I have had similar experiences, but in my case perfectionism is what led to me giving speeches- I saw other speeches done poorly for the organization I was with- and my overriding desire for perfection defeated my social anxiety.
IDK I imagine if someone was to fake being an extrovert they would act like Sandra b acts on tiny chat. She is very chatty and long winded. But the fact is is that you cannot fake gaining energy - you either have it or you dont. You can fake liking people and fake enjoying the conversation. You can walk up to people and be brave and pretend to be interested. But you cant fake a recharge.
hahaha yep, pretty much. On tiny chat I am very chatty, talk a LOT and then end up being completely drained afterwards... But in TC I am in my comfort zone and with people that I enjoy and feel close to so it's easier for me to sustain it for a bit. Out in a group environment no way. I am silent.
I couldn't imagine doing this: I'm quiet, to the point, and generally keep my thoughts to myself. I have no desire to fake extroverted behavior, I'd appear completely ridiculous.
Yes but it sucked, and I always cried afterwards.
It feels like how I imagine hallucinogens to feel (cuz I've never done "real" drugs), unreal and under the influence of something outside of myself.
I don't even try now. I am usually upfront with people I'm getting to know about my introversion. I get along best with those who attempt to understand it.
It feels like how I imagine hallucinogens to feel (cuz I've never done "real" drugs), unreal and under the influence of something outside of myself.
I don't even try now. I am usually upfront with people I'm getting to know about my introversion. I get along best with those who attempt to understand it.
I'm an extrovert and I'm pretty reserved, even on camera. It's just my temperament. I don't feel dead after talking to others, but like anyone, I only have so much energy after "hanging out". I think what kills me most is that I naturally have a lot of energy. So when I have nothing to focus that energy on... I get restless. That's why I make sure I have such a challenging daily workout - I need to make sure I have something to focus on.
I know that I'm very late to this thread, but I was hoping I could offer my experience with extroversion:
Attempting to be extroverted for public speaking seems completely unnatural for me. I had to speak in front of an audience and a school board once and it's difficult to describe how awful the experience felt. I had something prepared, but for whatever reason I decided to go off-script at the end and speak from the heart and I felt my voice crack and my pulse go through the roof. Although my supervisor/adminstrator told me that I did very well and that my speech was "right on the mark", I re-played the experience over and over in my mind every so often for the next few months. "Why on earth did I say that?" I kept asking myself.
Fast-forward a few months and I find myself taking courses in educational administration. I sometimes question why I enrolled in the first place, but I feel like I have learned some valuable lessons already in just the first few weeks of my courses. First of all, having a little more college experience than many of my classmates, I feel like I have taken on almost a shepherd role, and I don't mean that to sound arrogant at all. I just see some of them struggling and I find myself doing whatever I can to help them.
In one of our classes, we have a professor who just recently received her PhD and she has been very hard on all of the students in the class; it almost feels like she wants to throw her weight around since she has a PhD and we don't. She has changed the syllabus multiple times and her expectations are unclear and demeanor is simply unkind. When she gave us a final project that everyone in the class felt was unreasonable, I found myself being the only person who tried to stand up to her and express the feelings that most of us had. The strange thing was, in this case, I didn't feel like I was "pretending" or trying to be something that I wasn't. I felt like I was assuming a role that had to be taken.
This leads me to a final comment (if you're still reading). I have taken the Meyers-Briggs test multiple times because I wanted to figure out if I was truly an INFJ - I guess I felt like I let my desk or my office become too messy most of the time to be a J and not a P. Anyway, the point is that according to Jung and Meyers-Briggs, I probably am an INFJ. That being said, just because I'm an INFJ doesn't mean that I should be scared to assume an "extroverted" role. For so long, it was easy for me to say, "I'm an INFJ so I wouldn't be good at doing that." I was letting my personality type set parameters for my life. I am at a point now where I want to say, "Yes, I'm an INFJ, but that doesn't mean I can't get better at speaking in public or something else that requires more extroversion." As an INFJ, I cringe at the thought of "faking" something. I want to be authentic in everything that I do. I want to get to the point where I can still be myself when I am speaking in front of crowd, and the only way to do that is to get over the fear and just practice it. If INFJ's are dolphins, I want to be the dolpin that gets out and lives life, not the one hiding underneath a rock (although I will still probably need to go there every once in a while just to recharge!).
