For the past couple of months, we've all been seeing memes like this one. Extroverts are craving human contact, desperately needing to interact with people other than the one or two they may be quarantined with, while introverts are content to stay at home, interacting with co-workers and friends virtually if at all, and happy as clams, living in their dream world, right?
Well, that may be true to some small degree, but from the perspective of this introvert, it's still not all roses and sunshine. Although virtual interactions are just fine by me, and I'm happy to have limited to no contact with random strangers, I do have one major introvert problem that I'm sure many other introverts quarantined with their families are struggling with: I am NEVER alone.
For the past 65 or so days, with the exception of 2 three-minute drives to a public mailbox and back, I have literally never been more than 20 feet away from another human being. And two of the three human beings that are quarantined with me are constantly asking me for stuff and needing my attention or at least needing me to nod and grunt occasionally while they talk at me. It's a little stressful.
I love them all, but it's driving me crazy. I am developing a kinship with Greta Garbo.
I get you, Greta. I get you. And I think you get me:
It's exhausting to an introvert to never have that alone time to recharge, just as exhausting as it is for extroverts to not have access to other people to recharge. We all need to find a way to recharge our batteries, or we're all going to lose our minds.
So if you live with an introvert, please try to give them some space. And if you can't give them space, please give them some slack. After all, we are all in this together, separately. Just not quite separately enough for some of us.
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