AuGuest Post: Letting People in, by Samantha Karol
I remember how nervous I was when I got the piece of paper from college telling me about my dorm assignment for freshman year. As an only child who had always had her own room, the thought of sharing one small room with three other girls was a little frightening. Summer camp had prepared me some, but I was still unsure. Thankfully, the roommate gods blessed me, and I was randomly placed with three girls who would become some of my best college friends. Not everyone was nice though, and when it came time to choose roommates for the following year, one girl who was planning on living with two of my roommates decided she didn’t want me living with them. I’d never done anything to her, didn’t even know her that well, but for some reason she didn’t want me to be part of their group. So, I ended up with my third roommate, a friend of ours and some of the other girls from our hall. Things worked out just fine, but I missed living with the other two.
It was the summer before sophomore year when I met the man who is now my fiancé. Although I wouldn’t trade our relationship for the world, three years of long distance and many weekends away didn’t do much to help the friend situation. My freshman friends and I were still close, but they had also become closer with their sophomore roommates, among them a couple more girls who disliked me for no reason. Those girls were even worse than the first, barely even recognizing my existence and never making me feel welcome or comfortable. Maybe they saw me as a threat, or maybe they just didn’t like me, but the way they treated me was totally unfair.
I never again lived with my freshman roommates. They never asked, but not for any malicious reason. I’m pretty sure they had no idea how the other girls treated me. Ignorance is bliss or something like that. What I felt was far from bliss. Being left out of their tight-knit group has made me very aware of how I treat people. Whenever I host a party, I make sure everyone is introduced to everyone else so no one is left sitting alone. I’ve made an effort to tell all of my close friends about each other so they feel more comfortable when they first meet. If I find out someone feels left out, I’ll do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
The important thing to remember is that letting people in is not a bad thing. If you give them a chance and actually get to know them, you might find you really like them. Don’t just brush people off because they’re not part of your group and they might “steal your friends.” Trust that your friends wouldn’t be friends with them if they weren’t awesome. Give people the same opportunity you would want them to give you.
Samantha Karol is twenty-something living and working in New York City. She is a writer and a grammar nerd, currently employed in development at an Israel-related non-profit. The way to her heart is through ice cream.
AuGuest: My Response to Zoyah
On Monday, Zoyah started off AuGuest 2011 with her thoughts on bitterness and how to overcome same. Read that post first, if you haven’t already.
I admire the post, because I see the value in the advice. No logical argument can be made against the notion of avoiding extended bitterness, and for choosing instead to be, as she describes herself, a “glass half-full” type.
Yet like so many things that one can acknowledge as proper but can’t always initiate, I admit to sometimes having a hard time being the person Zoyah suggests in her piece.
It is important for me to point out that sitting here now I am far, far closer to the worthy ideal that she writes about than I was, say five years ago. Hell, even one year ago. That is because I do see the “Zoyah Standard” if you will, as something to which I, and others should aspire at times. It is a slow climb for people like me, and while when I look up I see much climbing left to do to get to that peak, if I look down I can also see how far I have come. That is because I hold several, even if not all, of Zoyah’s tenants as a beacon of sorts.
To put it another way, it is a much longer journey for me than it is for Zoyah. For her, and others like her, the philosophy is like a GPS in the car. Turn by turn directions for how to live better on the day. For me, such advice is like the North Star. A guide to be sure, but distant. Slow, deliberate celestial navigation towards larger, less specific areas of the globe.
Who can say why I am Too XYZ for the faster approach? I suppose we are all just built differently. I know that many will say that it is just a matter of choice whether or not we are happy. (Though I think Zoyah stops just short of this blanket statement.) For many it is easy. For me it is easiER than it was say in college, or high school or two summers ago, but that is only because years and years of work and introspection led to it. To be frank, sheer numbness to the blows inflicted upon me have also contributed to my feeling less bitterness. (Though I would wonder if that is a healthy way to not be bitter…)
Her post covered many things, and I don’t think I could, or need to respond to each of them. But one sectipn stands out and in my view is the bull’s-eye of why it is so hard for some people to do what she does. Zoyah wrote:
“Circumstances have a huge impact on your behavior…sometimes circumstances or situations can grab hold of you, exhibit some sort of power over you, and even change you – maybe not forever but for a long while.”
This I think is the crux of it for people like me.
Zoyah shared her story about her bitterness in the wake of her “first love” not working out. She goes on to describe how unpleasant she felt and acted to the world until her sister snapped her out of by pointing out her bitterness.
I have been bitter, and in some places am still bitter, due to certain circumstances grabbing a hold of me. Those circumstances are different for each person, and I don’t want to enter sad-sack autobiography mode in this post. But suffice to say that a succession of things grabbed a hold of me. Before I had a chance to snap out, or even just crawl out of the bitterness of one, another would clamp down. And then another. Until bitter numbness, (as opposed to the being numb to bitterness that I described earlier) began to set it.
