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

by Jessica Pan

Please enjoy my nightmares.

Her entire life has been shaped by these random encounters. All because she chooses to talk and listen to people she has just met,

I had taken my introvert status as a license to wall myself off from others.

I was an introvert in a hole, not in a hole because I was an introvert.

“Social anxiety is a completely normal experience. We are social animals. We want to be accepted by our peer groups, and we do not want to be rejected. If people do not have any social anxiety, something is seriously wrong with them.”

I feel like a kindly village idiot wandering the city.

As Nick coaches me through meaningful conversation topics—what do you like about your job, tell me about your family, where’s the most interesting place you’ve been to this year—I realize that I’m a grown woman having a lesson on how to have a conversation.

social life is governed by reciprocity.

“Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”

“As people, we are extremely vulnerable.

“We need allies to survive, hence the need for sociability. We all seek deep connections with other people, but as we get older, loneliness is an unavoidable part of life,”

Loneliness has been declared a health epidemic,

“You might think, ‘Maybe he didn’t want to talk about his mother and it was rude of her to ask,’ but he’s the one who brought her up. He did want to talk about it, but he couldn’t find a way in,” he says. “People are usually very happy to answer personal questions if they feel the person asking them is genuine and kind.”

the fear of being intrusive is hugely exaggerated. The more important point is this: what we should actually fear is being boring and dying having never connected with anyone.

“The fear and bleak reality of being boring and dying having never connected with anyone is vastly underestimated.”

sharing our vulnerabilities and insecurities is the quickest way to make a real connection with someone. Most people want to boast about their lives, but this leaves people feeling jealous or resentful.

“It’s not that we want others to fail, but we need to know that our own sorrows have echoes in other people’s lives. That’s what connects us. Strength may be impressive, but it’s vulnerability that builds friendships,”

“Think about a dinner party,” he says. “We take so much time cleaning our house and cooking the food, but then we just let conversations run rampant and stay shallow. But we can go deep. We can edit. We can alter the course of the conversations and make connections for life.”

“People who lack social anxiety: it’s a sign of psychopathy.”

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.

I became a deer in headlights, except they were studio lights and people were yelling at me to stay in front of them, instead of safely scurrying off into the forest.

Research shows that when we are stressed, our bodies also release cortisol, which interferes with our attention and short-term memory.

In a cathedral with bright lights and vast darkness, it feels like I am telling a funny story to God and God is giving occasional feedback through celestial applause.

Honestly, the man knows too much. But his warmth, his willingness to chat and to be disarmingly open with perfect strangers, has made this hellish experience bearable. He makes me want to make an effort to extrovert more: I wanted to be someone’s Pete one day.

I’d seen firsthand how talking and being open through tense moments can transform them. How the right stranger can become your personal hero.

Research says that we have the most friends we’ll ever have when we are twenty-nine, while other studies say we start to lose friends after the age of twenty-five. When we are in our thirties, our social circles decline and continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

Introverts tend to value quality over quantity when it comes to relationships, and after this exodus, I was left with no friends. I had not thought to stockpile them in case of a drought.

I don’t volunteer. I don’t participate in organized religion. I don’t play team sports. Where do selfish, godless, lazy people go to make friends? That’s where I need to be.

A big source of my loneliness is not having a close friend I can call and meet for coffee at a moment’s notice and share everything that’s been happening in my life.

years. He has plenty of thoughts: “It’s good to be specific. People usually try to be as broadly appealing as possible, but I think it’s important to discourage people you won’t like and encourage people with similar interests. Having said that, I would avoid overtly naming things you don’t like, as it looks negative.”

Being seen is something we crave out of friendship—that feeling of “This person gets me more than I get myself.”

“You can’t expect someone to behave like your friend before you’re actually friends. I’m not saying people should be mean, but they don’t owe you anything. So try not to be too hurt if they don’t get in touch or reply.”

so many of the things that come up in his charisma course overlap with his therapy practice: confidence, self-esteem, performance, body language, impostor syndrome.

make eye contact with people, smile, and join on the end of the group. Nod at appropriate times. Then wait for a gap to join in and introduce myself.

reimagine the scenario as if I’m the host at the party and everybody there is my guest. He says this is a good way to shift my attention away from feeling self-conscious: offer people a drink, ask how they got there, ask whether they know anyone else. Introduce them to other people.

charisma is all about the energy we bring to a situation. It’s about assessing the room, asking the right questions, and having the right responses. Matching the energy of the person we’re talking to.

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:

You walk away from every encounter with him thinking, “God, Ollie is such a good, kind, caring guy. And so handsome!” But all he really does is say, “And how did you feel about that?” at exactly the right moment, echo your feelings back at you, pay you a compliment, and end with a beguiling smile. That handsome little shit. That clever, sneaky, beautiful snake-man.

“Authenticity is also important,” he reminds me. “You have to be genuinely interested in someone and in connecting with them or they’ll sense insincerity.”

most people are stuck in their work routines and they don’t take the time to reflect on how they feel about things, or they think they don’t have permission to talk about these things with other people.

I have never had any meaningful interaction at a stale networking event where people wear big name tags. A dinner or some casual drinks with a smallish group of new people, on the other hand, is absolutely amazing for ‘networking.’ The trick is to create an environment where you don’t feel like you’re doing it.”

networking is actually about giving, not getting. Sharing what you know. We want to help other people whom we feel a connection with.

I make a few rules before each event. Go with an intention. Talk to three people, with Richard’s advice in mind, and aim to really bond or connect with one person. Psychologists also say that it takes time for shy people to warm up, so if you always leave after ten minutes, you’re never giving yourself the chance to actually succeed. Stay for at least an hour. Also, don’t arrive late.

it’s fine to say no to events but we should commit to the ones we’ve said yes to.

Paul (has seen ghosts, from Clitheroe) tells me that when he feels too intimidated to walk into a room full of strangers, he tries to go with a friend or coworker, and they agree to split up for the first hour

after my twentieth wedding, I began to secretly think that maybe weddings are a little . . . long. Like a socializing marathon I’ll never have trained enough for.

I am struck by how saying things out loud, declaring them to people, makes them seem more real.

In Viv Groskop’s book How to Own the Room, she writes, “Some women don’t need so much help with public speaking as with the self-doubt and self-loathing that hold them back from getting involved in it.”

improv people are theater kids off their leashes.

My mind always blanks when I’m put on the spot—in improv, there is nowhere but “the spot.”