Personality Defects?

I have an interesting story I want to write about involving my latest roommate fail, but first I want to write about this article from Psychology Today. It's about introversion & extraversion, & how our society is essentially forcing introverts to become extraverts & if they don't, they're seen in a negative light.

I think it's pretty interesting, because so many people would assume I'm an extravert but that isn't the case. On most personality tests I am either an introvert or exactly 50/50 both. I enjoy my alone time quite a bit. I need it to refresh myself, unwind. It was really difficult in college because I tried to force myself to be around people all of the time until I would just completely crash. Once I was able to move off-campus it made it a lot easier. I could disappear for a few days, recharge, & be back in the thick of it. As much as I was able to be.

People think that because I have the tendency to talk a lot, or because of my sense of humor, or because I have volume control issues from time to time that I'm always the life of the party. Not so, said the brown turtle. I like to be around people, yes. And I like to talk. But I also like to observe & take everything in. I'd much rather have a 1-on-1 discussion than be in a group more than 4. To me, it's better to have a few quality people than a whole bunch of stragglers.

It's kind of dawning on me as I write this that it may be why I sometimes struggle with customer service jobs. There's just so much going on & it's hard for me to take it all in at once. I really have difficulty multi-tasking. I'm good when I can focus on just one thing at once but when there's a ton of things I have to do at the same time, I start to make mistakes & can't listen/block people out. I've even told customers before when they're trying to tell me how to do something & I'm concentrating that I need them to repeat themselves because I had stopped listening.

I just have to be careful because with the mixture of my personality style & my Social Anxiety Disorder, things can go really bad.

Ultimately, I think it boils down to just wanting the choice of being around people & basically having the choice forced on me. Make sense?

From the mouth of someone getting their Master's in Counseling. Aye yi yi.