Anyway, sorry for that rambling everybody
I am glad that I found this thread and want to the thank the original poster for thinking of it.
Sending all my happy thoughts,
AJ
Attempting to be extroverted for public speaking seems completely unnatural for me. I had to speak in front of an audience and a school board once and it's difficult to describe how awful the experience felt. I had something prepared, but for whatever reason I decided to go off-script at the end and speak from the heart and I felt my voice crack and my pulse go through the roof. Although my supervisor/adminstrator told me that I did very well and that my speech was "right on the mark", I re-played the experience over and over in my mind every so often for the next few months. "Why on earth did I say that?" I kept asking myself.
Fast-forward a few months and I find myself taking courses in educational administration. I sometimes question why I enrolled in the first place, but I feel like I have learned some valuable lessons already in just the first few weeks of my courses. First of all, having a little more college experience than many of my classmates, I feel like I have taken on almost a shepherd role, and I don't mean that to sound arrogant at all. I just see some of them struggling and I find myself doing whatever I can to help them.
In one of our classes, we have a professor who just recently received her PhD and she has been very hard on all of the students in the class; it almost feels like she wants to throw her weight around since she has a PhD and we don't. She has changed the syllabus multiple times and her expectations are unclear and demeanor is simply unkind. When she gave us a final project that everyone in the class felt was unreasonable, I found myself being the only person who tried to stand up to her and express the feelings that most of us had. The strange thing was, in this case, I didn't feel like I was "pretending" or trying to be something that I wasn't. I felt like I was assuming a role that had to be taken.
This leads me to a final comment (if you're still reading). I have taken the Meyers-Briggs test multiple times because I wanted to figure out if I was truly an INFJ - I guess I felt like I let my desk or my office become too messy most of the time to be a J and not a P. Anyway, the point is that according to Jung and Meyers-Briggs, I probably am an INFJ. That being said, just because I'm an INFJ doesn't mean that I should be scared to assume an "extroverted" role. For so long, it was easy for me to say, "I'm an INFJ so I wouldn't be good at doing that." I was letting my personality type set parameters for my life. I am at a point now where I want to say, "Yes, I'm an INFJ, but that doesn't mean I can't get better at speaking in public or something else that requires more extroversion." As an INFJ, I cringe at the thought of "faking" something. I want to be authentic in everything that I do. I want to get to the point where I can still be myself when I am speaking in front of crowd, and the only way to do that is to get over the fear and just practice it. If INFJ's are dolphins, I want to be the dolpin that gets out and lives life, not the one hiding underneath a rock (although I will still probably need to go there every once in a while just to recharge!).
Anyway, sorry for that rambling everybody
I am glad that I found this thread and want to the thank the original poster for thinking of it.Sending all my happy thoughts,
AJ
I have most certainly tried to be extroverted. The initial reason was self loathing, i just felt introversion was doing me no good. later i learned that getting to know people is important and there are benefits to connect with others, even superficially and that being introverted is who i am. Being extroverted is so different from who I am that i really didnt know what to do. so i went on http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp and completed the quiz until i got an extroverted result.
some things i had to do was learn to to start a conversation, learn how to continue a conversation and reduce the debilitating feeling that 'i am being judged as i speak'.
the key to making new friends and seeming more extroverted i found was to ask people questions about them. people love talking about them self and love the attention.
i am def an introvert, and if i go somewhere where i dont know anyone, my instinct is to want to be invisible and just listen to what everyone is saying and watch what they are doing. however when i am with a couple ppl, then i have lots to say.
being extroverted is def an active decision that i need to make, and it has its benefits. you get to meet knew people, meet ppl within ur community, build community. all very important things.
but being introverted is nice too.
some things i had to do was learn to to start a conversation, learn how to continue a conversation and reduce the debilitating feeling that 'i am being judged as i speak'.
the key to making new friends and seeming more extroverted i found was to ask people questions about them. people love talking about them self and love the attention.
i am def an introvert, and if i go somewhere where i dont know anyone, my instinct is to want to be invisible and just listen to what everyone is saying and watch what they are doing. however when i am with a couple ppl, then i have lots to say.
being extroverted is def an active decision that i need to make, and it has its benefits. you get to meet knew people, meet ppl within ur community, build community. all very important things.
but being introverted is nice too.
