Extraversion, Awry

Date:    Sat, 13 Jul 2002 16:49:57 -0400
Subject: Fwd: Extroversion Awry


Z. writes:

> What about the reverse situation? An extrovert who has been raised to
> believe most extrovert behavior is negative, so tries to be "good" by
> avoiding such behaviors? It seemed to me that the results would be very
> similar, except for one point, which I couldn't reconcile. In your essay,
> you illustrated how the behavior of... "Irene" was it?... would drive people
> away, thus freeing her to be her introverted self. Since you seemed to point
> out that this is how our personalities make themselves evident despite us, I
> couldn't see how that would work for an extrovert.

You're right, a different dynamic would have to come into play -- but
fortunately(?!) our subconscious minds are full of tactics and tricks. :)

An important note (which I see I should put in the preamble!) about
that essay.  It does not portray The Way Introverts Break Down When
Denying Their Introversion, it portrays *one way* Introverts *can*
Break Down When Denying Their Introversion.  It's a very typical way,
which is a pastiche of many common little behaviors/traits/symptoms.
There are no doubt others I missed, which could be the primary
modality of their break down.

I mentioned alcohol in passing.  I knew an Introvert (I think!) who
didn't do any of the lashing out behaviors I described.  Instead, he
applied his Universal Solution, which he used on all problems -- a
solution of ethynol in H20, taken internally.

Also, before going on to answer your question, two other things.
First an important subtlety: No where in my essay did I address the
*direct* effects of being divided so against one self, and the entire
emotional kettle of fish which is internalizing someone else's values.
Everything I talked about was a *consequence* of that denial, not
about *how she got that denial in the first place*, nor about all the
issues of how it connects to a bunch of other psychological Stuff.

For instance, I don't talk about how and why Irene would have come to
feel it is wrong for her to be an Introvert.  Those causes have their
own issues.  For instance, if the reason she thinks being an Introvert
is wrong is because her mother withheld approval and affection when
she failed to be sufficiently "Extroverted", she's got a whole
complicated tangle of, e.g. anger towards her mother, fear of
admitting her mother was wrong, self-loathing for being so
other-pleasing, etc.  All of those have fascinating unhappy
consequences, too.  A common enough story, parent-child Type conflict.

But maybe Irene hates Introversion *because* her mother was one.  For
instance, the case where Irene's mom was the only other Introvert in
the family, and was a drug addict, more interested in her habit than
her child.  Irene's only example of Introversion is someone who, in
her judgment, is extremely culpable for being emotionally unavailable.
Irene has no basis for discerning the difference between Introversion
and addiction, so she lumps them all together, and passes judgment on
the whole ball of wax.  Irene understands the behavioral traits of
Introversion to mean "not being there for the people counting on you."
She rejects the idea she might be an Introvert because she rejects
addiction, and holds open anger and contempt for anyone who would
cause such emotional abandonment as she experienced.  She rejects
Introversion because she rejects being in anyway like her mother.
Obviously, Irene has a whole sack of survivor issues.

Or maybe Irene has no negative judgments on Introversion whatsoever --
"it's fine for *other* people" -- she just has a self-conception which
has no room for it!  She has always fantasized about being a kind of
person who was an extravert.  She always dreamed of being a
politician, of growing up to be a senator.  She just never anticipated
how stressful she would find "pressing the flesh" and constant
fundraising.  Her fantasies all were about Steering The Ship Of State,
of the ego-boost of all those people voting for her, of delivering
important speeches, of crafting legislation, of being a Steward of
Democracy, of brokering deals in back rooms -- not about the endless
socializing with supporters.  All her ambitions and hopes are built on
an image in her mind of herself breezing through things which are
actually, it turns out, trials to her.  Admitting she's having trouble
with these things would mean confronting the possibility she might not
be cut out for her dream of herself.  She's not yet ready to admit to
herself she hates much of the actual work of being a politician.

Put another way, there are consequences which simply stem from an
Introvert acting as an Extrovert (which I address in the original
essay) regardless of their reason and there are consequences for an
Introvert believing that Introversion is bad or wrong (which I *don't*
address) above and beyond the consequences of acting against Type.