Like memory foam, certain parts of my consciousness have been squeezed into a certain shape for so long by so many different hands that it has taken quite a while for my psychology to regain its proper, pre-onslaught shape. Parts of it are still recovering. A few parts have actually been torn off of the pillow and cannot be replaced even once everything springs back.
Thank the Divinities that I am not still in as bad a shape as I used to be. That I am not as angry as I once was. Yet I still envy Zoyah’s situation in multiple ways.
She seems to still have the ability to choose on the moment to see the half-full glass. Like anyone she can get bitter, but has the power to choose to override it most of the time. I do not, but I envy the ability.
I envy that her default state is optimism. When that is your default setting, my guess is that you can return to it with more gusto when the time comes. My default state is usually, “Prove it.” So even when I am beat down, and attain full recovery, the best I can usually hope for right now is a return to the normal levels of skepticism about humanity. I am not ashamed of my default, it is what I am. But I sometimes wish it were a little less of what I am.
Envy for Zoyah also creeps in when it comes to the wake up call she received from her sister. (Whom I also know, by the way.) I know that Zoyah and her sister are quite close, and while I am close with some of my sisters and distant from some, my siblings and I generally do not have the, “snap out of it” sort of dynamic with one another. The whole family is full of quasi-introspective and sometimes brooding, independent introverts. We don’t usually say things like that to one another. It’s just the way it is. I don’t wish away my family, but if my family doesn’t have anybody that could cut right to the quick of my bitterness and make me see the need to course correct, I wish I would have had somebody somewhere who could have.
Then again, that may be impossible given how quickly and deeply bitterness has at times in my life, overcome me. Plus, at the time I don’t usually call it bitterness. One man’s bitterness is another man’s “justifiable disgust”. In the vast majority of cases, I have, and to be frank still do feel justified in how pissed I have been at certain situations and people. Maybe one day I won’t be, but for now…
We need people like Zoyah, no doubt. And while I am not ashamed of what I am, and do think that something fundamental about Ty Unglebower would be lost if he were suddenly to become a full time optimist, I cannot help but think my battle would be a bit more endurable at times if I were able to make Zoyah-type choices every day.
But at least I have the North Star.
The Return of AuGuest.
I mentioned earlier this month that I wanted to bring back my AuGuest month of guest posts, and today I can confirm it will be taking place. Each Monday in August, I will publish a guest post from someone I have met or worked with in my adventures online.
This year it will be a bit different, though, in that each Thursday I will then write a response or commentary to that week’s guest post, as opposed to just finding as many guest posts as I can, and leaving comments on same. So this year AuGuest will be more of a conjunction of ideas between myself and my guests. I hope some interesting discussion as well as some new readers will result from this year’s event.
So, do check back in on Monday, when AuGuest kicks off with a post by confirmed extrovert, Zoyah Thawer. Don’t miss it.
On Swooning
Years ago, one of my sisters was part of those Home Interior parties. (They sell home decor and such.)
There is a bit of a pyramid nature to it, it seems, because for months the local host, or procurator or whatever it is kept trying to convince my sister to become one. She, and others.
As I was told by my mother, who attended one such meeting, the hostess offered to my sister, (or anyone else in the group who wanted to take on the position) a brand new spherical key chain, covered in “50% real mink fur.”
Neither my mother nor my sister were impressed by this. Believe it or not, though, they were the only two who felt that way. To paraphrase my mother who told the story later:
“Grown women were falling over themselves going apeshit over this piece of trash like it was the Holy Grail.”
My sister parted with Home Interior not long afterward.
Both my sister and I, as well as my other siblings get it honest. Mom has never been easily impressed by such things. Dad wasn’t either. Whether it be people, clothing, or in this case, a spherical key chain covered in 50% real mink fur, we don’t often swoon. We just don’t feel that many things are a big to-do. We are not moved to applause by every little thing.
There are probably many reasons for this. Genetics being one, like I said. Having lived at times a difficult life wherein priorities present themselves. An overall simpler view on life than many folks. Even our natural introversion. However I think for the most part it is that we save big reactions for big things.
Many will claim that different people get excited about different things, and that I shouldn’t judge. True, to a point. But let’s be as honest as possible with this; don’t you think that there are levels of excitement to life? Is there not something a bit disconcerting about swooning as much over a key chain as a marriage proposal? I have to believe I am better off with a high swoon threshold than to feel my heart flutter after signing up earlier for the webinar.
Swoon is the operative word here. I didn’t say appreciation, or anticipation. I am not talking about having fun or feeling excited. I am talking about, hand covering your mouth, jumping up and down, somebody get me a pillow because I am about to pass out swooning.
I am often amazed, and at times disgusted by how easily people can get to this level over something, whether an object, an experience, or another person. This lifelong bafflement of mine has only been enhanced with the advent of social media, where every third post, Tweet, or Facebook update has something to do with just how “mind-blowingly stoked” somebody is to be among the first 1,000 people to get a copy of Seth Godin’s new e-book…a full week before everybody else can. Do they talk this way on dates??