Me too. And people were hanging on to my. every. word.
...Wasn't me though
I rather be in the shroud of darkness... meaning to be mysterious than extroverted. They give everything away.
...Wasn't me though
I rather be in the shroud of darkness... meaning to be mysterious than extroverted. They give everything away.
Tin Man
"a respectable amount of screaming"
I do sometimes fake being an introvert but it's not a conscious choice. I grew up in a family where I was the only introvert so I was surrounded by people who expected me to act a certain way. It was actually quite a strange experience. At home people were constantly talking to me and telling me to be more outgoing, while at school I was ostracised and had only one friend.
I do it every single day, from dawn till dusk, and I hate it. But it's a fair price to pay for having people like you, and I thing that that's something INFJs, as a type, have realized over the years.
I like trying to be extraverted at times when I feel like it. It's feels like I'm a switchboard, and I'm busy laughing at everyone's jokes and responding to several at a time. I tend to perk up, make more humor, goof around. In reality, I just have to "be there" and not do much except soak in the social stimuli.
It's not always exhausting. Instead of seeing a group as 10 people, I may see them each as components to a single social unit. This way, I can deal with them as if they were "one person." A reaction in one person often creates a ripple effect.
It's not always exhausting. Instead of seeing a group as 10 people, I may see them each as components to a single social unit. This way, I can deal with them as if they were "one person." A reaction in one person often creates a ripple effect.
I care about people and am genuinely Fe expressive, so I can use those skills to my advantage and intentionally act Fe-ish whether or not I really feel so inclined toward the person. I wouldn't typically do this without good reason. And most people get some level of Fe from me anyway. I do get all weird and awkward once my energy levels begin to drain from being in the outside world too much, though. So I can express Fe and fake being mildly outgoing until I've got nothing left, but it doesn't take too long for that draining to happen so I cannot actually put on the show of being an extrovert for any considerable length of time.
I find this also depends on the context. It's easier for me to do this around introverts than it is extroverts. The less extroverted and less emotional the person, the easier it tends to be.
hope that helps.
I find this also depends on the context. It's easier for me to do this around introverts than it is extroverts. The less extroverted and less emotional the person, the easier it tends to be.
hope that helps.
Whenever I do that I am (not surprisingly) exhausted afterwards. It never works out for me, and I always feel like an idiot after and need to lie down for quite a while to recoup. I'm doing it a bit less as I get older, thankfully.
U
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I've just decided to be a social introvert. You don't have to run around introducing yourself to people and initiating conversations. I find being pleasant and polite, caring but a bit aloof until I meet the people I'm actually very interested in getting to know better is just fine....though at times I don't carry conversations with them either... ;D I like one on one discussions over group interaction, but that too depends on the group... You know at times it's fun to just hang your complexities in the coat check and have some old fashioned fun too. then I can always go home, pull down the shades, hole in and read about self organizing systems, memes and musician's biographies or whatever interests me at the time. Draw a hundred toilet paper rolls doing the conga on the moon. The other good stuff.
You don't have to run around introducing yourself to people and initiating conversations. I find being pleasant and polite, caring but a bit aloof until I meet the people I'm actually very interested in getting to know better is just fine....though at times I don't carry conversations with them either... ;D I like one on one discussions over group interaction, but that too depends on the group... You know at times it's fun to just hang your complexities in the coat check and have some old fashioned fun too. then I can always go home, pull down the shades, hole in and read about self organizing systems, memes and musician's biographies or whatever interests me at the time. Draw a hundred toilet paper rolls doing the conga on the moon. The other good stuff.I mimic extroversion sometimes....Mostly when i need a new "assignment" and I have the feeling that the hiring party wants a more extroverted person. Funny thing is, that the "field" I am in, they often ask for extroverted candidates, while one really needs introverted qualities for the work itself. It's mostly very independent work with a lot of freedom and not a lot of contacts. Mostly it's cleaning the legal mess that other people made.
I must admit, that mimicking extroversion does drain me a alot :S.
I must admit, that mimicking extroversion does drain me a alot :S.