say your goodbyes and step away.

Perhaps at a gathering in a bar you find your coat at the bottom of the pile and move through the packed room out onto the street. You find the cold night air soothes your soul. You are excited by the thought of the silent car journey home. The quiet hum in the darkness and the swishing of cars passing in the other direction. A sudden and solitary moment that rises up in contrast to the night out you have just escaped. It’s like the petrified snapshot of suburbia observed outside your livingroom window; you see the stark edges of the night-out lifting off the silence that now surrounds you. You see it all in sharp detail; the smiles and laughter, the dresses and shoes, the old friends, the dancing, the smell of piss every time the toilet door swung open, the way the bar tender worked the customers, manned the tills and filled the drinks all at once, the fluorescent light bending through the giant, upended bottles of vodka mounted behind the bar. You see it all. You live it over again. The memories washing over you.

Relived.

Relieved!

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