To be enjoying my own time a little too much - can an extrovert turn into an introvert?

[mabelineandme]

Been spending more and more time at home than usual. Considering the weathers been relatively bleak, I haven't got the energy to go and see friends. They've asked to see me but I've either cancelled or said I'm busy. I'm happy staying home reading a book and relaxing with my partner.
I work from home so do spend a lot of time here anyway, but the past 6 months or so, I don't have the energy to listen to my friends gossip or chat about what's going on in their life (most of it is all men related, dating, exes etc). Maybe it's because I've been in a long term relationship (7 years) and I just haven't got the capacity to listen to all of it anymore, I also have a friend that drains my energy and is accustom to returning to abusive narcissistic exes and having dealt with supporting her for 15 years, I'm just exhausted by it all and enjoying being at home in peace. I also have a doggo I spend a lot of time with. I've gone from extrovert to introverted almost overnight. Is this normal?!

@mabelineandme I’ve read your posts and the replies with interest as I’m quite similar (but lots older). Currently, your friend(s)are draining, and extroverts tend to get some “energy” from socialising (whereas introverts find they need time alone to recharge, especially after socialising). And I appreciate it’s a spectrum, we’re not completely one or the other.

If your current friend’s topic of conversation and behaviour is draining and repetitive - and therefore the energising part of socialising is missing - I fully get why you’d prefer to stay home!

A tiny part of me wonders if the posters saying “aww, your poor friends…” are the type that rinse and repeat the same behaviour and conversations themselves! You’re not in a friendship to fix the other person or be their counsellor.

Stay home, take time for you, make space for new friends/hobbies when you’re ready. Life changes all the time and sometimes we outgrow the friendships, or at least the going out together part. You’re still ‘there’ for them via messages etc. so not doing anything wrong, IMO. If you’re happy with your own company and that of your partner and dog, it’s not an issue - if you ever were to be alone, you know you like your own company and also have the capacity to make other friends.

I'm one of the 'aww your poor friends' posters. Yes, it is partly because I sympathise with her friends and I worry that the fact that they are stuck in a different life stage is making OP undervalue them. I'm happily married now but I was single into my early thirties. I had one particular friend who met her husband early and was extremely patronising and eye-rolling about my difficulty finding the right man to settle down with. I already felt left behind and dysfunctional as one of the last in my social circle to get hitched so her attitude wasn't helpful. As it happens, I nevertheless made a huge effort with that friend: she left the city we lived in when she had children, and despite living on an absolute shoe string at the time I would find the money for the train fare to visit her and hang out with her kids, and listen to her complain about the things even happily married women with kids sometimes complain about. We also talked about an awful lot of other things that had nothing to do with men! There were lots of reasons I really valued her friendship. But you know what? I think if someone had asked her about me at that time she would absolutely have sighed and said I was full of drama and kept making the same mistakes. It was obviously what she thought. Now perhaps OPs friends genuinely are energy-sucking narcissists or just women who love partying and enjoy the drama of dating and they're not at all struggling with being unhappily single, in which case OP is probably just quite different from them and could do with some new friends. But if she's just feeling a bit superior and impatient because they haven't settled down yet, and, as an easy match, she can't understand it, then she might like to think about having a bit more compassion in the way she thinks about these people she calls her friends.