My longtime friend, Gloria, and I were catching up by phone. My husband and I had spent six days with our children and grandchildren at Disney World in Florida. I said, “At the resort, Kurt and Sandy had adjoining rooms with Katelyn and Jacob. Ken and I shared a room with Lisa. I thought it worked out well.”
Gloria responded, “Good. Nobody had to be in a room alone. When I traveled for United, I hated being in a hotel room alone.”
My thought that I didn’t voice–at writers’ conferences, I paid a higher fee to be alone in my hotel room at the end of busy days of lectures, workshops and people.
That’s the difference between the two of us. Gloria, like the majority of the population, is an extrovert, the personality trait typically characterized by outgoingness, high energy and talkativeness.
I identify with the introverts described by Susan Cain in her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. She writes, “At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion, who favor working on their own over working in teams.”
Gloria and I probably wouldn’t have become close friends, but we were thrown together in high school when we dated a pair of guys who’d been best buddies since first grade. As time passed, we married those fellows and the camaraderie continued. Through the years, we’ve each learned to shrug our shoulders and say to ourselves, “That’s just the way she is.”
Are you an extrovert or an introvert?
I am an extrovert who because of the pandemic and because of getting older & finding it physically harder to get around, has been forced into more intorverted leanings!! I have done a pretty good job of adjusting, if you will. During these five months, I have researched, put together, and had a printed a book about my husband’s paternal family. I have now also written an article titled Genealogy 102 which tells of all the extra (as opposed to basic) things you can do along the genealogy line. Still, once in a while, I just have to pick up the phone and talk to a real person. Then I can settle down again & do my thing at home.
I enjoy my extrovert friends,