Not all social exhaustion is introversion - sometimes it's the tiredness of wanting a real conversation and getting three hours of polite small talk instead - Silicon Canals

Not all social exhaustion is introversion - sometimes it's the tiredness of wanting a real conversation and getting three hours of polite small talk instead - Silicon Canals

Briefly

"For a long time I would have called that introversion. I'd have said I needed to recharge, that being around people takes it out of me, that I prefer smaller groups. All of which has some truth in it. But it wasn't the whole story. What I actually felt that night wasn't the fatigue of being overstimulated. It was the fatigue of being hungry for something for three hours and never getting fed."

"There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from performing aliveness without ever making contact. You're listening, smiling, asking the right follow-up questions. You're being interested in someone's holiday in Bali, or their new kitchen, or what their teenager is studying at university. You're saying the right things back. From the outside it looks like a conversation. From the inside, nothing is actually happening between the two of you. You're both running scripts."

"Doing that for three hours is genuinely tiring. Not because socializing is hard, but because being present to nothing is hard. You're using all the muscles you'd use in a real conversation, with none of the warmth or surprise that makes a real conversation feed you back."

"I think a fair amount of what we call introversion may actually be this. They're not drained by people in general. They're drained by a specific kind of interaction that has become the default mode of adult life. How you can tell the difference Here's the test I've started using on myself."