Let me be blunt: I’m a realist. I know that this blog is most likely never going to be read by more than a handful of people, though sometimes I would like it to be. Yet I feel that adding one more introvert perspective to the Internet could potentially make all the difference in the world to one person, and that alone makes posting this worthwhile.

I may not be that big on the human race as a whole, but I can be quite the fan of the individual.

It might has well have been yesterday.

On the first day on the playground in kindergarten, I found a quarter. A bicentennial quarter, in fact, by the easternmost set of swings. From then all the way through sixth grade, if we were allowed outside, that’s what I did just about every day: scour the playground in search of money, most often with one other person — that changed four times throughout the six years; I could still give you their names — who would join me. If you asked me then (yes, even as a five- or six-year-old), I would have told you I did it because it was profitable. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the swings or the slide, nor is it that I didn’t want to be friends or play with my classmates… well, at least some of them. I truly enjoyed spending my time walking around the playground, and while it was nice having a little extra change for candy or baseball cards, I didn’t mind it much even on the days I didn’t find anything.

That was especially true the older I became, because I found I liked most of my schoolmates less and less. By the time I made it to middle school, there were two or three people I hung out with most of the time and maybe a total of seven or eight I liked enough to consider friends, but most everyone else I could take or leave, mainly leave. Once I got home, I made a beeline to my room. Not necessarily because I wanted to get a quick start on my homework, but because I wanted to be alone. It’s worth mentioning there were three people I liked hanging out with outside of school — a friend and two cousins about my age. The difference was that while I wouldn’t (and didn’t) have wanted to spend much more than the times at school with the friends there, I actually enjoyed spending whole days with them. They were the first people since third grade that I didn’t quickly run out of interest in being around them.

And that’s what made high school so strange. It was the first time where I had a true large group of friends. It was the first time that, even beyond them, I knew more than a handful of people I can truly say I liked and feel I could be more myself around. And, oddly, it was the first time I began to understand that I needed time away from other people, though I still didn’t quite get why… or how much.

College was somewhat different. I also had a surprisingly large number of friends in my eyes, but I was starting to feel that there were only a few people I could relate to and wanted to be around for any extended amount of time; in other words, I was coming to the realization I was an introvert. It was also about the same time I had learned of the concept of introversion itself.

One of the reasons I majored in psychology was because I had always felt — or had been lead to believe — there was something wrong with me. Whether I wasn’t social because I was quirky or whether I was quirky because I wasn’t social, it was evident to certain others that something was a bit off. Psychology may not have been the most useful major in my life as far as a career, but learning that there was an actual term for someone who preferred smaller groups and solitude to parties and crowds and that it was far from rare made me feel a lot better about myself.

However, it would still take another five years before I truly began to feel comfortable in my skin. And it was a bit longer still when I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and came to a realization I wish I had much, much sooner.

By that time, I knew that most people wore me out, but because I had the friends like I had in high school and the cousins/friend trio from my early adolescence, I hadn’t quite understood that tiring of others’ company was typical of introverts or of me.

Allow me to state that differently: I understood that being around other people was draining, and I would reach the point of needing solitude sooner or later. Yet I was under the impression there were exceptions, however uncommon they might have been. I realize now that while my patience meter may drain at different speeds for different people and different reasons, given constant exposure to someone — anyone — it will eventually run out, and it will be almost invariably sooner rather than later.

I can relate to this “Fart Party” comic (which has nothing to do with parties or actual farts, though Ms. Wentz does seem to be fond of the word “fart” itself) much like the number of other introverts who have come across it. However, I go through my cycles of desperately needing solitude and wanting company much quicker. (I only think I’ve lost one relationship due to that, but I can’t even say for certain I did.)

I’ll get tired of many people within hours (and much quicker still in lots of cases), most by the end of the day, and everyone in two or three days. However after recharging, I’m ready to hang out again, at least for a while, and then the cycle starts again.

Occasionally, that seventh panel in the comic applies and I crave company or I’ll find those rare people I feel an almost instant bond with. That bugs me for three reasons: I don’t want to scare the person away by seeming clingy or wanting, I don’t want to be clingy or wanting, and the fact it is inevitable that initial or renewed joy that person brings will eventually wear off or drop off dramatically, though I might not be quite sure when. The last part in particular is difficult to explain, and sometimes even more so to ignore.

Ms. Wentz’s “happy medium” is a dog in the comic (but a cat in real life; see the bio), but that wouldn’t work for me; most pets would annoy me just like people do with the “bonus” of being solely responsible for their care. If I did find a pet I truly liked, I would have a difficult time handling the end of its life. Hence, despite my own partial misanthropism, I prefer human interaction to that of animals. And if you can grasp the concept of being “together alone”, you’ll get a sense of what I consider an ideal companion.

I also agree with Jonathan Rauch and Mary Carpenter’s perspectives: Most extroverts just don’t get it. I might want company, but I don’t want just anyone’s company. I might want to go out sometimes, but not just to go out.

And believe or not, introverts don’t want to shun all outside human contact. We’ll come out to a social gathering every once in a while, and for those precious few we feel particularly close to, we’ll suffer through things we normally would rather not, like going to the mall or clubbing (Note: do not ask me to do the last one; I’ll hate you), but then we’ll disappear for a while behind our books, in front of our chosen screens or to gather our thoughts.

So, to those extroverts, allow me to tell you: When we delve into our own worlds, it’s not personal. Really. And chances are, we’re doing just fine, or at least no worse than normal. We’ll come back to you when we’re ready. Okay? Thanks. Now, if you’ll excuse us….