How to train your extrovert, the essential guide for introverts
The modern introvert’s essential guide to navigating people who think out loud, invite you to weekend parties, and interrupt your leisure…
The modern introvert’s essential guide to navigating people who think out loud, invite you to weekend parties, and interrupt your leisure reading just when it’s getting good.
An extrovert can be an invaluable companion.
Sometimes.
Not only do extroverts provide no-strings-attached friendship for those rare times when you feel like engaging, but they also serve a practical purpose, too. Their outward focus and desire to talk to strangers can be effective aids in smoothing your serene path through this rocky world.
Whether it’s chatting up the locals to find the best bolognese in town, eagerly volunteering to greet the cold-calling software salesperson, or meeting for drinks with anybody who just might be interested in becoming a client of your creative efforts, your extrovert excels at doing the distasteful but unavoidable grunt work of talking to real people in real life.
But your extrovert won’t come fully trained. In all likelihood, they’ll arrive at your doorstep with a wide variety of anti-anti-social behaviors. This unfortunate, but entirely manageable, affliction can be overcome if you maintain a good attitude and a dollop of patience.
At Knozen, we believe that all personalities are beautiful. And that includes extroverts. So we’ve put together this handy guide for training your extrovert so that you can get some peace and quiet and get back to watching Broad City.
Learn to re-direct extroversion
Because a good friend is somebody who makes sure you’re never left alone or all by yourself for even a single second, your extrovert sees your sitting solo in the café as an invitation for her to come talk to you right now!
Common evasive tactics developed by leading introvert researchers over past decades — earbuds, sunglasses, extra large bowls of cappuccino, for example — can be used to keep your extrovert at bay, often to good effect.
Nonetheless, there are times when physical obstacles fail you, and your extrovert will come bounding over to you with their endless, endless, endless supply of interpersonal energy, topped by a toothsome grin.
You may be tempted to simply tell them to go away. Be warned! This tactic will only encourage your extrovert to try harder to get you to “cheer up” or “relax a little”. As crazy as it sounds, to the untrained extrovert mind only unrequested attention and affection can save you from your state of aloneness. The greater your protest, the more persuaded your extrovert will be that they just need to try a little bit harder to be even friendlier.
To manage these encounters, you’ll redirect your extrovert’s energy to any other grouping of humans nearby:
“Oh, is that Sarah over there? I wonder what she’s thinking about the party invites for Saturday and if we should invite Peter? Do you want to go ask her?”
Redirecting your extrovert to a larger supply of humans, distracts them from you, and gives them a chance to be delightfully surprised by new and unexpected conversations with others.
If you’re feeling up to it later, you could even wander over to your extrovert on your way home and praise her loudly in front of the group for helping with the party.
Speak to extroverts in their native language
Sometimes an extrovert just wants their ego to be stroked — the metaphorical scratch under the chin. And sometimes you just want to get back to re-reading Harry Potter. These desires need not be in such conflict.
Extroverts love movies with large casts about sociable people navigating interpersonal relationships. They avidly share quotes from these movies with other extroverts as a way to bond, build relationships, and share common ground.
You? You get exhausted just reading that paragraph.
But you can make their favorite movies work to your advantage. To show your extrovert that you understand and value them, memorize a handful of quotes from Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, American Pie or The Hangover. Just about any quotation from these movies can be used in just about any social situation. While this will strike you as non-sensical, to your extrovert, it is a sign of your embracing zany chance encounters and serendipity.
This tactic plays to your introvert strengths: memorizing by yourself, no requirement to pick up on hidden social cues in conversation, and no need to think of answers for your extrovert on your feet.
How to white lie to your extrovert
You see the world in terms of the deep relationships between its ideas, art, poetry, and single-estate coffees. Your extrovert understands the world through the deep relationships between people.
It is difficult for the extrovert mind to conceive that somebody would willingly desire to be alone and apart from other humans. But it is very easy for them to understand that there is another person whose happiness depends on you.
So when you’re deep into your personal project and need to deflect an intrusion, just let your extrovert know “I have to get this done for an important person.” They’ll understand and appreciate your situation and your conscientiousness.
You don’t need to mention that that important person is yourself.
Because after all, you are an important person.
Rewarding your extrovert
It’s a truism in the field of extrovert training that you don’t get the behavior you deserve from your extrovert, you get the behavior that you reward. And it’s also true that for your extrovert “unfocused excitement is excess energy that has no direction.”
So you’ll want to focus that energy productively. Rewarding good behavior with positive reinforcement is the best way to set boundaries with your extrovert.
When your extrovert learns to respect that you enjoy being alone; that you prefer private advice and feedback; or that you don’t need to be pushed to make new friends in excess of those you currently have, make sure you meet your extrovert halfway.
While you may want to return right away to drawing in your sketchbook, taking artful photos of tree branches swaying in the breeze, or answering personality quizzes, it is important that you take the time to reinforce this correct behavior.
Talk to your extrovert, and let them know, out loud, that “I appreciate how you understand me. Thank you, that means a lot to me.”
Extroverts seek meaningful relationships, and the approval of others comes first and foremost. For your extrovert, your appreciation of their kindness, and even a small gesture of affection such as this, validates them in terms they understand.
There are even documented cases where extroverts found just talking to others to be reward enough! Strange but true!
In a pinch, map your escape route
Despite your best efforts to re-direct your extrovert’s attention, channel his energies in a productive direction, or deflect his affection with manufactured excuses, there are times when your extrovert will require companionship.
Lots of chatty, garrulous, glib, loquacious companionship.
Before you let that sinking feeling sink you, try this emergency measure.
Map out the places nearby that have everything an extrovert loves, and that you avoid: lots of people, crowd noise, and boisterousness. If there’s lots of small talk and idle chatter going on, all the better.
When the focused attentions of your extrovert get to be too much, steer your extrovert to one of these locations and excuse yourself to the bathroom or to the bar to ‘buy a round’. By the time you’ve returned, your extrovert will have a half-dozen new friends from at least a couple continents. Find a spot nearby with a hidey nook or a quiet corner for you to recline with a book, and you’ll have the next few hours free.
Give feedback in a way best geared to the extrovert
It’s not enough to reward the right behavior with your extrovert. Sometimes you’ll have to provide negative feedback.
If your extrovert interrupts you, again, while you are staring off into space and considering how the plotlines of your Netflix shows seem to be converging, it is time to take corrective action.
Find an appropriate time and place to take your extrovert aside in public, and let them know in a loud, clear voice not to fucking bother you when you are busy.
You may be inclined to give feedback in discreet, sensitive, respectful manner, preferably in private with your voice lowered, but you know in your heart of hearts that would be a mistake.
Remember that for your extrovert: “if you’re not willing to shout at me in front of a crowd, you didn’t really mean it.”
Good luck!
We’ve covered the basics of training your extrovert. With these steps, you’re well on your way to having your extrovert trained, and your peace and solitude maintained.
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