Don’t misunderstand, because I can hear the objections as I type. Like I wrote earlier, I do think life should be enjoyed, and everyday enthusiasm does deepen our existence. But that is just the point. It should be everyday enthusiasm. Not wetting yourself excitement at something every single day.
Yes, there are times when I think that people who swoon over e-books and key chains get ahead a tad faster in life. When their twitterpation is conflated with enthusiasm or appreciation. That can get some people to the front of the line and past the velvet ropes to be sure. Yet if your excitement system doesn’t have some sort of tiered structure, what are you going to have left to enjoy later? If you are drooling about the e-book release by your favorite author which you just bought before all of your friends, are you going to be able to muster anything intelligent to say or do should you one day get to meet your favorite author? Breath and prioritize. If you can do it with your anger, you can do it with your swooning.
I get excited. I have jumped in the air over things, slapped high fives, and been unable to sleep in anticipation of the important moments. On occasion I have screamed with incoherent but justifiable exuberance into the night. One day I may even swoon, and suffer temporary respiratory failure. (Though it would require extreme and rare circumstances, like Ellen Page smiling at me at a party or something.) Yet I am proud, not ashamed to admit that in most cases as good things happen, I remain level headed enough to absorb the whole experience without tweaking. And I humbly submit that you can too.
How easily do you swoon?
Introvert Risks
At a later date, I plan to respond to this notion that the very act of stepping out of your comfort zone is useful in its own right. This pervasive notion among the success gurus out there that you are not living your life, and have no hopes of success unless you are opting to somehow scare the shit out of yourself every day. (Hint: I think this approach is bogus.)
I don’t however think it is bogus to say that sometimes we need to take some kind of risk. And that at times those risks will put us out of our comfort zone. Not for its own sake, but because the mission of any given point in our life requires it. I take no pleasure or excitement in being out of my comfort zone. That is why they call it a comfort zone after all. But if an important mission takes me there, so be it.
Yet you may not know I am there unless I tell you. That is because the praise and glory for taking risks often goes to the more outspoken risk takers. Those that instead of stepping outside their comfort zone, opt to take a flying leap out of it, over a cliff, and into a choppy ocean of uncertainty and danger, screaming, and blogging about the scariness of the entire affair during the fall.
In other words, extroverted risk takers.
Introverts have their own comfort zones, however. They take risks too. Perhaps less sexy risks. Perhaps their comfort zones are misunderstood so as to make it appear they never leave them in the first place. Or when an introvert does something to expand their perspective it may be so similar to what their more gregarious counterparts do each day that no credit is even given for the risk taken.
But it is there, and it is time such things were acknowledged as well.
We introverts are often more sensitive to stimuli, both internal and external. We dislike chaos and noise. It tends to fry our circuitry. So if we do find ourselves shouting above a room full of excitable, screaming colleagues, you can bet it is because our belief in the idea is so strong we are willing to step into the disorienting fray of extroverted “brainstorming.” That is outside of our comfort zone. And because most introverts don’t process information in that manner, and certainly don’t share it that way, we are taking a risk by attempting to do so..
Introverts, contrary to popular misconceptions, are not de facto shy. Some of us are, and some of us are not, just like the extrovert population. (Yes, that surprising fact is also true.) Yet introducing ourselves to strangers in any medium is about as welcome to most introverts as would be climbing several flights of stairs with a bag of dry cement strapped to our backs.
But sometimes there is an idea. A solution. Something which we in our introverted alone time have conceived that must be shared with specific people we think will be able to help. But since we are idea based, people may find we jump right into the groundbreaking idea or observation. We take a risk every time we do so in a world that expects us to nuzzle up to strangers and begin the “Small Talk Tango”. Introverts can ironically be seen as quite pushy once we decide something needs to be shared because we get right to the point, and that potential pushiness is a risk we take when we believe in something.
Our energy, our mental energy in particular, is a precious commodity to us. Not only that, it is a “combustible” mixture. It takes little for it to be exhausted, depending on the circumstances. We can be drained of it in short order when in public or around certain people for an extended period of time. If extroverts would stop and think then about how much of ourself introverts allow to be drained at times, they would see that sometimes the simple act of placing ourselves in a situation is risk taking and being outside of the all important “comfort zone.”
Assessing what it would cost us to do something, and how we would go about doing it. Comparing what we would lose if we failed to what we would gain if we succeeded. And deciding that the potential loss is worth the potential gain. Taking action because being uncomfortable or even in pain is not as vital as what is at stake. This is risk taking. This is stepping outside of one’s comfort zone.
Risk taking is not, as society has started to believe, running headlong into Interstate traffic, screaming how much you love the uncertainty of life the entire time.
Like much of what we introverts do, our risk taking is often so quiet and private, the world remains unaware of it. Which is why I point this out in my post today. So people will in fact realize a simple truth; introverts take risks every day.
If you are an introvert, what risks do you take without trying to be other than what you are?
Ty Unglebower 