INTROVERTS THREAD ...shhhh, we're over here

[NorksAreMessy]

Hello fellow introverts. I hope the last thread exploded due to time since it was started, and not because it was controversial. :o

I started the original thread after reading the wonderful book quiet and realizing that I was not alone.

Lots of people were kind enough to share their thoughts and experiences, and it was a good support for those of us who like being alone; hate parties, especially hen nights; love reading, crafting, walking, painting, creating; enjoy solitude; need some recovery time after being in a crowd; prefer thought to action.

We are not necessarily shy, we can be confident and even outspoken, but we are at our happiest having a bit of a think on our own, thanks all the same

It's a bit odd to have a group of introverts, but I prefer to think of us as a collective. Separate but together.

As Christmas approaches, I thought we might need a thread to help us through it all

Hello mini I am in a field near Cradley, really. Malvern is the nearest metropolis! I loved the storms and like the snug feeling they give you when you look out at them.

hello greenhill. One of my favourite pottering jobs is to fill up the bird feeders. We live on a farm and I have four feeders dotted around the garden. We have lots of wonderful birds, and DH and I have our first evening drink just sitting in the garden quietly watching the birds. It makes us both very happy. I love your DCs' joy at finding egg shells. That is beautiful :)

Hello. I'm catching up with this thread as I'm reading Quiet at the moment. I know I'm an introvert, and so is dp, but I have just read the bit about couples arguing. In the book she talks about the introvert woman arguing about the Friday night dinner parties with her extrovert husband. But his arguing "style" i.e. loud and shouty sounded like mine so it just seemed a bit too simplistic. It's the only part of the book which hasn't resonated with me so wondered if anyone else didn't recognise themselves at that bit?

Oh no, have I killed this thread with talk of shouting? Sorry

Don't worry, this is a dipping in and out thread, rather than a chatty one swedishedith. I'll be back when I've got something to say...

Hi SwedishEdith. As greenhill says, don't worry, this thread goes for weeks with no activity. I'd read your post when you posted but couldn't really respond as my arguing style is "simmering indignation" rather than loud and shouty so it's difficult to relate but I'll be interested to hear what others have to say.

We're now two weeks into the Summer holiday and have done very little socialising so far and amazingly DS1 isn't objecting at the moment. Usually holidays are one long "Muuuuum, who are we seeing today? can so and so come over?" but he then disappears for long periods when his friends are here to get some space! This holiday he seems content for it just to be me, him and DS2 for the day, which suits me fine

I've missed this thread. Is anyone else hating this hot weather or is it just me?

I'm an Autumn and Winter person and always have been.

Now I've caught up....

I love to potter about either in the house or in the garden. It's the best thing ever. Yesterday i changed the loo seat and the flooring in the bathroom, just pottering about in my own time - bliss and now I've got half a bathroom to show for it.

I don't do arguments either - I talk about it when everything has calmed down. Now I'm single I don't even have to do that anymore. I sit and think it through then get on with my life. - nice and simple and calm.

A friend has finally given up trying to get me out of my shell, it dawned on her when I turned down a bbq on a hot day in favour of going for a walk on a briliant foggy and rainy day we had out of the blue instead. She still loves me.

I'd love to find an embriodery class but I can't afford the baby sitters, I've started knitting instead though and have nearly finished a massive patchwork blanket ready for the winter (which had better be cold and snowy).

Oh farrow you're speaking my language. The other night it wasn't that warm, it was raining hard and I practically couldn't wait to get home after the gym to cosy up. Autumn can't come quick enough, as well as a night at a Premier Inn hotel all alone next month .

Hello a little late maybe but I'd love to join :D
As a child I was thought of as horrifically shy. My mother accepted me for it but others all labelled me, criticised me and made me very uncomfortable and self-hating.
At uni I 'found myself' (awful expression I know) but I became much more confident, content, made great friends and realised how much I just loved my own company, social occasions were tiring! I'd wait in my room until I heard everyone leave the kitchen before going to cook as the thought of making small talk was horrendous. With my close friends who I am comfortable with I could chat happily, but often need a good slot of alone time afterwards!!

I went into teaching, I loved working with children and remembered my quieter, introvert teachers who I admired. I am now a headmistress, my school is a place which really celebrates introverts as well as extroverts and I have banned staff from ever saying to parents 'your DC is so quiet, they need to work on being louder' maybe need help building confidence, but they should not be told to stop being a calm, thoughtful person.

Friend wanted her family to go on holiday with my family, I managed to get out of it. As lovely as she and her DC are-- what a way to ruin a holiday!!!

seagullsarelikethat we've only done one day of socialising so far this holiday, we've been out for meals, visited a model village, been to the local NT park and shopped etc so haven't been completely housebound.

swedishedith I'm really going to have to read that book soon. It's been a bit pricy on kindle, but I might see if I can get it at the library (one of my favourite places, the children love the spooky cupboard there too, they can climb out of the secret entrance at the back). I'm a bit shouty when in a bad mood/ if the DC act up, I try not to be though, but was brought up in a very shouty household in the 70's.

farrowandbawl a walk in the rain is lovely, isn't it? We got caught in the rain on the way back home yesterday and used the tree lined footpath behind our house. It was quiet and the earth smelled delicious.

southeastdweller a whole evening alone, with no one else, no company whatsoever, sounds bliss.

dalmationdots your school sounds marvellous. I completely agree about working on confidence issues, rather than the volume switch on the DC

Greenhill

I LOVE walking in the rain under the trees. Just listening to the rain hitting the leaves and to them rustling gently against each other.

