The tension of me

For nearly all my life, people have enjoyed my company for my extroversion. For my ability to break the ice, to connect people through interaction and activity and DOING. Doing the thing, starting the conversation, making the overture that they are afraid to or otherwise feel unable to do or make themselves.

It is something I am extremely good at doing. And it can be exhausting.

I am an introvert. When I learned that fact—that despite my ability to be the life of the party, I NEED to replenish my energy through solitude after any kind of social interaction—it changed my life. It has also made it exponentially more difficult for me to figure out my place. My value.

A lot of this relates to being the fat kid with the big brain and the great personality. I overcompensate for my fear of being unworthy of belonging by being the glue, the connective tissue between people. Especially those who don’t feel comfortable or at ease with making connections on their own.

Even when it takes every bit of energy within me. Even when it hurts to be the one instigating interaction and so rarely ever feeling that people are actually interested in ME rather than what I make possible for THEM.

This is one of those deep, dark, gnarly issues for me.

It’s a common thread woven through every area of my life. Every single one.

A connector is who I have always (since I was a little kid) known myself to be. It’s an awful feeling to be exhausted by being the only thing you know how to be. The thing you’ve gotten really good at being. The thing you’ll built a career around. It’s the tension of fighting with myself and trying to figure out if this story I KNOW about myself is even true. 

I’ve never felt like I could interrogate this particular story because I always felt like I’d be alone if I did.

It’s taken me nearly four decades to understand that I can be both: an introvert and a connector.

Thumbnail photo by the author (Sustenpass, Switzerland)