I like people. I don't worry very much about this.
I like talking to people, but it tires me out. (Extraverts are often surprised to learn I'm not one of them.) I don't worry very much about this either. My energy gets budgeted well.
I like having deeply considered opinions about things that matter to me. (Maybe being introverted forced me to like this, or maybe the other way around, or a little of both.) I don't usually worry very much about this. It's valuable to know my reasons for thinking what I think, and for those reasons to stand up to as much scrutiny as I and others can muster.
Some of my opinions have only been arrived at after extended expenditures of time and effort: for instance, my current opinions on nutrition, exercise, politics, and software development. So have everyone else's, of course. My particular opinions generally seem to be outliers, as it happens, but that's not per se what worries me.
What worries me is that if I strike up a conversation with a random reasonably intelligent person and talk about our opinions, on average I'm going to find it a very frustrating conversation. That's true for many reasonably intelligent people, of course. But I have reason to speculate — not only because my opinions are outliers but because of how I arrived at them — that my average frustrating conversation is more frustrating than average. And even if that's not the case, I've learned (at least in part) to not want to have these conversations.
What worries me is that my introversion, combined with my specialized opinions that are usually fruitless to discuss with others, may be a vicious spiral. I'm worried that I'm making it more and more energy-costly for me to talk to people, more and more empathy-costly for people to talk to me, and less and less likely for me to have enough conversations with enough people to keep improving as a human being.
What can I do about it?
- When I need my opinions to matter, I seek relatively like-minded people with whom conversations feel mutually rewarding. (Primary danger: filter bubble.)
- When I don't need my opinions to matter, I talk less and listen more. (Primary danger: learned apathy.)
- When I'm feeling somewhere in between, I choose interlocutors more wisely, and choose how much conversational energy to expend on them more carefully. (Primary danger: underestimating myself or others.)
- I try to do work that takes away some of my freedom of choice about who I talk to and how much talking is needed. (Primary danger: takes too much.)
What else can I do to stay connected to people and have them stay connected to me? I can ask you for ideas. Hey, I just did!
My solution: hook up with an extrovert that does all the talking for you. Chime in when you feel the desire.
Having well thought-out opinions and views on life also means understanding why others could disagree with your opinions and views. Speaking with others about these opinions can allow you to learn more about how to respond constructively to people who disagree fervently with you. You see, they’re still disagreeing WITH you, so there’s a coordinated social activity occurring from which you can definitely learn something. No matter how frustrating, view every interaction with every human as a way to allow your theory of mind to be broadened and refined at the same time. Also, NEVER have these discussions on facebook, chat, or any other kind of written forum. Subtle cues including facial expression, gesture, tone of voice, and personal space are what make a conversation interpersonally regulatable. Go out there and talk and listen WITH people. You’ll never fail to learn something new and better yourself. Also, knitting while having a frustrating conversation is a HUGE help – I can only recommend it. All the bottled up physical energy goes into that damned scarf instead of elsewhere.
Time to start an ‘examined life’ club. but not on facebook. like face-to-face-no-book.
I’m studiously avoiding eye contact with one or two specific issues in my life, but the rest are up for debate. Can I join your new club?
I have struggled with this same problem. I think it’s 50% caused by gaining expertise – once you are expert at a topic, it’s hard to have a meaningful discussion with someone about it unless they are also expert. And it’s 50% caused by intelligence – once your expertise is very carefully built and deeply understood, there aren’t many people who are as expert as you. And it’s 50% caused by limited topics – once you’ve become expert in all the topics you care about, it’s hard to find new topics in which you aren’t expert, and that have other experts from whom you want to learn.
Think about this scenario: you suddenly find interest in a new topic that you never even glanced at before, but that was very important to lots of people. I imagine you’d find lots of people with whom you’d be happy to discuss it.
The key is to find people you want to learn from. The best of those people will keep learning on their own, things that you might not have learned yourself, so you’ll always have something to learn from them. They’re very rare, but they’ll be life-long friends.
Thanks for that, by the way