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Love parties? Always have a bunch of friends texting you and wanting to go out? Believe it or not, being out-going can leave you at risk.
Extroverted people are comfortable meeting new acquaintances and adapt pretty well to new situations. There’s a downside, though, to being externally focused. Life requires some ability to know your own thoughts and beliefs. If you don’t have access to the internal you, you’re left vulnerable. Being extroverted means you need to work harder to think about what you believe, as opposed to what others believe. You’re really good at knowing what’s popular and what will work with the group in which you socialize. You also need to know yourself…and that can be harder.
Extroverts are prey to some specific fears. You might feel uncomfortable when you’re alone. Some people fear this and will seek others most of the time. This can lead to some fairly pointless interaction and may involve some “relationships” you later regret. It’s good to be able to be alone, even if you don’t prefer it. Every individual goes through time without a healthy partner option. This is just a reality. Accepting a poor fit or a bad partner situation because you don’t have someone else lined up means you’ll do almost anything to keep from being alone. Some will always have the television on or an Ipod going or the radio turned up loud. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with any of these pastimes. It becomes a problem when you’re using external sources of stimuli to block out getting to know yourself.
Alone is not a bad thing.
Some people—surrounded by kids, a mate and family that sometimes intrudes—will say they crave alone-time. Most, however, mean they crave being able to decide what to do with their time, usually, not spent alone. They just want to hang out with who they want to hang out. And who can blame them? The problem with always seeking an external focus is that you might not know yourself very well.
Some extroverts really—when they think about it (and you have to make them think about it)—believe there’s nothing inside of them. They fear they are hollow like a chocolate bunny, yummy on the outside, nothing inside. Some think there’s something inside, but believe themselves to be bad or negative. Some just feel depressed when there’s no external stimuli.
Research indicates that all people grow more introverted (aware of their internal thoughts and feelings) as they get older. We live in a culture that seems determined not to age. But what you do with your wrinkles may not be as important as being able to internalize life’s lessons. It’s good to learn from past mistakes. Being aware of missteps helps keep you from repeating them. Self-awareness is an internal thing.
Think of it as having both an external and internal hard drive—you need to be able to use both.
By all means, make friends. We all need others to populate and amuse our lives. When things get rough, your friends can help you hang on. You also need to spend time getting to know what you need and who you are. Alone is not a disease. Embrace it.
