The Secret Lives of Introverts: Inside Our Hidden World

by Jenn Granneman

You enjoy spending time alone. You have no problem staying home on a Saturday night. In fact, you look forward to it. To you, Netflix and chill really means watching Netflix and relaxing. Or maybe your thing is reading, playing video games, drawing, cooking, writing, knitting tiny hats for cats, or just lounging around the house. Whatever your preferred solo activity is, you do it as much as your schedule allows. You feel good when you’re alone. In your alone time, you’re free.

You do your best thinking when you’re alone. Your alone time isn’t just about indulging in your favorite hobbies. It’s about giving your mind time to decompress. When you’re with other people, it may feel like your brain is too overloaded to really work the way it should. In solitude, you’re free to tune into your own inner monologue, rather than paying attention to what’s going on around you. You might be more creative and/or have deeper insights when you’re alone.

Your inner monologue never stops. You have a distinct inner voice that’s always running in the back of your mind. If people could hear the thoughts that ran through your head, they may, in turn, be surprised, amazed, and perhaps horrified. Whatever their reaction might be, your inner narrator is something that’s hard to shut off. Sometimes you can’t sleep at night because your mind is still going. Thoughts from your past haunt you. “I can’t believe I said that stupid thing … five years ago!”

You often feel lonelier in a crowd than when you’re alone. There’s something about being with a group that makes you feel disconnected from yourself. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to hear your inner voice when there’s so much noise around you. Or maybe you feel like an other, like I did. Whatever the reason, as an introvert, you crave intimate moments and deep connections—and those usually aren’t found in a crowd.

You feel like you’re faking it when you have to network. Walking up to strangers and introducing yourself? You’d rather stick tiny needles under your fingernails. But you know there’s value in it, so you might do it anyway—except you feel like a phony the entire time. If you’re anything like me, you had to teach yourself how to do it. You might have read self-help books about how to be a better conversationalist or exude more charisma. In the moment, you have to activate your “public persona.” You might say things to yourself like, “Smile, make eye contact, and use your loud-confident voice!” Then, when you’re finished, you feel beat, and you need downtime to recover. You wonder, Does everyone else have to try this hard when meeting new people?

You’re not the student shooting your hand up every time the teacher asks a question. You don’t need all that attention. You’re content just knowing that you know the answer—you don’t have to prove it to anyone else. At work, this may translate to not saying much during meetings. You’d rather pull your boss aside afterward and have a one-on-one conversation, or email your ideas, rather than explain them to a room full of people. The exception to this is when you feel truly passionate about something. On rare occasions, even shy introverts have been known to transform themselves into a force to be reckoned with when it really counts. It’s all about how much something matters to you; you’ll risk overstimulation when you think speaking up will truly make a difference.

You’re better at writing your thoughts than speaking them. You prefer texting to calling and emailing to face-to-face meetings. Writing gives you time to reflect on what to say and how to say it. It allows you to edit your thoughts and craft your message just so. Plus, there’s less pressure when you’re typing your words into your phone alone than when you’re saying them to someone in real time. But it isn’t just about texting and emailing. Many introverts enjoy journaling for self-expression and self-discovery. Others make a career out of writing, such as John Green, author of the bestselling young adult novel, The Fault in Our Stars. In his YouTube video, “Thoughts from Places: The Tour,” Green says, “Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.”

Likewise, talking on the phone does not sound like a fun way to pass the time. One of my extroverted friends is always calling me when she’s alone in her car. She figures that although her eyes, hands, and feet are currently occupied, her mouth is not. Plus, there are no people around—how boring! So she reaches for her phone. (Remember to practice safe driving, kids.) However, this is not the case for me. When I have a few spare minutes of silence and solitude, I have no desire to fill that time with idle chitchat.