The question you ask: 

> An extrovert who has been raised to believe most extrovert behavior is
> negative, so tries to be "good" by avoiding such behaviors?

is actually much more specific than what I addressed in the analogous
Introvert essay.  You're asking about the specific case of someone who
is an Extrovert but behaves like an Introvert because they think
Extrovert behaviors are bad, or because they don't know how to do
them. I'll see what I can do.

Secondly, I'm an Introvert.  I know Introversion from lots of
first-hand experience.  Entirely too much of what went into "Irene"
I've done (though, thankfully, not all at once. :) not from denial of
being an Introvert in the technical, psychology sense, but from
conscious choices to "red-line" my ability to tolerate other people,
to acheive some end I felt worthy.

I don't have quite that advantage with Extroversion, so take a
slightly larger grain of salt. Fortunately, I have survived
Extroverted roommates. :)

On to your question: 

What happens when an Extrovert is deprived of sufficient socialization
is a simple question to answer: spiraling depression.

Elizabeth has the perfect job.  It's in an organization she has
dreamed about working for since she was 5.  She's doing her absolutely
most favorite kind of work and research, and it's going swimmingly.
Her boss is a mensch.  She as a big office, with windows.  She has top
of the line equipment, and every object she could desire.  Her
paycheck is bigger than she has ever had in her life.

But Elizabeth's office is down a little bendy hallway, off the lab,
off on it's own.  Her boss works upstairs.  Almost all the other rooms
on her floor are storage rooms.  A couple of techs wander by from time
to time, but mostly, Elizabeth works in isolation.

Elizabeth is miserable.  She can't figure out why she's so unhappy,
when everything she can think of is perfect.  On her lunch hours, she
goes to the local mall, just to sit in the food court and be near
people.  She buys a radio for her office, and leaves it on all the
time; she works less and less and IMs more and more.

When she has meetings at work, she comes with a load of issues, and
prolongs the meeting as much as possible.  Her subconscious
discovers that by bringing up controversial subjects ("Let's recode
everything in C++"), she can provoke big long arguments which, while
unpleasant, serve to prolong the meeting.

As time goes on, her unhappiness becomes chronic; she starts feeling
tired all the time.  She's always been a bit shy, but now, she can't
possibly psyche herself up to call a friend on the phone.  "They
probably would be busy," she tells herself, "They're always off doing
something."  She is feeling especially needy, and thus vulnerable to
rejection, to which she doesn't dare expose herself.  The negativity
which she's feeling whispers in her ear that the worst things will
happen if she reaches out to people.  So she stops trying to get
together with her friends.

She becomes even more miserable, and her energy completely ebbs.
Nothing she used to like doing seems in the least bit interesting to
her.  Her work seems meaningless and doomed.  She starts having
trouble getting herself out of bed in the morning.  

So far, everything to this point was about an Extravert lacking
sufficient socializating due to circumstances.  Now on to the original
question, which posits that Elizabeth doesn't lack socializing just
because of dearth of opportunity, but because she feels acting that
way would make her a bad person....

Elizabeth is emotionally starved for socializing, but at the same
time, she's ashamed to ask for it, pursue it, or let herself go and
unself-consciously revel in it when she gets it.  Caught between two
desires -- one to be Extraverted and the other to be "good" -- her
behavior oscillates wildly between the two goals, and often is
socially self-sabotaging.

The natural mode of Extraversion is to be socially *active*, instead
of passive; to initiate, to be socially adventuresome.  But Elizabeth
believes acting those ways is bad, and doesn't let herself do that.
She is thus forced into a *passive* role in social congress.  Whenever
Elizabeth is around a friend... or, heck, anyone who will engage her
in conversation... she becomes very clingy.  Since she can't let
herself be outgoing -- say striking up conversations with strangers --
but is desperate for attention, she resorts to trying to "keep" any
attention she is lucks into, by any means possible.  She stifles her
own personality and opinions as hard as she can, lest she in any way
offend or drive away this person spending precious time with her.  She
becomes totally "agreeable", incredibly apologetic any time it seems
like she has disagreed with whomever she is with.

