Don't believe the hype about all introverts loving lockdown

When the world wide COVID-19 quarantine started there were various cartoons flying around which show extroverts being miserable about working from home and introverts being delighted. 

I kept looking at them and feeling like this just didn't fit for me. Yes, in a 'normal' world, as an introvert, I often was happiest in my own home. But there was something missing from this quarantine picture. It implied that the introvert was alone in their home!

My own working life before quarantine was very much by design. I left corporate life in summer of 2018 to start my own business as a coach. My business has been run out of an office in my home where I primarily coach nationally and internationally but via Zoom. One of the major deciding factors for me in this life choice because I was exhausted after spending 20 years working in a corporate office environment. The vast majority of my working life had been spent operating in an open space office design. Great for team building and creating networks, pretty dreadful for introverts. Towards the end of my corporate life, I found myself spending time hunting down tiny, unoccupied ‘quiet space’ rooms on my campus to be dismayed when they would already be occupied by someone. This was happening more and more, so much so that sometimes I would go out at lunch and just sit in my car in the parking lot.

One of my mentors at the time, himself a massive extrovert, was constantly telling me to be more vocal and assertive. He even suggested that I buy a book called ‘Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking’ by Susan Cain. He had bought it for his wife who was an introvert and she liked it. Ummmm…of course, she liked it. She’s an introvert. I read it and then, essentially, wanted to throw the book at him. It seemed pretty obvious that he had not read it himself because he was still operating from a point of view that being an introvert was a ‘bad thing’ and I needed to 'fix' that. Society often portrays introverts in a negative light. There's the weird girl who is going to end up alone like a crazy cat lady. The anti-social nerd who prefers the library. The cold person who doesn’t ‘like’ other people.

Nothing could be further than the truth for me. I love people, I find them fascinating, I can’t stop trying to understand them. The very profession I chose, being a coach, is based upon my love of other people. And…..I chose how I wanted to engage in that. I chose to work from home and mostly coach via Zoom. I chose to be alone in my house for 6 hours a day and work in that environment. I reveled in the uninterrupted silence. I breathed a sigh of relief when I would drop the kids off at school and walk back into a quiet, empty house. I delighted in having space and peace to ground myself before going into an immersive, deep conversation with my clients. I was a much happier and productive person.

And then Covid happened. All of a sudden, my quiet, peaceful house had 3 more people in it. All.the.time. My husband and my two children aged 9 and 11. Now, I love my family. More than anything in the world. I even have their initials tattooed onto my body. That’s how much I am committed to my family ;-). 

See.

But…. I’ll be completely honest, I don’t like having them around all the time. I just don’t. I need my space. Wanting to be alone does not mean that you don’t want to be with someone. It just means that you don’t want to be with them every single second. It doesn’t mean you love them less. When I get my space, when I get to recharge my batteries in the silence, I come back a happier, more loving person for everyone.

So, for me, the last 6 months (and the foreseeable future) have been and are challenging. I do count my blessings and am very much aware that many, many people are in much worse situations than I am. In the grand scheme of things, this is small potatoes. I also know that everyone has their own reality that they deal with. This is mine.

My family and I are trying lots of things in order to make the space and the situation work for everyone. I was lucky enough to be able to convert a room in the house into a new office for me after my husband took over my original one. However, even a space with the door closed doesn’t mean that I get the same peace and quiet I had before. I can hear 3 zoom meetings going on at most times, other people’s voices and conversations. The type of work I do means I am not ‘talking’ to people all the time. Often, I am studying or writing notes or reflecting on something that came up in a session. I am silent when I am doing that. To my family, that means they sometimes think I am not ‘working’. In our society, working means meetings, means being in conversations with other people. If they don’t hear that sound it means that it is ok to come in for a chat, to ask for a snack, to be hang out. And because I love them, I stop what I am doing and engage. Then I notice that I feel irritated and have to reset and restart. Not because I am a freak of nature but because I am an introvert.

I am also realizing that I need to set clearer boundaries. Part of that is being very clear on what I need and part of that is helping other people to realize that I am not rejecting them. Just as it is not ok to make an introverted person feel guilty or wrong when they express that they need to spend some time alone, it is also not helpful to suddenly distance yourself away without giving any explanation.

Case in point: I came up with what I thought was a great solution this morning. I created a sign for my office door, a similar concept to the ‘Do not Disturb’ sign on hotel door handles. As I was putting it up on the door, both of my kids came to see what I was up to (ironic..). The reaction when they saw the sign was akin to dismay. ‘But why do you need that? You are not working when you are in there…..’. And that is exactly the point. We have these definitions of what ‘work’ looks like and it made me realize that I need to sit down with them and explain more what my work involves. They are super smart kids, they will understand it.

I don’t have the perfect solution for this unusual place we find ourselves in and I know I have to work as much as anyone to help figure it out. I have an amazing, loving and understanding family and we will figure it out together. To that end, I asked my husband to read this article before I published it. He is a self declared extrovert. He made the point that sometimes extroverted people experience some of these situations and feelings too. I guess that is exactly what I am attempting to get at here. We all make assumptions about how other people are and what they need and why they are acting in a certain way. Sometimes we base those assumptions on labels that we give people or that we, ourselves, take on. We need to check in with the people around us periodically to test if these assumptions are (still) true.

Here are a couple of suggestions based on my own coaching experience that I have found useful:

If you are not naturally introverted, please remember that you might be unknowingly and unintentionally draining someone’s energy. Know that if they want to spend time alone, they don’t love you any less. Talk with them about how to create as much space and quiet for them as possible.

If you are introverted, please know, first of all, that there is nothing wrong with you. However, sometimes you have to speak up for what you need. Other people are not mind-readers so it helps to explain what is going on inside your head. 'I'd love to spend time with you in a hour and right now, I need some peace and quiet to get on with something'.

As for me, I am going to keep my sign up. If you have any other tips or ideas, I’d love to hear them.

Quietly, of course.