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Nothing Personal, but,
Get Away From Me

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 05/15/00)

On behalf of everyone who has ever been called a “stick in the mud”:

Screw off.

You extroverts are getting on our nerves. Party-party-party. Concert this. Group outing that. Going our to lunch with a party of 32. Walking around like junkies looking for a group activity fix. Incessant spew about your cousin’s wedding or how tough it was to find curtains for your upstairs showers.

There’s nothing worse than a desperate extrovert. Cut them off from other people and they start organizing group outings involving aircraft and desperation theme parties. They’ll come and sit in your cube and spew on and on about what their dogs threw up last night and how Biff can’t get his Ford Expedition in the two-car garage ever since putting the luggage Trav-L-Mate on the roof in anticipation of next month’s trip to Door County, Wisconsin with some college friends.

About 21 minutes into this monologue, introverts like me start praying for someone to call us on the phone. Even though we hate to talk on the phone, we’ll do it to get this fungus-like extrovert out of our cube.

OK, I’m being a little harsh. I don't want my current co-workers to think I'm all mad at them for bugging me, because they don't. They respect my space quite generously. Sorry about the “screw off” thing earlier. It's just that most introverts bear the scars of stick-in-the-mud, party-pooper taunts. We do care about you as a person. We love you and your dogs and spouses and tasteful suburban homes. We just wish you could ixnay on the alkingtay and respect our personal comfort space, which radiates about 12 feet in every direction from an introvert.

A college teacher and fellow introvert, Bruce, told me that 25% of America is introverted. Testify, brother. Introverts prize quiet and solitude. It’s just some kind of biochemical-personality-brain electronics deal. Nothing personal. Frankly, it taxes us to be with others. We can do it, of course, and be pleasant and all that, but the whole time it’s wearing down the batteries. Eventually we have to retreat to the cave of solitude and recharge. After a day of classes, Bruce goes home to his empty house and dog and just hangs. No TV. No major stimulus. Recharging. I can totally relate.

I’m lucky to be a writer. There aren’t many more solitary professions. While everyone seems to have “input” and “feedback” about writing, the physical act of writing can be done only by one person, without someone yammering at you or standing over your shoulder. Some of the greatest writing comes from raging introverts working alone.

Diane Warren, who has written every other hit song you’ve ever heard, writes in what her staff calls “the cave.” NOBODY except Warren goes into the cave. And if she’s in there, they don’t bother her for anything short of nuclear war. Michael Crichton, who chucked a Harvard medical education to become a writer, writes in the morning, getting up earlier and earlier to write as he gets more and more into a book. Toward the end, he's writing and sleeping. That’s it. His wife and friends know to just leave Mike alone. When he’s done with the book, he returns to more normal conditions until he starts the next one.

I haven’t been able to find out for sure, but I bet the Greatest Writer Ever to Breathe, William Shakespeare, got totally freaky while working on, say, Hamlet. Probably went days without shaving or bathing. I bet Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, knew just to stay out of his path. “He’s working on another sonnet,” Anne would say to her friends over some ale. “It’s just no use talking to him when he’s writing.”

I’m certainly no Bill Shakespeare (would that I were worthy of even saying his name), but the best stuff I’ve ever written happened in my basement, early in the morning or when my house was empty. Writing is really an act of concentration, the intensely mental activity of letting your brain spin, fold, spindle, mutilate, regurgitate and generally play with words. At work, I write wearing headphones. (Van Morrison is in my ears right now.) It blocks out the distractions. I write this stuff before work, when the office is empty (7:29 a.m. right now). Sometimes, when I’m really into it, I can’t even get up to go to the can. (Like now, for example.) I’m driven to clean up a sentence or finish a paragraph or find the perfect clever inflection until it’s either go in the restroom or go in my pants. (Like now, for example. Be right back.)

So here’s the deal: introverts like to be alone. We’re not “sticks in the mud” just because we don’t like to be going and doing every second. We like other people, and we have genuinely close friends, but only over time. I love my wife and daughters, but every so often I have to go into The Cave. It’s time to leave Daddy alone now. I’ll go write a letter or read a book or just go for a walk alone. I’m not a flaming introvert; I regularly enjoy being around other people. But, I still require a few hours of alone time a day to stay mentally regular.

It’s not better or worse than extroversion. It’s just different. So, on behalf of introverts everywhere: we love ya, but get away from us. Nothing personal.

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