She apologizes for talking too much, and oscillates wildly between
babbling on a million miles a minute, and tongue-clenched-between-
teeth silence.  She tries to have a gay and perky demeanor, because
she knows people don't like sadness.  She tries to be very solicitous,
volunteering to do outrageous things, even things which would be
odious to her, trying to impress the other with what a helpful and
useful person she is to have around.  She in all ways tries to be
people-pleasing and non-offensive.

Whenever she *has* to contradict someone in a purely social
circumstance or say something which she thinks people might not like,
she laughs like it's a joke or "nothing serious"... even when it's an
important proposal at work.  She tries desperately to minimize the
conflict she is creating.

When she does start behaving like an Extravert -- when she's around a
group of people and getting really revved, and feeling high -- she
winds up self-sabotaging.  Made anxious and guilty and panicy by her
belief, she blurts out faux pas and other accidental insults, she
becomes physically uncoordinated and humiliates herself, spilling
punch and getting her skirt caught up in her pantyhose.  On a deep
subconscious level, she feels these humilations are just and proper
payment for feeling good about for doing something bad -- the due of
the devil.  She emotionally parses them as *punishments* for
transgressing against the standard of conduct she learned was right.

She calls herself "shy" because of the panicy feeling she gets from
being around other people.  While some of that panicy feeling is a
fear of rejection (below), but it's even more the feeling of being a
criminal, breaking the rules, and doing something wrong.

She tries to "invite herself along" to things she wasn't invited to --
instead of issuing her own invitations to people, because initiating
social contacts is a "bad, Extroverted" behavior.  

She becomes terrified of rejection, because, while there may be "other
fish in the sea", she's not allowed to go fishing, and must content
herself with what leaps up onto the beach.  For her, social contacts
are much more rare than they should be, and thus to her their
commenserate value goes up.

As a teenager, Elizabeth discovered the one guaranteed way to get
attention is to be willing to have sex.  Having sex with a guy didn't
just mean that you had one guy willing to spend time with you -- it
meant you got taken to parties, and met his friends, and, in short,
provided an instant social life.

But Elizabeth keeps rehearsing the same relationship over and over
again.  A guy asks her out.  They date a little.  She sleeps with him.
Some number of months of sexually active relationship later, he breaks
it off saying he "needs space" and "is feeling smothered".  "*MEN*!"
she swears under her breath, "They're all allergic to commitment."
Meanwhile, her ex-boyfriends compare notes; "How many times per night
did she call *you*?" they laugh.

Also as a teenager, Elizabeth discovered two other ways to solve her
social problem: the drugs alcohol and ecstacy.  Her dates marvel that
when she gets drunk, she's a completely other person: a wild and crazy
party girl.  The thing she likes best about alcohol is that it reduces
her inhibitions against being an Extravert.  She is unaware that,
chemically, alcohol doesn't actually do that to her; it's merely that
in our culture, being drunk is a socially accepted excuse for behaving
as she dearly wants to.  Emotionally, the fact of drinking alcohol
legitimizes and excuses her acting like an Extravert.  Stumbling down
a city street with a lampshade on her head, and her laughing friends
in tow, she strikes up conversations and cracks jokes with everyone
she meets.

But ecstacy works on her right down to her cells.  She took it at her
first rave, and all of a sudden she had 200 best friends whom she
loved and whom loved her right back.  She could walk right up to
anyone and hug him or her.  She didn't feel uptight or awkward, and
she didn't feel the need to apologize for anything.  All was right
with the world, and reaching out with love to other people was the
most natural thing in it.  When she comes down from the high, though,
the chemical depressive effect is amplified by the crushing feeling of
having to cram herself back in her box.

Elizabeth feels lost most of the time.  She bursts into tears for
reasons she doesn't know.  She feels weak, tired, sad.  Her very
clinginess drives away potential friends and makes her even clingier
to the remaining ones.  She feels like she doesn't know her own mind,
because she has submerged her own likes and feelings so hard in an
effort to be unoffensive.  She is certain she has to choose between
being liked and being authentic.  When someone says one should be true
to oneself, and ignore what other people think, she nods somberly, but
she can't actually act that way, and she heaps coals of fire on
herself for not being able to act that way.  She "knows"
intellectually that she's not supposed to care what other people think
of her, but she's so hungry for peopleness she finds herself acting
otherwise.