Is that really hard for an extrovert to be 7 days alone?
I remember the first week of the pandemic extroverts were crying all over social media about how hard it was.
Meanwhile my lifestyle didn’t change at all.
A really good way I’ve heard it put is that introverts expend emotional energy on social interaction, and recharge it through isolation. Extroverts are the exact opposite. So if you imagine being forced to interact with other people non-stop for seven days, with no chance to have any alone time, and that’s what this person was putting themselves through.
This metaphor also handily explains the difference between “introvert” and “antisocial.” I love being around my friends, in the same way that some people love swimming. But just like swimming it’s very tiring. Even Olympic swimmers can’t swim all the time. So it’s not that I don’t like you, it’s just that I’m exhausted and if I keep going I’ll drown.
(Asocial not Antisocial - Anti-social is purposeful action of hostility towards people. Asocial is the purposeful avoidance of social interactions.)
Is it really that hard for an introvert to interact with someone constantly for 7 days straight?
Fuck I don’t even want to interact with someone constantly for 7 hours straight.
Well I’m not an extrovert and I have no idea if it’s really the same for them to be alone as constantly interacting with people is for introverts.
That’s a real video? How delightfully absurd.
Reminder that being anti-social is not the same as being introverted
And a reminder that being anti-social is not the same as being asocial.
Anti-social is active hostility towards society. Asocial is an avoiding of societal interactions.
I have three fucking cats I drag around the world with me because of the fucking pandemic. Just glad I finally have the resources in my life to actually do that now. But god-damn it’s expensive
I have just one and yep. That’s just the base stuff you need for their existence. Never mind the shit like toilet paper that they seem hell bent on destroying at all possible costs.
Yes I came out this morning to a roll shredded.
That title sounds like the tag line of 1/3 of Korean manhwa
I think 7 days with no human connection whatsoever would be difficult for anyone. However, I consider texting, social media and online games valid human connection. Frankly, I may even consider single player games or reading books human connection (as far as social needs are concerned), as you’re still interacting with a human creation and ideas.
True social isolation is nightmarish to me. But I’m pretty extroverted, anyways.
There is definitely a cost. I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time alone in my life. I even used to be proud of how long I would go without talking. Much of that was caused by untreated social anxiety. It was easier to sequester myself in my dorm or apartment, and study or work remotely.
The result is that yes I found ways to cope without human connection, including imagining that I wasn’t alone, but they make it far more difficult now when I do need to socialize, I feel all the more isolated and awkward.
Also not all human connection has the same value even to an extreme introvert. Like texting and such is OK, but a lot of times ppl are afk, so I might be in a very social mood but not able to satisfy it. Books, movies, games don’t really “scratch the itch” for me personally.
What do you feel like the cost was for you?
I grew up in childhood locked in a room by neglectful and abusive people. No family because they exchanged me for groceries when getting investigated by police.
When 18 I joined the military and became disabled. My unit went to Afghanistan. When I got out I had nobody or nothing in my life. It was me in an empty apartment sleeping on the floor. A month went by without interacting with anyone, a year, then two, it became a streak like it was an accomplishment.
It’s been about 30 years total of isolation for me by now, including my childhood. I didn’t even have internet for most of that. I took up meditation 20 years ago after the military.
Nothing feels real anymore, I have no sense of time or space. Life is an ever changing haze of moment to moment experiences. I can no longer determine if I am I cold or hot, tired, thirsty, etc. It all feels the same to me, I can see anything as multiple perspectives simultaneously.
I think I have become a modern day version of a person who meditates alone in a cave for decades.
lul
