How Did I Never Know I Was So QUIET?

This is a book recommendation, technically, but it’s more of a oh-my-gosh-how-did-I-not-realize-what-kind-of-person-I-am post. So you’ll have to indulge me if I wander a little:)

I’d classify Susan Cain’s QUIET as popular nonfiction along the lines of Malcolm Gladwell’s OUTLIERS or Ben Sherwood’s THE SURVIVORS CLUB. It takes an interesting and often misunderstood subject matter--introversion--and looks at it forward, backward, and upside-down. And somewhere along the way, it completely changed the way I saw myself.

See, I’ve always thought of myself as an extrovert. In high school, I would have used words like outgoing, talkative, and confident to describe my personality. I liked speaking in public. I was one of those kids who commented often in class--well, in the classes I cared about--and never had a problem being the center of attention. (Case in point: I once entertained a hallway full of kids I didn’t know with an outrageous British accent they must have known was fake.)

On the other hand, I’ve always been a homebody. In high school, most Friday and Saturdays nights found me at home in the basement, writing. I liked going out occasionally, but these forays into the outside world always left me feeling drained (though I usually enjoyed myself). I knew how to work a room and often did in social settings, but I probably would have preferred to hang out on the sidelines and talk about cool stuff with Honey Bear or another close friend (though I didn’t have many). Now just the thought of working a room thoroughly exhausts me.

As it turns out, I was--and still am--a high self-monitoring introvert. Not all introverts are self-monitors, and some self-monitors are extroverts, but all self-monitors pay attention to social cues and adapt accordingly. (This paying-attention-to-social-cues leads me to believe a lot of writers are self-monitors, since we’re students of human nature.) So self-monitoring introverts know how to look like extroverts, and they do so when they think the situation calls for it. Like when I was stuck in that hallway with a bunch of other kids and needed to come up with a way to pass the time.

On almost every page, I found another character trait to latch on to, another quality I could identify with. But QUIET isn’t just for introverts. It’s also for the spouses, parents, teachers, and casual acquaintances of introverts, which means it’s pretty much for everyone:) (How’s THAT for one of those overarching marketing statements we’re never supposed to use?)

Check out Susan Cain’s QUIET. It’s well worth a read.