Among the many things I regret in my life, I regret not knowing that introverts are perfectly normal the most.
Come out of your shell
As an adolescent, I thought that people who are not assertive could not succeed in life. I remember a lot of people who actually spoke words like, “You will NEVER be successful if you keep yourself inside your shell.” While it can be interpreted in many ways, I was and still am sure that those people were pertaining to being social. Society told me that being assertive is a FUNDAMENTAL way of life, AT ALL TIMES. Mind the redundancy. It really used to feel as important as getting best grades or learning house chores.
So in high school, I made a lot of “friends”. That time, I thought I had to be friendly to everybody because that’s what normal people are supposed to be. It seemed like the number of friends was a measure of how good a person is. So, I accommodated everyone. I responded to almost all types of greetings and cries for help. Everybody in the school knew me. Even in external conventions, I made it a point to befriend at least one person, and add them on Facebook, even if I was sure I would never see them again. I gained that kind of popularity, which felt kinda cool. At that time.
Too many figurehead “friends”
From my viewpoint now, I have a lot of “friends” who should have been mere “acquaintances” according to my present standards. Actually, my standards for friendship today was just the same as before—only that I didn’t know better than to suppress my introversion because society said that it’s embarrassing.
Or, I should have made it clear with them or for myself that they were “friends” only for specific eras of my life. Worse is, I also have a lot of people I called “best friends”, only because we shared some secrets together that felt important those times. Now, I’m having a hard time downgrading them in person, because even if we haven’t talked for a very long time, they still call me certain endearment names. Most of the time, I respond with their plain names, and it makes them confused, even if it shouldn’t be a cause of confusion at our age.
Tangles and ties
I wish I didn’t overstate other people in my life when I was younger. Now, I look like the bad person turning old “friends” down. And I know I feel bad, only because of the same reason that I grew up thinking that I should please people at all times.
I had to rebrand myself. I had to stop being a pleaser. Not because I don’t want to be friendly anymore, but because I realized how much I’ve been suffering alone to fulfill society’s expectations. It may sound a lot insensitive, but I knew I had to prioritize myself.
Don’t get me wrong, though—the help I extended to and memories I shared with my old friends were real. They were not fake. I didn’t pretend for the sake of being friendly. But if I acted really normally, being the introvert that I am, the help I would have extended to and memories I would have created with people in my past life would still have been real, albeit less frequent.
Pieces scattered
With regard to the “success” after I forcibly “came out if my shell”, I don’t really see that excessive friends and connections were the cause. For instance, the awards I got back when I was a student were due to my assertiveness in competitions. I was continuously expanding my reach and honing my skills, which can be interpreted by some as “coming out of shell”. Skill shell, perhaps—not social shell.
Success is indeed influenced by expanding comfort zones, but being friendly beyond one’s capacity is not really a requirement. It might have been a misinterpretation on my side. But during that time, and until now, I was and am sure that the “shell” they were referring to is the people network.
I would still have known the things I know whether or not I had 3,000 Facebook friends. I have a lot of connections who did not really contribute to my well-being, nor in the future. I think I would have been a better person had I chosen to keep few carefully-picked people than meet ten thousand fleeting relationships which are too short-lived to even be remembered.
Please don’t judge me as someone who doesn’t see the value in small events—I do, and I learned a lot of (small) things in those (voluminous) encounters. It’s just that, I would still have learned those things in a more efficient way—one which should not have exhausted me early.
Social battery
The point is, I wish I didn’t deplete myself more than my actual social capacity. Looking back, I gained a lot of friends, but at what cost? How many of those names would actually help me when I need help? It used to feel good having lots of people who followed my influence. But, prioritizing others over myself taxed me hardcore. For the long-term, that mistake brought permanent damage to my social perception. Everything feels so trivial. Things that feel important today would eventually lose its heat over time. The people I have today might not be there in the future, or they might not be as important even if they stay. If everything fleets, what kind of things are even worth to be cherished?
Although I changed my ways over the recent years, my old habits still linger with me until now. It’s because I spent so much time and effort that they became embedded with my character even if I try to set them aside. It’s hard to be on damage control mode with shadow habits to wear myself out in the pleasure of others.
If I had known that it’s okay to be introverts earlier, I wouldn’t have exerted undue effort in socializing. I wouldn’t have exhausted myself to the point of scratching and carving the last of my strength in order to please people. I knew my limits, but didn’t acknowledge them as valid. I wouldn’t have hastened my depletion. I could have protected myself better—from wearout, from apathy, from social dysfunction.
It really pays a lot to become an adult.
Blog originally written on 04 December 2020.
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