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If you’re an introvert, then you most definitely have been given unsolicited advice before by someone who is an ambivert or extrovert about the ways you should come out of your shell and live a little.

Somewhere down the line, someone who doesn’t get social anxiety will have given you an easy-peasy 3-step plan on how to ask out that girl you like or make the first move at the school dance without wondering for a millisecond if you can.

I’m an extroverted introvert myself—an extravert, if you will.

I can be quiet as a church mouse in a roomful of people, or I can be the one dancing on the tables. You either hear my voice from anywhere, or you don’t hear my voice at all.

And it all depends on my mood and how I feel at that minute.

I cannot tell you before we attend a party which personality you’ll be out with tonight, but I can tell you that either way, I will probably still be uncomfortable.

In my experience, extraverts are actually just super loud and fun as a mask for their loneliness. They take risks and do ridiculous things for laughs to deflect feelings of insecurity or not fitting in.

It doesn’t really matter how many times I’m invited, or you tell me you really, really, really want me to attend; I will still overthink the invite and wonder if you wouldn’t rather have invited someone else in my place.

But what if it’s the extroverts who are all wrong and social anxiety is an evolutionary trait to keep people safe from predators?

What if being afraid to talk to strangers is absolutely the right thing to be afraid about?

Now I’m not suggesting we all become hermits and stay in our shells forever, but if the reactions to COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that the introverts were born ready for a global pandemic.

While the world collectively lost their sh*t about stay-at-home orders, calling governments everything from draconian to Nazi-like, introverts continued watering their plants, whistling a little tune, and taking naps.

They stayed home and binge-watched Netflix without needing a permit to do so. They took their laptops and merrily started remote-working, and now a year later, they refuse to go back to their offices.

It makes sense that the place you pay for every month should see you the most, so why not stay home?

If it can’t be ordered online or delivered on a bike, is it really that necessary? I think not.

Introverts of the world, unite.

Separately.

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