ARE YOU AN INTROVERT?

I'm not and here's why!

Jenny, the answer to this questions seems obvious. At parties, I stick to the wall as if the venue itself is a centrifuge. I dread perfunctory interactions with other parents at school. A casual lunch meeting can leave me mute and prostrate for up to two hours afterwards. Even an intimate gathering with people I trust can begin feel like a blood drive with no cookies. I know this all sounds very precious and dramatic, but it’s true. It’s also true that I am, in fact, not an introvert.

Weird, right? I began to put this together when I (bored, indoors) took an online Enneagram test back in 2020. Look, I know a lot if people think the Enneagram is bullshit— I’ve heard it dismissed as “astrology for Christians,” but a.) I’m not Christian and b.) I’m also way into astrology, so this joke didn’t land for me. Anyway, I don’t really see how a test that asks you to disclose factual information about yourself can be bullshit. Unlike astrology, the Enneagram test isn’t telling you who you are; you’re telling it. I took the test because I thought it seemed like a useful tool that might provide insight into my foibles. And then I took it again, because I got Seven and that didn’t make any sense. It had to be wrong. Except I got Seven again the second time. And the third.

I was confused, Jenny, because Sevens are nearly always extroverts. Sevens are, in fact, the party animals of the Enneagram, most likely to own multiple Hawaiian shirts, strike up conversations with cab drivers, and shut down the club. As you can imagine, this did not resonate with me. I just knew that I was a Four! A turbulent, introspective poet, a square peg, a morose Moleskine-clutching hermit. How could I be a Seven? What a dumb test.

I thought back to my childhood, my raw, real self before I’d been polluted and inculcated and socialized as a Woman. And I remembered something surprising: despite being a neurodivergent, hyperlexic oddball, I was the most outgoing kid in my class. I wore a hot pink beret to school in the first grade and loudly sang “Raspberry Beret,” in case anyone didn’t get it. I was famous for throwing parties, not just for my birthday, but for third-tier holidays like Saint Patrick’s Day. I’d stay up making homemade invitations and summon the whole class to these basement ragers. And I always planned something outrageous: at my problematic fifth grade “luau,” I planted a kiss on every kid as they entered, claiming it was a “Hawaiian custom” when really it was just an excuse to kiss everyone. This is not introvert behavior. In fact, I was known as “Babbling Brook” because I never shut the fuck up.

Because this is a very insightful subscriber base, I don’t think I need to tell any of you what happened, or how an extroverted young girl begins to exhibit introverted behavior. Maybe you’ve read Reviving Ophelia, or maybe you just exist in society and know what happens to girls who are loud and weird. “Babbling Brook” morphed from an affectionate nickname into an indictment. Around the age of 12 or 13, I had to start masking my personality traits in order to evade ridicule. Masking is exhausting, as many of us know. It wasn’t long before I began to approach all social interactions as endurance tests. And I guess, as our grandparents said, if you make a face long enough, it sticks.

Therefore Jenny, I have decided to start identifying as an extrovert again, even if I’m not quite ready to walk the walk. I know I have it in me, and as I enter this “second puberty” (perimenopause!) perhaps I can undo some of the damage wrought by the first one. I’m ready to be a clown again. Who’s with me?