Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

When we were at the Lewis Black performance on Sunday, I mentioned that I am an introvert.

My friend, The Dormouse, said, "Since when?" He said he's known me since college and has never known me to be an introvert.

I explained he has a mistaken idea about what "introverted" means. Being an introvert does not mean you're shy, although the two can go hand in hand. Being an introvert means that the way you feel most comfortable, the way you relax, is by having some alone time.

"Do remember the shapeshifter on Deep Space Nine?" I asked. "He had to rest in a bucket at night, so that he could relax and try not to be anything? Well, it's kind of like that. I need some time when I can just put on some flannel pajamas and veg. You know, resuscitate, revitalize.

In the same way, extroverts really need to be around people and they can only enjoy themselves for so long by themselves. They need that human contact to feel happy.

My sister is an extrovert. She likes to surround herself with people. Every time I visit her, she's calling up all kinds of friends. But ironically, of the two of us, I'm the one who's more likely to talk to strangers at a party.

Like I said, being an introvert or extrovert has nothing to do with your ability to be outgoing; it simply refers to your natural state, how you feel most comfortable.

People who know me now have trouble believing I'm an introvert, because they never knew me in junior high school, when I was really a bookworm and used to sit between classes reading, rather than talking to my fellow students.

This, of course, did not endear me to them, especially for the way in which it augmented my vocabulary. I have since learned to tailor my diction to my audience. But back then, although I didn't realize it, people took my introversion to be snobbishness, assuming I didn't want to talk to any of them because I thought I was better than them. The fact that I was getting all "A's" in school convinced them that I really was just an academic snob.

The truth was that I felt out of place and didn't know what to say to most of them. I was much happier reading a book, losing myself in another world where I didn't have to worry about such things.

But in high school, that changed for two reasons: journalism and comedy.

Journalism helped because when I was assigned a story, I knew I had to talk to certain people and knew what I had to talk to them about. I could come up with a list of questions, arrange to talk to them and ask them this list of questions. It was almost like a conversation.

Now for an embarrassing confession. In junior high when I used to call up a boy, I would actually write a script of what I could say. This worked find until he went off the script, and then I got flustered and had to hang up.

To this day, when I call people I often have to get in my head what I want to say to them first. And that's even with friends. I have, however, gotten away from writing scripts.

Comedy helped because comedy helped me find other people, in my own class, who shared interests with me. Through watching Monty Python and listening to Dr. Demento, I ended up befriending several people in high school band and in my classes.

During calculus class, we would write composite stories where you would write a portion of the story and then pass it on. The challenge was to make your portion funny enough to cause other participants to burst out laughing in class.

God, we were such geeks. But it was fun, and it helped me break out of my shell, especially when I began writing my own stuff.

All of these changes, however, did not prevent me from being voted Most Studious, along with one of my best friends at the time, as my male counterpart. We insisted on holding a book of Shakespeare upside-down for our yearbook picture. We really were geeks, weren't we?

At any rate, when I went to college, I decided I wanted to start anew. I had a chance to get people to see me the way I wanted to be seen. They didn't know anything about my background, didn't see me as a snobbish bookworm. I could present myself any way I wanted.

So I used the techniques I'd learned in journalism class to get into conversations with new people. It became easy. But just because I was outgoing and lively and very, very silly doesn't mean that it changed my true nature. I still really enjoyed the hours and hours I'd spend editing things, alone, in the radio station's production studio, or researching things in the library, finding a quiet place on campus to write a poem.

As long as I could fit something in like that every week, I could go to all the meetings and all the activities and be at the top of my game.

Oddly enough, I began to discover something about myself at that point: I really did need people. I always thought that I didn't, because I hadn't had many people in my life, aside from my family and my close friends. But now that my universe was expanding, I found that I really got something out of it.

When I was hired as a small town newspaper reported in my home town, right out of grad school, I soon discovered it wasn't worth my time to jot down questions for every single interview. I soon got out of the habit, except for very important interview subjects, such as celebrities who were passing through town.

I'm sure that anybody who ran into me as a reporter who had known me in school thought that perhaps they'd never really known me and had missed this side of my personality. The truth was, that side of my personality hadn't yet existed!

How does being an introvert fit with writing an online journal that anyone in the world can read? Good question. It's really something I've always done, since fourth grade. My journal was always something I imagined some day someone would read. I'm only making it available more immediately now.

Plus, revealing yourself on the computer is so much different than doing so in person. You don't have to see the person who's reading. You imagine you have an audience, but you don't know who they are. So it's safer, in a way.

But really, I think I've gotten past some of the hang-ups that used to make me sit in junior high school with my nose buried in a book. What remains consistent is simply the need to have some alone time to regroup. I still need to relax in my bucket, so to speak.

Of course, my dog, Una, is an extrovert. She needs personal interaction. Me being a telecommuter makes this easier. I take "boo-boo breaks" (my nickname for her), and pet her, play with her or walk her. Dogs aren't too intrusive on along time: they might sit at your feet and stare at you, but they don't tend to talk nonstop while you're trying to write, for example.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to retire to my bucket.

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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