A Little Bit of Both
Everyone has a way to recharge. For the most part, a good night’s sleep or a cup of coffee in the morning is what helps people get through the day. However, I’d like to talk about how people recharge from their personality. For years, I heard about how extroverts get their energy by being social and introverts recharge on a night in. Despite always getting lumped on the more extroverted side, I often found myself relating to the introverted side. I realized I was both.
The term ambivert is one I truly think should have a brighter spotlight. It defines, “a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features” (a word learned from a Buzzfeed video oddly enough). My entire life, I’ve seen people shoved into either the extrovert or introvert category. The fact that the word ambivert was created means I can’t be the only one who feels they belong to both categories, right?
Here’s the thing, I love socializing. I love walking down to Green Street to get dinner or lunch with friends. Yet, I dread going to those awkward dinner parties where it’s mostly small talk. During the long breaks, I’ll most likely be hibernating in my room while burrowing in a book series. I guess my introverted side rarely gets seen. My introverted tendencies only come out when I’m alone. Sure, I can hold a passionate conversation and dance the night away. However, I love my nights in where I can slide on a pair of headphones and relax to an interesting TV show, sketch figures on paper, or read a good book. Both moments are precious to me. These varying moments make me my best self.
The moral here, I believe, is that we can’t shove people into categories without multiple perspectives. I know that I act differently depending on the situation, who am I to assume what someone else does when I’m not around them.
The term ambivert is one I truly think should have a brighter spotlight. It defines, “a person whose personality has a balance of extrovert and introvert features” (a word learned from a Buzzfeed video oddly enough). My entire life, I’ve seen people shoved into either the extrovert or introvert category. The fact that the word ambivert was created means I can’t be the only one who feels they belong to both categories, right?
Here’s the thing, I love socializing. I love walking down to Green Street to get dinner or lunch with friends. Yet, I dread going to those awkward dinner parties where it’s mostly small talk. During the long breaks, I’ll most likely be hibernating in my room while burrowing in a book series. I guess my introverted side rarely gets seen. My introverted tendencies only come out when I’m alone. Sure, I can hold a passionate conversation and dance the night away. However, I love my nights in where I can slide on a pair of headphones and relax to an interesting TV show, sketch figures on paper, or read a good book. Both moments are precious to me. These varying moments make me my best self.
The moral here, I believe, is that we can’t shove people into categories without multiple perspectives. I know that I act differently depending on the situation, who am I to assume what someone else does when I’m not around them.
I can really relate to your post. I have always gotten energy from being around other people but also enjoy time spent alone just watching a movie or reading a book. Before reading your post, I have never thought of myself as an ambivert and have always classified myself as an extrovert. Thank you for writing a post that made me ponder about how I categorize myself :)
ReplyDeleteTina, great post! I think there's fair and foul when we categorize ourselves. Like you said, in recognizing one, we suppress another, which can lead to harmful stereotypes or assumptions. However, by naturally labelling ourselves, we also create groups which can be very broad, like girls who draw, or get pretty specific, like girls who draw exclusively kitsch pictures of their favorite Tokyo Ghoul character. For me, what's most important is remembering that people are like onions: what's on the outside is great, but there's always more layers.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really relatable post for a lot of people. Even if someone doesn't identify themselves as an ambivert it's still a really useful term to have. Probably no one fits all the way in one category. Depending on the day, someone could be mostly extroverted but a little introverted but then the next day could feel very introverted. It's cool you wrote this post because that's not something I think about a lot!
ReplyDeleteThis is 100% true. Growing up I was always a little annoyed by how people said you can be either an introvert or an extrovert. I especially agree with how you said personalities are dependent on the situation, because that's true with my personality. I consider myself very extroverted when I'm around close friends who I'm comfortable with, but I'm very introverted when with people I don't know so well.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I have found myself to be more on the introverted side, but then when it comes to school, I really love sharing my ideas about a specific topic that I think I know a lot about. The word ambivert is actually a really useful word to have in your vocabulary. Really good post.
ReplyDeleteI relate to this so much. I also love talking and meeting new people, but I need breaks to be myself. I think it's a lot to handle for someone to be social and outgoing all the time. I agree that the term ambivert needs to be used a lot more, because I think most people don't fall strictly under introvert or extrovert.
ReplyDeleteI am most definitely an introvert for 99% of the time. However, under the right circumstances or with the right people I can flip to the polar opposite. I think it is extremely important to not divide human beings into strict categories when at all possible. All this leads to is stereotypes and other unnecessary predisposed views. Really interesting post!
ReplyDeleteThis is quite true. I know my social tendencies depend mostly on my mood. Sometimes, I prefer a decently sized group, other times, I like one-on-one conversations, and often, I like being alone. This was a great blog post in that it addressed an idea not often brought up, and it felt, fittingly, quite conversational. If only I were in a more conversational mood...
ReplyDeleteI empathize with this post - I feel like we always expect people to be either extremely introverted or extroverted, and there's not a lot of space in the middle. Everyone can be outgoing and recharge by talking to people, it just depends on how comfortable they are with the people they are hanging out with. Maybe it would be more reasonable to classify personality types by how quickly they adapt to new people/social situations, rather than how they recharge.
ReplyDeleteI think your post is very interesting. Personally, I don't like any of the terms, because they're often inaccurate and judgmental labeling. I guess ambivert is a fair term though. I like what you took away from this, I relate in feeling like I'm both extroverted and introverted.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post! The fact is, being truly extroverted or truly introverted is pretty rare - by one estimate about 70% of the population is ambiverted. I like the concept of a range or spectrum for personality tests. Compare the outdated, discredited Myers-Briggs Personality test with the newer OCEAN Personality test. When scientists nowadays talk about common personality types, they tend to use the words "most", "likely", or "clusters" to hedge and demonstrate that not everyone fits precisely into a box. It's a welcome change :)
ReplyDelete