Category Archive

introverts

My work is going to an open office plan that I'll probably hate. How should I cope?

My work is going to an open office plan that I’ll probably hate. How should I cope?

My employer is seriously considering moving our staff from individual cubicles with five-foot high walls to an open office plan. I am a serious introvert, and this is unacceptable to me. I have panic attacks just thinking about it. If we end up in shared cubicles, though, what suggestions do people have (photos or links would be awesome!), that would create more privacy and comfort for me?

6 ways to help an introverted friend find love (or to help yourself!)

6 ways to help an introverted friend find love (or to help yourself!)

“Many or even most of my dearest friends are geeky introverts who are (unhappily) single. They express that they want to be in relationships and start families and I’d love to be able to help with some advice. How do I help my beloved nerdy home-lurkers?”

We’ve got some tips…

My husband wants space and I don’t. Are we doomed?

My husband and I have been together for three years and always struggled with the balance of personal space. I don’t need to be alone at all — in fact I hate it. He is the opposite and thinks we should live apart, feels smothered…

How can our relationship survive if he doesn’t want to be around me 90% of the time? Isn’t him wanting to live separately just the first step in ending the relationship? Or is it already over, and I’m refusing to acknowledge it?

What people totally get wrong about you when you’re a private person

I envy anyone who is able to open up to acquaintances and sometimes even strangers about their personal lives. When shit goes down in their lives, you’ll hear about it, and there seems to be something really freeing about that. I wouldn’t know as I’m one of those super private people who needs a subpoena to get anything out of me.

The problem is, if you don’t talk about your life, people will assume some pretty off-base things about you. Here’s what I’ve found that people will totally get wrong about you when you’re a private person…

I feel out place in modern society: Coping strategies for living in Muggleworld

You wouldn’t know from looking at me across the street, but I feel ill at ease in the world I inhabit.

I do my utmost to escape to other worlds, where no one has EVER ever ever heard of networking, diets, and smartphones… I lose myself to the straightforward and magical life of books, art, and food.

My problem is this: as I grow older, it is quite often not enough. I simply feel outpaced by modern society as a whole. How do you find inner peace in large quantities when muggle life keeps knocking on your front door, and moving to the wilderness is just not a option?

7 travel tips for introverts

I’m on summer vacation and technically unemployed until my PhD starts in the fall, so I’m spending about a month traveling to see family and friends. I’ll be staying with my mom, my in-laws, my cousin, and three separate pairs of friends, all at their homes. As an introvert, I find that there are a few things I can do, while spending time at various homes, to make sure I’m recharged in order to enjoy the high amounts of social time for the next month…

6 life lessons for introverts who love people-time

I am an outgoing introvert. Oxymoron, you say? Nope, you said wrong! To sum up, folks on this area of the intro-extroversion scale (ambiverts) need to have quality people time, just as much as we need to have quality no people time. I’ve done some research on this topic, primarily by feeling awkward at social commitments, just to give fellow people-time loving introverts these tips…

How can an introverted couple cohabit with another couple?

My husband, our two closest friends (who are married to each other), and I all live in an apartment building that has recently been purchased by an Evil Property Management Company. We aren’t bound by a long-term lease, so we’re considering moving out — all four of us together. Has anyone else lived as a couple with another couple, or been an introvert living in intentional community? What made it work? What made it hard?