Have you ever had or been that person in a situation where you need to talk to someone new and immediately hear "I can't because I'm too much of an introvert!"? Then get the "non-introvert, confident" friend to do it instead?

Throughout my entire university experience, it's a situation I've seen countless times! Even out of university, this situation still happens where introversion is used as crutch to avoid social interaction with new people. This is especially so when you have a goal in mind when wanting something from talking with this person (ie. an assignment or client) and how you present yourself determines whether you get it or not.

Before I move on, this is not meant to talk down on people who have legitimate social anxiety where they cannot help but be absolutely terrified when it comes to social interactions and is physically incapable of doing so. The topic is directly towards people who are introverts or using the guise of introversion to exclude themselves purposely. Also, this is mainly my own opinions so there might be some bias.

The Main Problem

Nearly all industries and facets of life in the world require some form of social interaction with new people. Humans are social creatures so it's part of our nature to have social groups. So there's this fundamentally huge problem I see when introversion is used to avoid social interaction - introverts do have social groups.

And I have seen introverts be hyper and hollering friends they are familiar with (aka me and my friends). What I understand between the dynamics of introversion and extroversion, in the context of social interaction, is that introverts tend to be more comfortable within their own established social groups while extroverts are more comfortable finding new social groups to integrate with.

So why does the "I can't talk to this person because I'm too introverted" situation still happen? I think this is when introversion gets mixed up with shyness (more relative to confidence) and being antisocial (avoidance to social interaction). So while introverts do have tendencies of being shy and be a little antisocial (because everyone needs their alone time), it really doesn't help in the long run with forming professional relationships.

Reason for Me Writing This

Because I was that person who would ask my other friends to talk to people because I was too shy. Now looking back, that shyness and the excuses I made to justify it had probably made me miss out on so many opportunities in life.

I write this now for anybody that is like this because the change has to start from somewhere. I decided to make that change back in 2014 and it was the best decision I have ever made. Was it tough? Yeah, I fumbled but who doesn't? Changing habits is hard but possible.

Now that it is the beginning of the new year, I think it should be the beginning of the new you. Just depends on whether you commit to it or not.

In the words of my lecturer @azmanzulkiply, which is how I think I remember him saying it, "Just talk to each other!"

Anyways, that is it for now. This is a little different from how I usually write and I hope anyone reading this finds it either useful and enjoyable. And I want to know, were you an extrovert? An introvert? What changes are you doing to make yourself better this year? Tell me about it!

Hope you see you guys in my next post~