Introverts - Part 4

Continued from Part 3

It’s interesting now to think about what happened  at the cocktail lounge. My meatball victim , extrovert. He saw the empty seat, the unescorted gal, and made his move without consideration of myself, surroundings or potential outcome. I on the other had taken a place one stool away from her, thinking a more direct approach might be an unwanted invasion of her space . . . seem pushy. I waited to make sure such a move would be welcomed and became absorbed with what to say next . . . how to break the ice. The other guy might have as easily taken the stool on her other side, but I’m sure that the result would have been the same, though he would have avoided the plate of meatballs.   

                        2. You go to parties but not to meet people.

                        If you’re an introvert, you may sometimes enjoy going to parties,

                        but chances are, you’re not going because you’re excited

                         to meet new people. At a party, most introverts would rather spend time

                        with people they already know and feel comfortable around. If

                        you happen to meet a new person that you connect with, great

                        but meeting people is rarely the goal.

                                                                        The Introvert’s Way – Sophia Dembling

Louder and More Forceful People

More excerpts and conclusions gleaned from Quiet, by Susan Cain

            We tend to see the more verbose and talkative as smarter, ever  though this isn’t true. In an experiment where total strangers met by phone, those taking most were thought to be more intelligent, more likable, and even better looking – sight unseen. Those talking fastest are perceived as more capable and appealing than those who speak softly and more slow.

The Bus to Abilene.  From  Yale Alumni Magazine – 2008.

            “A family is sitting on a porch in Texas on a hot summer day, and somebody says, ‘I’m bored, why don’t we go to Abilene?’ When they get to Abilene somebody says, “You know, I didn’t really want to go,’ and the next person says, ‘I didn’t want to go – I thought you wanted to go,’ and so on.”

            We tend to follow those who instigate action, any action. Takes one back to 9/11, all that happened after.

*            *            *

            Leaders thought more charismatic are invariably paid more than those of a more introverted nature, regardless of ability or lack of it. Bill Gates, Charles Schwab and Brenda Barnes (CEO of Sara Lee) are introverts, as well as Martin Luther King, and Rosa Parks.

Parks’ well known bus ride was not her first encounter. Twelve years before she was asked to leave a bus because she came in thought the front door. She did so, after purposely dropping her purse on the floor and sitting down on the front seat to retrieve it – an act of passive resistance.  She then disembarked and did not ride the bus for the following twelve years, before she became the mother of the civil rights movement.
 

            Was Moses and introvert? The book of Numbers describes him as, “very meek.” When God tells him he is to be liberator of the Jews he responds, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?  I am slow of speech and tongue.” Most of us tend to see Moses as described by Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. A swashbuckling hero who does all the talking. I suspect that it was never so.

            Does God love introverts? I think no more than extroverts. I have just finished reading, The Preacher and the Presidents, by Nancy Gibbs & Michael Duffy . . . Billy Graham. Now there was a smooth talker, extrovert personified.

            We introverts tend to be an enigma to extroverts. But introverts have pretty good understanding of extroverts.