Introverts have ruled the social-media era. Before isolation became the norm, my feed was full of knowing jokes about how good it feels to cancel plans and ignore phone calls, how horrible it is to endure small talk.
“Where are the memes for people who actually like people?” I asked a fellow extrovert once. There are few things I love more than being in a large group, ideally a mix of friends and strangers, engaged in spirited conversation. I learn so much about the world through my interactions with other humans. To put it simply: I am not OK with being isolated in my home for weeks on end.
Of course, neither introverts nor extroverts are OK right now. As millions of people face a third month of sheltering at home, it’s become clear that confinement is no paradise even for those who love solitude. This is a deeply anxious and mournful period marred by upended social realities, including those hours upon hours of obligatory video chatting — an introvert’s nightmare. Plus, this is a moment when people need to ask for social support, and research shows introverts are not as good at reaching out to others for help.
The social binary of introverts and extroverts has calcified over the last century. But even Carl Jung, the psychiatrist who popularized the theory that personalities can be classified this way in 1921, made clear that he did not consider these categories to be absolute and distinct. “There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert,” Jung said. “Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.”
That caveat didn’t stop Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, from taking Jung’s idea and spinning it into a rigid typology model, known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. In fact, we have isolation to thank for the existence of this lucrative corporate astrology.
In the late 1800s, Ms. Cook Briggs entered Michigan Agricultural College at age 14 and graduated at the top of her class, only to marry the man who graduated just behind her and assume the duties of housekeeping and child care.
After her daughter left for college, Ms. Cook Briggs fell into a deep depression. She began to read Jung’s work and became obsessed by the idea that his newly published theories on psychological types could help people identify differences in their personalities. In 1926, Ms. Cooks Briggs mustered her courage to write to him. (To her surprise, Jung wrote back.) It was her daughter Isabel’s idea to translate the theories into a quiz.
A plethora of articles have debunked the Myers-Briggs test, or at least pointed out that it isn’t based on tested psychological research. But the persistent popularity of the quiz suggests that people gain a sense of belonging and clarity by classifying themselves based on how they socialize, learn, make decisions and plan.
This is also why we love seeing memes that purport to reflect our specific experience of the world. (In case you want to send me something funny, I’m an ESTJ and a Capricorn, and I have been placed by a digital Sorting Hat into the house of Ravenclaw.)
There is comfort and entertainment to be found in categorizing ourselves, but the pandemic has underscored the illusory nature of the introvert/extrovert binary. We are all, by necessity, finding pleasure in our moments alone. And we are all longing for more connection with others.
At the beginning of this thing, I was optimistic that the kind of large-group gathering I love might translate to the digital realm. Then I Zoomed (alas, this is a verb we are using now) into a birthday party for a relatively new friend. A dozen tiled boxes on the screen showed his other guests, most of whom I’d never met.
If we’d been together in person, I would have approached one of them and struck up a chat. But side conversations were impossible in this context. Because only one person could speak to the whole group at a time, I sat quietly and let my friend’s closer friends pipe up. I knew him well enough to attend, but not enough to command the virtual room.
Usually I leave a party energized. As I closed my laptop, I felt hollow. That’s how I learned that my personal flavor of extroversion does not call for being the center of attention in a crowd. But it does call for an actual crowd.
What I miss about gathering in large groups is the sense of possibility. Of bumping into someone I haven’t seen in awhile. Of meeting someone new. Of discovering something about myself through a conversation. I was at a group dinner last year when someone made a disparaging comment about small talk, and I found myself defending it as a high art, not a nuisance: “It just gets a bad rap because most people aren’t very good at it!” I don’t care that this essentially makes me a living extrovert stereotype. I miss the moments of self-discovery that come from a social experience.
In some ways, my life still feels quite social. I am joining far-flung friends for one-on-one cocktail hours via video chat and doing virtual game nights with neighbors.
I’ve even found a way of getting my small-talk fix. My inbox has seen a surge in chain emails, which means I’m emailing with lots of strangers. I have copied and pasted form letters, shared poems and recipes, and received words of inspiration in return from friends of friends. These are just short messages, nothing too personal, so they feel like the digital equivalent of a conversation while waiting in line at the grocery store. I’ll take it.
Still, I am feeling more energized by my time alone than by these social substitutes. Pre-pandemic, I had to make a point of holding at least one evening per week in my calendar to stay home and recharge. Now that every night is spent indoors, my solo hobbies are becoming an expression of my extroverted tendencies. I’ve always loved to sew, and have been making and altering clothes for myself since my teen years. But my latest projects — cloth face masks, a quilt for a friend’s baby — are infused with longing and concern for the people I love. In a similar way, I’ve abandoned my journal. I’m writing lots of letters and sending packages to friends instead.
And yet. My favorite extrovert tweet of the pandemic thus far came from the actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who posted an unflattering close-up of her own face underneath the words, “Look, I’m just gonna say it. I’m sick of myself.” (She included an expletive.) I reflexively took a screenshot. Yes, I thought. Thank you. Exactly.
Later, a friend sent me a parody video made by Vidya Rajan, 31, a comedian and writer in Melbourne, Australia, captioned “every smug introvert during covid.” Starring as the smug introvert in question, Ms. Rajan says: “There’s a pandemic on? I hadn’t noticed.” She goes on to explain how great her socially isolated life is: She’s reading a ton of books, she’s singing to her plants, she’s making sweaters out of vases, she’s baking her own hand sanitizer. The absurdity increases until, by the end of the video, our introverted protagonist has entered what Ms. Rajan later described as “a Lynchian mental state,” still insisting that isolation is her happy place.
The point is: We’re all losing it without each other, in different ways and to varying degrees. Isolation is not quiet solitude. A group video chat is not a raucous dinner party. So check on your friends — the introverts who claim they’re fine and the extroverts who are clearly not. None of us are OK.
Ann Friedman is the author, with Aminatou Sow, of the forthcoming book “Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close.”
