Why Introverts Are As They Are

It is tempting to assume that one might simply be born either introverted or extroverted, as though these categories were biological in nature, a little like eye or hair colour. But a more likely explanation is that we in fact become introverted or extroverted as a result of particular experiences; it is our distinctive path through childhood that determines at which end of the social and temperamental spectrum we are going to fall.

One might propose that introverts tend to be people who have, first and foremost, had to attune themselves too powerfully and too early to the needs of those looking after them. From a young age, they will have had to ask themselves implicitly: ‘What do the somewhat unstable, alarming or difficult people around me require of me?’ As opposed to being able to think, with greater authenticity and freedom, as small children always should: ‘What do I want? How do I feel? What do I have to say?’

Perhaps there was a fragile mother who couldn’t cope with any demands, who wanted to be humoured and looked after – and who was, in middle age, still deep down a child herself. Or perhaps there was a father with an extremely volatile temper who needed to be watched very carefully, and cheered and distracted to prevent recurrences of rage.

The future introvert is liable to have succeeded brilliantly at their vigilant tasks. They will have grown up to be experts at working out how to manage difficult characters and give them what they need. But this talent will not have been without a very high cost to their own natures.

If we are highly attuned to everyone we meet, if we can’t help but automatically mollify and appease the moods of others, we’re going to end up finding company extremely exhausting.

We’ll have far more of a need than some to spend time on our own, because company will make so much more of an impression on us, it will stimulate our nerves, it will constantly call from us soothing and containing responses that, however effective these might be, cut us off from our true selves. We will crave to be alone because being together takes us so far from who we really are. 

Introverts lack an experience that they could be with others and have their needs met. Their history has taught them that the only person who could possibly understand their needs is them. 

All this can make relationships especially hard for introverts. They may be brilliant at understanding the needs of their partner. But they will also, after a while, experience an overwhelming wish to be by themselves and resent their partner’s comparatively strong desire for connection and contact, because they operate with a binary perspective on the fulfilment of needs: it will be them or me. But never both. 

From this we can start to see an ideal evolution for the introvert. That they should cease to make such a sharp distinction between what might happen to their needs in company and what can happen when they are alone. They would ideally understand their own pessimism as to what relationships entail – and cease to approach every encounter with a new person with the assumption that they will merely need to accommodate someone else. They might not have to assume that solitude would be the only route to an authentic audience.

They might learn a simple lesson that their difficult past will have unfairly cut them off from: that a relationship worthy of the term is one that gracefully allows two people to be heard and seen in tandem.