Lockdown Has Been A Relief
by Starre Vartan
It wasn’t until the fourth week of Stay Home orders that I even realized what was happening.
I was feeling…good.
And I couldn’t figure out why.
As it has for so many, my life had changed. I only see my partner and my cat, and occasionally our landlord, who lives on the same property. My partner is one of thousands of people who were doing the daily commute to Seattle (literally ground zero for the coronavirus pandemic), so I worried constantly about his health. Watching the numbers of the sick and dying tick up in Seattle and other cities led to my almost daily crying jags.
But, unlike the hundreds of distressed Twitter comments I read, I wasn’t missing anything or anyone.
I don’t miss seeing my friends. I don’t miss going out to restaurants. I don’t miss hugging people. I don’t miss having to make small talk with the owners of the dogs I walk. I don’t miss having to chat with the checkout lady at the supermarket. I don’t miss having to smile at people because my face was hidden by a mask. Which apparently is a thing. I don’t have to make up excuses to wriggle out of making plans with people.
“i was finally free to be totally introverted for the first time in my life.”
I was finally free to be totally introverted for the first time in my life.
I know. Freedom is a pretty ironic way to describe a mandated quarantine. Especially in the midst of chaos and horror and people dying, and women not being able to have their husbands with them during their labor, and children not being able to be at their parents’ funeral. But I do feel free. And I still feel much freer to truly be myself right now. This “time off from people” has its silver linings. And if we aren’t trying to learn about ourselves during this time, what are we doing?
I don’t dislike people. I love my few close friends and spending time with them is a joy. But I find most social situations exhausting, which makes me a textbook introvert.
Not to be confused with shyness, social anxiety, or the fear of others’ judgement, introversion is a basic personality trait. It’s defined by feeling drained by spending time with people, especially in group situations. Extroverts, on the other hand, find themselves energized by socializing with lots of people. And both introverts and extroverts can be shy or socially awkward.
I’ve known for decades I was an introvert, so why am I just figuring out what I really need now?
Well, sorry extroverts, but I blame American culture, which has always found ways to bully introverts.
Western culture rewards extroverts, which are the majority of people (there’s debate on this, but extroverts make up anywhere between ¾ to ⅔ of the population). Not only do introverts get paid less (a lot less), but studies have found that people who put on a happy face are deemed more trustworthy and are less likely to be seen as criminals.
Rewarding extroversion makes sense in a highly capitalist society, where everything is monetized, including our attention. Scott Barry Kaufman writes in Scientific American that “some researchers have suggested that extraversion represents a high-intensity strategy for gaining social attention.” You don’t become famous for anything if you aren’t looking for social attention.
But extroverts don’t just make the rules and get the rewards—they punish introverts by suggesting our personalities are worthy of derision.
Like many introverts, I grew up being told that to “make it” professionally, I had to be social. From school and television and movies, I learned again and again that it was good and right to have a lot of friends, and lame and uncool to have just a few. Spending time by yourself was for freaks and losers! Women who ate alone at restaurants were sad and lonely, deserving of our pity. Hermits and loners were to be mocked and feared. How many movies have we seen where the weird bad guy lives alone? Misery, Silence of the Lambs, Psycho—every single Disney villain?
“faking extroversion and feeling shitty was success. But sitting at home on the weekend or hiking solo? Failure.”
Being told over and over again that my basic personality wasn’t good enough meant that over time, I believed it. I forced myself to smile through networking events, even though I came home and cried from the exhaustion of talking to so many people. Despite the fact that I detested it, I spoke on TV, and to large crowds as was required by my publisher to promote my book. In my 20s and early 30s, even though it was a drag that I dreaded, I organized dinner parties and birthday celebrations—because I was told this was an essential part of a good, happy, adult life. Faking extroversion and feeling shitty was success. But sitting at home on the weekend or hiking solo? Failure.
I didn’t realize how much of this I had internalized until I started working from home a few years ago. I always found office jobs to be excruciating and now I know why.
It wasn’t the work. It was the people.
But this quarantine has not only forced me to stay home all the time, it’s given me an easy excuse for blowing off social obligations. And being able to finally be myself, without fear of judgement or retribution, was like feeling a weight finally lift off my shoulders. I finally realized how much stress this rat race of social acceptance was causing me, and I’ve just begun to understand how I’ve been manipulated all these years into believing introversion was a personality flaw that I needed to fix.
Just like shyness and introversion aren’t the same thing, there’s also a huge difference between loneliness and solitude. They might look the same from the outside (a person reading alone on a park bench, say) but there's an important difference between the two: how they feel to the person experiencing them.
Loneliness is a negative emotion that is brought on by feeling alone in the world—which can happen whether you are physically solo or not. People report feeling lonely while sitting at a dinner table full of friends, for example. Loneliness is all about perception and expectation—you feel alone because you think you should be with others. Often, loneliness can come from not feeling seen or understood. And loneliness really is a different kind of public-health epidemic; studies show feeling lonely leads to a host of negative mental and physical health consequences.
Solitude, however, is enjoying the time you spend alone. Anyone can experience the joys of solitude, but it’s a natural state for introverts.
Because of this difference, family or friends shouldn’t assume that a person on their own is lonely and suffering. They could be perfectly content. Unless a person actually feels lonely, solitude can be perfectly healthy. Solitude used to be celebrated; popular writers from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Henry Thoreau wrote about the importance of solitude, and equated independence with freedom.
In fact, researchers Luke Fernandez and Susan J. Matt, authors of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid: Changing Feelings About Technology, From the Telegraph to Twitter told me that the concept of a “loner” as a negative stereotype didn’t exist until the 1940s. “Solitude and loneliness are different words that describe the state of being of aloneness. One does it in positive terms and one negative,” says Fernandez.
While the use of the word “solitude” declined from 1800 to 2000, the use of word “loneliness” rapidly increased. Introversion and extroversion as psychological categories didn’t exist in 19th century America, “but if one were to impose them on the past you might find more introverted patterns in the 19th century—or at least more social acceptance of introversion in the 19th century. This older way of being is devalued,” says Matt.
Not only have I realized that I’m happier indulging in my introversion, but it turns out that during a pandemic, my introvert skills are coming in handy. Enjoying solitude has felt like a shortcut to self-love, and figuring out how to do things on my own has helped me build confidence. Not having someone to constantly talk to, and thinking things through on my own has helped me become more mindful. Listening instead of speaking has lead to new insights. And engaging in occasional, deep conversion with friends or family, rather than daily chit-chat, has brought me closer to them.
After a lifetime of learning endless hacks to function in an extroverted world, maybe it’s time for us to start respecting and cultivating the skills of introverts.
Starre Vartan is an independent science journalist and creative writer who was once a geologist—and she still picks up rocks wherever she goes. You can find more of her articles here.
