“I’m an introvert”

Introvert. That word and I have a love hate relationship. Personally, I am an introvert. I have been one my whole life. However, it’s only recently that I discovered what that truly meant. I was always a bit of a loner (shock) and rather quiet in classes that I felt uncomfortable in (double shock), struggle to receive any type of compliments or attention and liked spending time alone reading or updating my sick Neopets guild page (haters gonna hate). I clung to my title as an introvert.

You want to have a sleepover this weekend? Sorry, I need introvert time.

Public speaking? You know I’m just not good at having eyes on me because I’m an introvert.

We don’t hang out much? Yeah well I’m just a really introverted person.

A party? It’s just too draining when you’re an introvert.

Contact with the outside world? No no no no I don’t do that I’m an introvert.

You get the idea. It was an easy way to fob someone off and make them feel guilty at the same time, like they were imposing on you and you practically have an illness and therefore shouldn’t be expected to socialize when you didn’t want to.

Last year I moved into a flat with a whole group of introverts, and my social life has been vibrant, entertaining and existent. And my social circle includes many fun and lovely extroverts who never seem to sound boring or depressive when they say “yeah, I’m an extrovert”. What I learnt is that all those times when I hid behind being an ‘introvert’ as an excuse was when I just plain old didn’t want to do the thing that people wanted me to do. Often because I was shy, tired, insecure, wanting to be anti-social or straight up didn’t want to go to another pizza eating boy hating nail painting sleepover with girls who made my spine do that thing it does when you hear nails on a chalkboard. But hey, admitting you have insecurities and maybe you don’t like some people in large quantities or at all (even the ones you hang out with) is far more offending than saying ‘sorry, I don’t do well in big groups, i’m really introverted.’

Don’t get me wrong, the title of being an ‘introvert’ is very real. I recharge through being alone, being able to process my day, think and rest. But that normally looks like reading a book alone in my room (yup…i’m single) for 30 minutes before I go to sleep, writing in my gratitude journal and not making plans in the morning of my day off. I love spending time by myself and I am really happy to stay in bed binge watching Suits with a bag of potato chips. But that doesn’t mean that I say no social events, birthday parties, staff outings and every other thing that crops up when I  have people who want to see me (awake, dressed, not covered in potato chip crumbs) and hang out.

I guess you could call it a pet peeve of mine, treating introvert as synonyms for things that it’s not. I’m still bad in big groups when I don’t know anyone because I get nervous talking to new people. I struggle with public speaking because I do get shy in front of big crowds and insecure of saying the wrong things and being laughed at. I spend Saturday night at home alone with some type of carbohydrate that fits good into a bowl and requires minimal chewing. But that’s me. That’s my personality, my habits, my insecurities. It’s not me being an introvert. Small groups, deep conversations, quality not quantity time sound perfect to me. But so do dinner parties and pool parties and big bbqs in summer. And having the courage to say “no I don’t want to go to that” or “no that’s not really my thing” during the times when the activity is not for me…and sometimes having the courage to push myself outside my comfort zone, go do things and say “hey, this will be a good story to think about tomorrow morning when I’m looking at Harvey Spectors face on my smudgy laptop screen”.

Blerging (verb): The act of blending and merging words or phrases together through speech causing sentence malfunctions.

I think I invented this word. And the word itself was a blerg when I tried to talk about combining two things together, and I said ‘sorry I just blerged them’. I also combine the phrase with the interlocking of fingers to show unity. Yeah. I’m very special.

Being a fast talker is a punishment. You have so much to say (although not all of it necessary) and a seemingly minimal amount of time to squeeze those words in. Being excited at the same time…well that’s just torture. You can’t share what you want to say fast enough, and you almost forget to breathe as you are pushing words out of your mouth at speeds that could qualify you for the Olympics if they translated to the barely used muscles in your legs rather than your tongue. That’s where the concept of blerging is in my life, the daily struggle between what is in my brain and the verbal blockage that occurs when those thoughts try to become sound. I stumble. I mumble. I occasionally have to stop to breathe or just to repeat the last three sentences I said because the person I’m talking to has nodded and said yeah 7 times in a row but their face says they have no idea what I’m talking about. And you stick a kiwi accent in there and oh boy…you’ve just lost everyone.

It could be worse. At least I have semi-decent voice projection, so it’s rare for someone to say “I didn’t hear you”  and actually mean they didn’t hear me rather than ‘I didn’t understand you’. My flatmate talks in a constant state of whisper. And suddenly it’s my turn to smile and nod 7 times and try to remain in direct visual contact so I can lip read and laugh when she does. What’s worse is that she can be really funny…if you are close enough to hear her. It’s always the quite ones you have to watch out for right?

Everyone, including myself, is back from holiday now so last night was a late night sharing of holiday stories. And my flatmates who had been away for 2 weeks filled me in on their time away in about an hour…and I was away for under 2 days and it took me 3 hours because let me tell you in detail about the time we stopped in at McDonalds and the lady behind the counter tried to charge me $6.50 for a frozen sprite and a cheeseburger and I think I’ve made enemys in the fast food industry and yeah that happened in the first 30 minutes of my holiday and there is still another 46 hours to tell you about if I remember to breathe so I don’t pass out.

Well, at least I know I write how I talk…with as few fullstops as possible. And as for vlogging, well, how much time do you have? Because I have a killer story about the chicken nuggets I cooked for lunch that ended up on fire…if only you could understand it.

Blogging, vlogging and remote control hogging

I have a weakness for alliterations and rhymes. And art deco buildings. And Taylor Swift’s new CD. Clearly I am incredibly unique and interesting and it’s amazing how i’m not famous and out brunching with some Kardashian shore person or whatever reality TV show star it is that has all that free time (although I do have another weakness for ‘My big fat gypsy wedding’…guilty pleasure please don’t judge). It was suggested that I start blogging and vlogging because I am, to quote my well meaning flatmate ‘really funny’. I don’t know if the emphasis on vlogging was more because I’m funny looking or because my New Zealand accent is completely understandable when you use it at freight train speeds, which I do.

Summer is the time when all you have is time, romance is in the air so you wear a face-mask in public and the sun gives me a ‘Christmas glow’. I use that phrase because I don’t tan except in varying shades of red which cause me to look like a jolly pealing lobster even when applying SPF 80+ (a slight exaggeration which I’m sure you will forgive if you could see my back right now). It’s also the time when nothing is on TV no matter how many channels you have, and re-runs of friends only happen after the sun is low in the sky and you can dare to venture to the mailbox or perhaps the supermarket to get another 2L of ice cream because after all it is summer and you vacuumed the house which is basically high intensity cardio and you deserve a treat, regardless of what New Year’s resolutions you made less than 72 hours ago.

I don’t know if I will continue blogging, although I do like getting my thoughts down on the page, and I may perhaps attempt vlogging when I can decide what to wear and where I can angle the camera so the house looks cleaner than it is (I know I said I vacuumed but really it was more of a light dusting with the sleeve of my dressing gown…we’ve all done it.)

If you can put up with me and my honesty then lets be friends, as long as you don’t mind that it’s a Saturday at 2pm and my biggest achievement of the day is getting dressed. But hey…it’s summer.