Introversion

Right now, I can hear fireworks going off all around the neighborhood. Earlier tonight, my friend Alex Galt invited me out with a bunch of folks to go see the fireworks downtown. I called him up and said I wouldn’t be going.

Here are my questions: At what point does introversion begin to interfere with actual, healthy social interaction? Glenn Gould had a theory about a particular ratio that we all inherently have. For every X hours we spend around other people, we need Y hours alone. I’m wondering if my particular ratio is just higher than most of the people I know.

Main Entry: ag?o?ra?pho?bia
Function: noun Etymology: New Latin, from Greek agora + New Latin -phobia

My reason for not going out tonight? I told Alex that I felt like being alone. Which is completely true. I did spend the majority of the last week entertaining my cousin (hopefully she had fun), and didn’t really feel like I had much time on my own. Since she just left yesterday, I view today as time to be isolated, quiet, away from everyone and everything.

Problem is – I’ve been doing a lot of this the past few months. I’ve turned down offers to go out, cookouts, movies, etc. More than just every-once-in-a-while. It’s starting to get to a point where I wonder if my friends will even call me anymore, or if they will assume I will just say "Sorry. I feel like staying in tonight."

Me using Carolyn’s visit is an easy excuse. I have a lot of them – I’m tired from work. I want to work on something on the computer. I’m just not feeling social. Ever since my girlfriend broke up with me (this is some four months back now), I’ve been a virtual hermit. Sure, I’ve gone out here and there. But nothing regular. I’ve spent the bulk of my time pecking away at this keyboard, staring into a monitor, and sending out little messages into the Internet, waiting for a response. To make things worse, I’ve created THIS little space – this blog, this diary, this confessional. And I actually look forward to writing in here, perhaps because I feel someone out there is reading this.

So instead of hanging out and talking with real people, with real friends… I’m sitting here writing to you, dear reader, some invisible entity who may or may not be there reading this with no small degree of indifference.

When breakups occur (oh come on – you saw this coming a mile away), most people tend to do something drastic. They go out and have flings; they buy new clothes; they get a new hairstyle; they get famously drunk. What I’m saying is – confronted with the termination of a deeply personal relationship, most people create some kind of drastic instance that serves as a method of redefinition. Me? I haven’t done anything drastic, nothing crazy different. Instead of the immediate change, I’ve decided to grow my hair out again. It used to be long, back in the 90’s. I got it cut for grad school, right before I started teaching. Now seems like a good time to let it go shaggy again.

Here’s the question: What does this say about me? Why didn’t I just go out and get a tattoo or something? Buy a new pair of shoes? Some new clothes? Shave my head? Why not make an immediate change? Instead of that, I opted for the slow, gradual, going-to-be-a-painful-process-until-it’s-complete route. There’s no good way to fix up hair when you’re growing it out. Everyday, you either look like

1) Kurt Cobain hungover
2) You got hit in the head with the 1970’s stick.

I’ve been trying to figure this out. Maybe it’s the way I deal with things – nothing immediate. Just slowly, over time. I notice a trend with the way relationships end for me. Most of the time, the "other person" seems to be just fine and dandy. Getting along with their lives, moving on. Me … I sit and wallow for a good six months plus. I seem to be in a perpetual fetal position for anywhere from half a year to a full year. Times like this – I wonder, why did I ever make myself vulnerable? Why trust to any degree, when you can wind up feeling betrayed and paralyzed for that trust?

You play, you win. You play, you lose. You play.
The Passion, Jeanette Winterson

I’ve lived in Chicago now, for almost 2 years. I still don’t know this city for shit. I work in the suburbs, and commute out during the week….

See? This is the shit I’m talking about. I’m using work as an excuse!

I have been living in Chicago for almost 2 years, and I have not made enough of an effort to know this city. I bought a digital camera a few weeks back, and I’m hoping this will get me out the door and exploring more. But my biggest fear is that I’ll always have some excuse, some explanation, some reasoning that provides me a safe "I want to stay at home" outlet… and prevents me from interacting "out there."

For now, it’s easy to blame everything on a relationship ending a few months back. But with each day that passes, that excuse seems less feasible. With each day that passes, the time indoors increases the distance between me and "normal" social interaction.

Does posting/writing/talking to people on the Internet (people who I have never met) count as social interaction? Are Internet personas a cheap substitute, and not really equivalent to actual conversations/people? Does a preference for one negate the other?

While I do enjoy chatting with the folks I’ve met over the web, at times I begin to wonder if I’m losing my ability to deal with real-life people. There’s a great deal of anonymity associated with the internet – and this can be a good thing. But does this mask our true selves? Or does it allow us to be truly ourselves, unashamed and exposed, for all the world to see?