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.