You’d rather not engage with people who are angry. Psychologist Marta Ponari and collaborators found that people high in introversion don’t show what’s called the “gaze-cueing effect.” Normally, if you were to view the image of a person’s face on a computer screen looking in a certain direction, you would follow that person’s gaze; therefore, you’d respond more quickly to a visual target on that side of the screen than when the person’s gaze and the target point in opposite directions. Introverts and extroverts both do this, with one exception: if the person seems mad, introverts don’t show the gaze-cueing effect. This suggests that people who are very introverted don’t want to look at someone who seems angry. Ponari and her team think that this is because they are more sensitive to potentially negative evaluations. Meaning, if you think a person is mad because of something related to you, even their gaze becomes a threat.

You avoid small talk whenever possible. When a coworker is walking down the hall toward you, have you ever turned into another room in order to avoid having a “Hey, what’s up?” conversation with them? Or have you ever waited a few minutes in your apartment when you heard your neighbors in the hallway so you didn’t have to chat? If so, you might be an introvert, because introverts tend to avoid small talk. We’d rather talk about something meaningful than fill the air with chatter just to hear ourselves make noise. We find small talk inauthentic, and, frankly, many of us feel awkward doing it.

You’ve been told you’re “too intense.” This stems from your dislike of small talk. If it were up to you, mindless chitchat would be banished. You’d much rather sit down with someone and discuss the meaning of life—or, at the very least, exchange some real, honest thoughts. Have you ever had a deep conversation and walked away feeling energized, not drained? That’s...

You don’t go to parties to meet new people. Birthday parties, wedding receptions, staff holiday parties, or whatever—you party every once in a while. But when you go to an event, you probably don’t go with the goal of making new friends; you’d rather hang out with the people you already know. That’s because, like a pair of well-worn sneakers, your current friends feel good on you. They know yo...

You shut down after too much socializing. A study from Finnish researchers Sointu Leikas and Ville-Juhani Ilmarinen shows that socializing eventually becomes tiring to both introverts and extroverts. That’s likely because socializing expends energy. Not only do you have to talk, but you also have to listen and process what’s being said. Plus, you’re taking in all kinds of sensory information, such as someone’s tone of voice and body language—along with filtering out any background noises or visual distractions. It’s no wonder people get drained. But there are some very real differences between introverts and extroverts; on average, introverts really do prefer solitude and quiet more than their extroverted counterparts. In fact, if you’re an introvert, you might experience something that’s been dubbed the “introvert hangover.” Like a hangover induced by one too many giant fishbowl margaritas, you feel sluggish and icky after too much socializing. Your brain seems to stop working, and, in your exhaustion, you cease to be ...

You notice details that others miss. It’s true that introverts (especially highly sensitive introverts) can get overwhelmed by too much stimuli. But there’s an upside to our sensitivity—we notice details that others might miss. For example, you might notice a subtle change in your friend’s demeanor signaling that she’s upset (but oddly, no one else in the room sees it). Or, ...

You can concentrate for long periods of time on things that matter to you. I can write for hours. I get in the zone, and I just keep going. I don’t need anyone or anything else to entertain me—as I write, I enter a state of flow. I block out distractions and hone in on what I need to accomplish. If you’re an introvert, you likely have activities or pet projects that you could work on for practically forever. That’s because introverts are great at focusing alone for long periods of time. If it weren’t for introverts and our amazing ability to focus, we wouldn’t have the theory of relativity, Google, or Harry P...

You live in your head. In fact, you may daydream so much that people have told you to “get out of your head” or “come down to earth.” That’s because your inner world is rich and vivid. Not all introverts have strong imaginations (that trait is correlated with “openness to experience” on the Bi...

You like to people watch. Actually, you just like to observe in general, whether it’s people, nature, etc. Introverts are natural observers. They can often be found hanging out along the edges of a party or e...

You’ve been told you’re a good listener. You don’t mind giving the stage to someone else for a bit and listening. You’re not clamoring to get every thought out there, because you don’t need to “talk to think” or vocalize everything that crosses your mind the way some extroverts do. Listening—truly listening—...

You have a small circle of friends. You’re close with just one, two, or three people, and you consider everyone else to be an acquaintance. That’s because introverts only have so much “people” energy to spend, so we...