Everything is different shade of green after it's rained. More of an alive sort of green if you know what I mean. Not vibrant, just..contented.

My grandfather was a landscape gardener and always said that he loved to sit in the transit van, listening to rain battering the roof, the smell of soil in the van and watching the grass turn a deeper shade of green. He's right. His day was always a great one if it's rained at some point - espcially when it fell during his Mars bar break no matter what went wrong.

What a gorgeous evocative post farrow. I need to go and have a little brood about that now.

Thank you.

Can join this thread as a latecomer? I am delighted to have found it, it's made me feel that I'm not weird.

At the moment I have four blissful days where my DH and DD1 are on holiday with his friend and his DD, and DD2 (six months) and I are alone. I very much love my DH and DCs but I so rarely get alone time that this is such a treat. Today I drove out to the coast and had an amazing time walking along a quiet piece of cliff line, and exploring a creek. DH can't understand why I haven't invited friends round in the evening, and why I didn't go to a BBQ yesterday but went for a massive walk on the common instead.

Oh and yes yes yes to walking in the rain, and loving autumn! Introvert and happy!

No such thing as a latecomer. Welcome.

How have I been here this many years and not known about this thread ...
Cooeeee !! waves to fellow introverts

As Introverts it seems apt that the thread is hidden away in a quiet little corner of the forum.

Just stumbled on this thread.
OP are you me?
Anyway l love sitting watching the sea especially if there is no land on the horizon, the waves are so calming and l can wonder about all that is happening below the waves. I love the smell of seaweed too.
I am a nurse and l am so tired of talking and being nice to people at the end of the day l just want to MN, do a bit of knitting and chill.
I crave solitude at times and luckily DH is like me and we can sit quietly together all evening in comfortable silence and then take the dog for a walk.
Strangely my DSis is a social butterfly, maybe no big surprise then that we don't get on

Hello doha, so glad to have you here, and no, you are not me. Because you are a SAINT by profession and I am a self-involved arty type :)

I envy that you are able to sit by the sea and smell seaweed. Definitely be of my top two smells ever.
I have to content myself by enjoying the hills and the views and the joy of perspective and distance and wind and the elegant smell of cow-poo

quite like the smell of cow-poo but at a safe distance , it's almost healthy. I am lucky that in Scotland we have lots of hills, water (not just rain) and scenery.

I am not an angel, most nurses aren't we put on a face to the public. My patients ( l am a practice nurse) think l am bubbly and chatty but they are so wrong. i long to have a desk job with no contact with the general public and when the patients start to moan l switch off because 90% of them moan for no reason.
If the weekend is approaching and l have plans l get really pissed off as l don't want to do anything. l am a bit socially awkward, l hate dressing up l am happy in jeans and jumpers although l go out and buy lovely clothes that hang in the cupboard.
That's me -and l am happy being me -- my favourite song is " me, myself I" by Joan Armatrading

I sit here by myself
And you know I love it
You know I don't want someone
To come pay a visit
I wanna be by myself
I came in this world alone
Me myself I

I wanna go to China
And to see Japan
I'd like to sail the oceans
before the seas run dry
I wanna go by myself
I've just room enough for one
My myself I

I wanna be a bigshot
And have ninety cars
I wanna have a boyfriend
And a girl for laughs
But only on saturdays
Six days to be alone
Just me myself I
Me myself and I
Just me myself I

Don't wanna be the bad guy
Don't wanna make a soul cry
It's not that I love my self
I just don't want company
Just me myself I
Me myself and I
Just me myself I

I sit here by myself
And you know I love it
You know I don't want someone
To come pay a visit
I wanna be by myself
I came in this world alone
Me myself I

Could be this threads anthum anthem

Well, I wrote a long post last night which said it had been sent but is nowhere to be seen so Goodness knows where that ended up! The crux of it was, I'm another one who loves Autumn.
Greenhill, how's the non-socialising going? Mine has backfired a little as the people I'm not seeing during the holiday now want to arrange things for after school in September instead! I don't know which is worse!

I have just been a long walk in the rain while it was getting dark with my dog. It was miserable weather and l met no one at all. No neighbours, no kids, no other dog walkers-zilch.
It was wonderful, The feel of the light rain the smell of the wet grass, stomping in the puddles like a child.
Happy happy happy

Hi Doha. That sounds amazing, I love walking in the rain and that sounds so peaceful but here's a question: do you ever get nervous walking alone? I'm a bit risk-averse anyway but I find the pleasure of being out on my own is outweighed by nervousness that something might happen so it ruins the whole experience!

doha I do this quite often. We live near the Malvern hills and I can often ramble about for a couple of hours and see only three or four people.

seagulls, do you have a pooch or two? Four little terriers makes me feel very confident :)

Hi Norks. No, I think that's where I'm going wrong! Would definitely be less nervous with some canine company. We only have fish and they get tired if you walk them too far