1. In the supermarket, I often duck into a supermarket shelf where I pretend to stare at bottles of wine with great interest ( I do n’t drink alcohol …) or study packages of tandoori chicken with fascination ( I’m vegan … ). Why? Well, purely because I just bumped into a possible acquaintance in the aisle next to it and I doubt whether we both fall into the “We know each other well enough to have a chat!” category or the “We pretend we don’t know each other” category. Seriously, supermarket routes are designed for introverts. Hiding is a piece of cake!
2. I may not answer a phone call , even though I am technically capable of speaking to you. Energy-wise, that option just wasn’t there. I was in the middle of a writing assignment, have a social hangover after 4 phone calls in one day, or know that I am not my most social self at this time of day. Sorry. It’s not you.
3. “I’ll email you!” could have been my motto. Or as a colleague once said about himself: “Don’t call me.” I completely understand that in many situations it is useful to pick up the phone and of course I do so regularly for interviews and coordination. But I am never at my best when I have to come up with a good response on the phone at the last minute. Then it comes out haltingly, I say ‘yes’ much too quickly to something that I regret 5 minutes later, or the ideas I come up with are simply not that great. I am at my best when I email. So I will never just pick up the phone if it is not necessary, I prefer to text friends rather than call them and I regularly answer difficult questions on the phone with “Um, should we email about it?”.

4. Sometimes I wait until chatty neighbors have gone. When we lived in our previous house, we had an older neighbor who you could easily spend half an hour with for a conversation. I often ran into her at exactly the moments when I came home exhausted from an appointment or was about to go for a run just before dinner. And although I like to be there for someone, at those moments I especially longed to not have to be social for a while about the ultimate small talk topics (such as the garbage on the side of the road and the black painted storage room ceiling). So yes, there have been times when I stayed in the car a little longer or waited a minute to open the door to the stairwell to avoid that chance encounter. No, I am not proud of this.
5. I sometimes use toilet visits as me-time. When I’m in a group all day, toilet moments are often my only bits of alone time in a day. So yes, I take it from there, my phone comes out and you can safely not see me for 10 minutes. I do come back nicely recharged. That’s true!
6. Secretly, I almost never mind when people cancel. I think I am the easiest person to say “Sorry, we have to reschedule!”. In 99% of the cases I think “Oh, that suits me too!”. Not because I already had other appointments, but because in my mind I am already enjoying the extra alone time that has arisen. Of course I mumble words like “too bad”, but actually I never really think it is “too bad” to have an extra moment with just myself or Bart as company.
7. I have no problem at all with being alone for a week. Last week Bart was away for 4 days. “Gosh, don’t you feel lonely then?” or “How sad that you’re home alone!”, I heard from a few people. But no, that doesn’t feel sad at all. Although I miss him of course and was very happy when he came home, I won’t be bored for a minute when I’m alone either. With about 1001 hobbies that all happen to be solitary activities, I’ll undoubtedly have a great time. So no, I really don’t have to go to people’s houses for tea every evening to fill the time. I’d rather no

8. After 1 hour of calling, I am no longer at my best. It seems as if I have a telephone tax – at least in my work. I actually never have calls, at most coaching sessions, that last longer than 1 hour. But if that is the case, I understand why I prefer not to do that. After 1 hour, my battery slowly drains. My focus decreases, my creativity seeps away by the minute and I really long for the combination of tea, silence and focus instead of talking.
9. In groups I am a different person than one-on-one. If you put me in a group, I change into a more silent Willy. I wait and see from my spot in the corner, which can come across as if I am not enjoying myself. Fortunately, that is not the case; I can silently enjoy the commotion around me. It just takes me more effort to get in. And it also feels a bit exciting and awkward to immediately show the back of my tongue to strangers. If you talk to me one-on-one, I am a different person in that respect. Then you will notice that I can change into a real chatterbox. I expose myself more easily ( figuratively of course! ), throw more depth into the conversation and am much more talkative. That is why I always prefer to meet with 1 or 2 people. In groups, my social, chatty side disappears more quickly into the background, and I think that is a shame myself.
10. When I am quiet, it does not mean that my mind is turned off. Usually, the opposite is true and the wheels in my brain are turning at full speed. When I am quiet, I am generally thinking about life, observing group dynamics or planning what I can say next. I see, feel, notice and hear all kinds of things. My antennae are ON. Maybe that is exactly why I am sometimes quiet. When something affects me, my first reaction is to shut down, while someone else might go on a rampage. And when the atmosphere is tense, I am trying to figure out in my head how everything exactly works, but I do not say anything so as not to increase the tension. So no, there is a good chance that my stream of words will produce an eerie silence, but that is precisely because it is anything but quiet in my head.
11. I sometimes find the question “How are you?” difficult. My contemplative introvert brain finds it a brain-bending question. Not when it is a sincere “And how are you really doing?” question (because: nice, such a deep conversation!) . But when someone opens the door and immediately starts with this question. Well, then I can do nothing but politely answer “Fine!” and then ask the same meaningless question back to hear that the other person also feels “Yes, sure, everything is fine!”. Well, you don’t immediately explain at the front door that you had a really bad period yesterday, that you have an argument with your partner and that your toddler is not sleeping through the night. And if you are hyper-enthusiastic and have 5x good news to share, you don’t immediately throw it all out after one step on the doormat. At least, I don’t. But anyway, that is why I find this a difficult question to which I often have no choice but to give half-baked answers.
12. When I’m tired, I’m really tired and overstimulated and everything. I have a fairly full energy tank. I can get a lot done in a day. I’m mainly talking about work, blogging, writing, photography and creative projects. Bart sometimes calls me a whirlwind that also rages through the house on weekend days. It just makes me happy! But I have an all-or-nothing energy tank. Either I’m full of energy and completely absorbed in all my creative outbursts and work projects. Or I’m burned out, overstimulated, easily irritated and all of the above. If the latter is the case, I especially long for an (for others probably unsociable) audiobook in my ears.
13. Sometimes I just think being an introvert is stupid. For example, those times when I’m the only one at a networking event, awkwardly fiddling with my glass and then watching with slight envy as others seem to do this whole networking thing naturally. Or when I have a (if I may say so myself) brilliant contribution to a meeting, but have trouble inserting myself into the chatter of the others. Or when everyone comes up with the most fantastic elevator pitches during an introduction round and I can barely get out my name and three clumsy sentences, only to realize afterwards how unusually awkward my introduction stories always are (and how I always know what I should have said 5 minutes later).

Do you recognize any of these 13 confessions?