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

by Jessica Pan

Rather than beating myself up for the person I wasn’t, I chose to celebrate the person I was.

What might happen if I flung open the doors of my life? Would it change for the better?

when people are forced to talk to strangers, it makes them happier.

Some laugh in shock, some pause fearfully, and all of them look at me as if I am very slow. One asks if I’m OK. But not one of them calls the police. And I don’t die.

“Nobody waves—but everybody waves back.”

In my past life, I would have walked straight past this man. Now, here I am at the fanciest party I’ve ever been to, discovering his past felonies, and all because I stopped to say hello.

we need to know that our own sorrows have echoes in other people’s lives.

“We think to be interesting we have to be impressive—but sharing our failure connects us more than sharing our success.”

Typically, we are more sensitive to new stimuli and to our environments, so when faced with an unnerving task like speaking in front of a large group of others, introverts are more likely to have a faster heart rate or increased blood pressure.

Introverts tend to value quality over quantity when it comes to relationships,

Studies say that it takes six to eight meetings to feel like someone is our friend.

Other research says that, on average, it takes fifty hours of time with someone before you consider them a casual friend and ninety hours before you feel comfortable upgrading them to “friend.”

Sometimes, though, friendship is like love. You can’t plan for it. It finds you in unlikely places. Or in the most obvious place imaginable.

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:

charisma is a set of behaviors that anyone can integrate into their personality.

And any shy, introverted person should always go to a party with an exit strategy.”

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.

shyness, which is defined as a generalized fear of judgment from others.

He thinks that comedy can be a cure for shyness, in what he calls “comedic behavioral therapy.”

I’m a little unnerved but elated because now I know: things that seem impossible can suddenly become possible.

I am like Clark Kent, except all I do is yell at myself in the mirror and emerge the exact same person.

“A disagreeable introvert is not necessarily constrained to a life of unhappiness.”

our personalities are not fixed or exclusively determined by nature or nurture; instead, they can change as a result of action.

We don’t even have to be bitten by a radioactive extrovert to gain their powers.

Finding my voice and challenging myself to do intimidating things made me feel more confident. This is priceless in a world that can be scary, maddening, and unfair. When there are fewer things we are scared of and fewer things that can control us, this can only be a good thing.

“There is no such thing as a pure extrovert or a pure introvert—such a man would be in the lunatic asylum.”