People no longer lay eyes on each other from across crowded rooms, they don’t reach down to pick up their favourite novel only to bump hands with their soulmate, and they certainly don’t get tangled together in the leashes of their talking Dalmatians.
Hyper-cynicism I know, but the premise rings true. The way people start relationships is changing. Social media has changed the way in which we present ourselves to the world.
So what does this mean for dating? More importantly, how do we categorize ourselves in the 21st century, particularly with regards to the introvert-extrovert continuum? Hopefully, with some measured consideration of the ‘cyber playground’ in which we find ourselves, we might uncover what it now means to be an introvert or an extrovert.
So what is an introvert? Crucially, it’s not as simple as just being shy. Broadly speaking, shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that aren’t over-stimulating.
Considering this in relationship terms, an introvert is unlikely to thrive in a world of cocktail parties, sweaty club nights, or campus-wide beer pong tournaments. On the other hand, if an extrovert is someone who constantly seeks stimulation through novelty and adventure, perhaps a monogamous relationship is an unfathomable state altogether.
Clearly, there exists a balance within individuals for elements of both extroversion, and its less gregarious mistress. First and foremost, it is important to realize that it isn’t ‘better’ to be one or the other.
It’s hard to imagine, for example, a world without Chopin’s nocturnes, Newtonian physics or Wozniak’s Apple technology—each a product of esteemed introverts. It is equally difficult to conceive of a world without the memory of Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, or Marie Antoinette—each of whom positively embodied extroversion.
With this in mind, what are our motivations in creating portraits in the cyber world wholly more introverted or extroverted than our true personalities?
Take Facebook for example. How many statuses are you making? Are you the person striking the duck-face pose or the one holding the camera? Whether consciously, or subconsciously, with each and every update that we come across, we make a judgment.
Even more conspicuously, the rise of the online dating phenomenon has furthered the blurring of the intro-extroversion lines within the relationship dynamic. Dating sites provide singletons with the opportunity to tell the world “exactly” who they are.
It’s an extrovert’s opportunity to scream from the rooftops about their love for Gatsby-themed soirées and the search for their Daisy, and simultaneously an opportunity for an introvert to subtly open up their search for a Nick Carraway to share in a Sunday afternoon jaunt down a Long Island pier. In this sense, online dating toes a fine line between false or genuine intro-extroversion.
Essentially, the terms introversion and extroversion are relative. That is, if John Doe—or Joe Bloggs for any British readers—was put into a crowd of budding musical theatre stars, he might appear extremely introverted.
However, placed within a group of reclusive middle-aged lumberjacks deep in the mountains of rural Vermont, he may well stick out as something of an extrovert.
Carl Jung, the man attributed with coining the terms ‘introvert’ and ‘extrovert’ in the 20th century, summarizes the utility of the terms perfectly in stating, “there is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in a lunatic asylum.”
More so now than ever, with the cyber world altering our opportunities for intro- and extroversion, we ought to realize that in reality we all lie somewhere in between the two: we’re ambiverts.
Whether for better or for worse, the meaning of these labels is gradually fading into the darkness of social history.
