A lot of my friends as I was growing up thought I was crazy for not wanting to go out in the evening. But truthfully I actually enjoy being alone a lot of the time and would rather spend a night in with a good book than taking a trip to the local night club any day of the week. I’ve always been that person in my group of friend who hated going out. I’ve never been one to enjoy making grand plans with my friends. Why am I bringing this up? Well I bumped into a woman where I use to friend with her daughter from my old town last week and we got talking and I was telling her that I’m now self-employed and work on my own, she asked if I ever get lonely and truthfully – no I don’t. This woman are the social type and love being around people so of course they wouldn’t understand why I enjoy working on my own. It did make me think I always been that girl who enjoyed her own company.
I’m not good at communicating with other people. Which probably sounds weird because I spend a lot of my time on talking to clients and on this blog, but it’s true. I’ve never got the knack of naturally spontaneously striking up a conversation with someone or make my presence known in a crowd of people. I’m just very shy.
I like being in my own head space. I’m an introvert. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I always been like that. I went to a boarding school where I was surrounded by people all day long – my fellow class mates and teacher could never understand why I like having the library to myself an hour in the evening. One teacher even suggested to me that I should see a specialist to combat my introvert – luckily my mum soon shot her down.
Growing up, I would never raise my hand in class, but if I was asked personally by a teacher, I would willingly answer. I just wouldn’t voluntarily be the first one to begin. I’m not anti-social, I’m just more comfortable being a people watcher. At school we use to have a class one day a week – PDP (personal development performance or something to that effect) where it was an open class forum and the teacher would bring up important issue such as sex, drugs and illnesses. I use to hate that class as this teacher (same teacher I was telling you earlier, she had a bee in her bonnet with me) would always pick me to start off the conversation. I never knew what to say and if I expressed my opinion (which was the whole point of the class) I get told it wrong. So I started trying to make any excuse possible to be late or go out of the class as it was causing me a great deal of anxiety.
My school also would forced me to join social club and I would hate it. I would literately burst out in tears – only to be told to grow up.I didn’t enjoy going to some drama club or doing ambulance cadet, I just wanted to be left alone.
I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but I’m sure this was a turning point for me on being very shy and being an introvert. I never was the typical teenager going shopping with friends (partly they all live far away from me), I was always reading smash Hits and watching MTV. I would genuinely enjoy doing this and my parents was more than happy leaving me in my own little world.
I suppose this trait about me turn people off or makes them less comfortable to approach me. However that can’t be further from the truth as in real life, I’m super friendly and do love to talk and get to know other people, I’m just usually not the one who will actively strike up a conversation with. That might make me appear kind of unfriendly if you don’t know me or at least trying to know me, honestly once you do strike up the conversation with me – I won’t shut up!
I guess I’m just trying to figure out how to balance both worlds.I’m quite happy going out with Richard and going to a cocktail bar – he’s quite a shy introvert like me and never enjoyed social events. We both do go out and meet new people for our work as if we didn’t – we wouldn’t make any money. However we don’t actively try to have a little social gathering. We just like to keep to ourselves in our own little bubble.
To anyone growing up thinking it weird that you enjoy alone time, don’t. As there is nothing wrong with it and remember there are other people who also are like that.
I have to ask, how do you spend your alone time?