You don’t get “high” off your environment. There’s a reason why crowds, parties, and networking events aren’t your thing: introverts and extroverts differ in how their brains process experiences through reward centers. Neurobiologists Yu Fu and Richard Depue demonstrated this phenomenon by giving Ritalin to introverted and extroverted college students (Ritalin is a drug used to treat ADHD that stimulates the production of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain). They found that extroverts were more likely to connect their feelings of bliss with the environment they were in. However, introverts did not associate the feeling of reward with their surroundings. This suggests that introverts have a basic difference in how strongly they process rewards from their environment (more about introverts and rewards later). According to the researchers...

You’re an old soul. Introverts tend to observe, process information deeply, and reflect before they speak. Analytical by nature, we’re often interested in discovering the deeper meaning or underlying pattern behind events. Beca...

You alternate between being with people and being alone. Introverts relish being alone. In our solitude, we have the freedom to tune into our inner voice and tune out the noise of the world; as we do this, we gain energy and clarity. But introverts don’t always want to be alone. As human beings, we’re wired to connect with others, and as introverts, we long to connect meaningfully. So introverts li...

Psychologist Jonathan Cheek, along with graduate students Jennifer Grimes and Courtney Brown, wanted to explore these differences. They hypothesized that there are different types of introverts, or in other words, different ways in which a person’s introversion can be expressed. They surveyed about five hundred adults of various ages, asking them about their preferences for spending time alone, how likely they were to daydream, etc. They came up with four types of introverts: social, thinking, anxious, and restrained. They named their model “STAR,” after the first letter of each type.

Social—Don’t be fooled. This isn’t what it sounds like. A “social” introvert in Cheek’s model isn’t an introvert who is so outgoing that they can pass for an extrovert. A “social” introvert is someone who is introverted in a social way. It means you have a preference for hanging out with just a few people at a time. Or, sometimes, you prefer not to hang out with anyone at all—people who are high in social introversion like being alone. Instead of partying on a Saturday night, you’d rather stay home and play your favorite video game or watch Netflix. Of course, this assumes that you’re staying home because you have a preference for low-key activities, and not because you’re shy or have social anxiety. Shyness and social anxiety are not the same as introversion.

Thinking—Like the term sounds, a “thinking” introvert is someone who is introspective, thoughtful, and self-reflective. This person daydreams and enjoys losing themselves in their inner fantasy world. We’re not talking about neurotically losing a grip on reality, though; this is about imagination and creativity. Unlike social introverts, thinking introverts don’t share the same aversion to social activities that people usually associate with introversion. So, a thinking introvert might hang out with their friends all weekend but then spend Sunday night alone journaling, daydreaming, or working on their graphic novel.

Anxious—While social introverts seek solitude because they prefer low-key activities, anxious introverts avoid socializing because they feel awkward and painfully self-conscious around other people. These are people who are likely not very confident in their social skills. Unfortunately, their anxiety doesn’t lessen when they’re alone, because this type of introversion is defined by a tendency to ruminate. An anxious introvert may turn things over and over in their mind, wondering what could have, or what already has, gone wrong. They may have trouble shutting off their obsessive negative thoughts. They ...

Restrained—Do you jump out of bed, ready to seize the day? Do you like to keep busy as much as possible? Is your motto, “I’ll try anything once!” If so, you’re probably not a restrained introvert. Restrained introverts tend to operate at a slightly slower pace. They may take a while to get going. They prefer to think before they speak or act. To relax, they like to slow down and take it easy, as opposed to s...

Introverts have a tendency to internalize things. When there’s a problem in our lives, we turn inward and point the finger of blame squarely at ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with taking responsibility for your actions; in fact, I believe the world would be a better place if everyone had a strong sense of personal responsibility. But many introverts go overboard in this area. When we find ourselves in a soul-sucking job or a draining relationship, the first thing some of us do is try to adapt ourselves to the situation. We bend to everyone else’s needs and forget about our own. While being adaptable can be a good thing, being too adaptable can be downright dangerous.