Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes

by Jessica Pan

I had nowhere to hide. They were here for a party. How long until they left?

Now that I’m older and wiser, on the morning of every birthday, I gently wake up my husband, Sam, and whisper in his ear, “If you throw me a party, I will murder you.”

I am, as one article defined it, a “socially awkward introvert.” A shy introvert, or shintrovert, as I shall henceforth refer to myself (which is also a pervert who is very into lower legs).

More than one British person has told me that only Americans and unhinged people talk to strangers.

My confidence was dangerously high. Like, tall-American-men-after-four-beers high. Maybe I could really do this.

“That’s the truth of the world, Jessica,” he says, casually full-naming me to let me know something big is coming. “Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”

I’m also shocked to discover that talking to strangers turns out to be one of the cheapest, easiest ways to feel good and get a hit of dopamine when you’re feeling low, invisible, or lost in your own world.

THINK OF ALL THE DRUGS THAT HAVE BEEN DONE HERE. No, brain, FOCUS.

Dad: Where are you from? Eastern Europe? Russia? Uber driver: I’m Georgian. Long pause Dad: Stalin was from Georgia . . .

Where do selfish, godless, lazy people go to make friends? That’s where I need to be.

Research has shown that it is our outer circle of acquaintances, also known as “weak ties,” that brings about the most change in our lives. A “strong tie” is our close friends and family, who are likely to have similar connections and knowledge as us. It is the weak ties, the people we are only loosely connected to, who are actually more influential on our lives. They bring new information, advice, and perspectives: new job prospects, commissions, fresh inspiration, or collaborators that we would otherwise have never discovered.

radiating charisma is actually easy and can be done in a couple of simple steps: ask an open-ended question (not something that can be answered with a yes or a no), listen to someone’s answer, and then show how much you care about their response by asking them a meaningful follow-up question: How did they feel about that? What was that like? What appealed to them about that? And then, crucially, you validate their feelings:

(did you know that in the UK there was a sperm shortage and so they had to import vast amounts of sperm from Scandinavia? I did not!).

Researcher and public speaker Brené Brown says that connection is why we’re here. That humans are neurobiologically built for it—but the only way we’ll ever make connections is to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen.

I realize that I did not recognize myself from who I was a few months ago. I’m a little unnerved but elated because now I know: things that seem impossible can suddenly become possible. A big part of this year was the desire to be brave enough to do something that felt so contradictory to the kind of person I thought I was.

self-confidence doesn’t find us: we have to push ourselves to do something hard and live through it, and then confidence will eventually follow. I’d faked confidence and, by doing so, created it. It really did feel like a feat of wizardry.

Research suggests that men are significantly lonelier than women. That one-third of men feel lonely regularly. When I discover that one in eight men report that they have no one to discuss serious topics with, my encounters make a lot more sense.

Once on vacation, I accidentally drove down a pedestrian-only street in Italy. Old Italian ladies started hitting the car with their handbags as Italian men slapped the windshield in anger and disappointment. I kept cry-yelling at them, “OK BUT WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO NOW? I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO KEEP GOING.”

But the self-care trend has extroverts pursuing introvert activities to help them relax and reflect—so why shouldn’t we introverts do the same? When we need to be loud and social and outgoing, we can steal their traits when we need them. We don’t even have to be bitten by a radioactive extrovert to gain their powers.