Atelier Doré

Garance, I feel I know you from nearly a decade of following your blog – I think you are 100% an Extravert and should embrace it as one of your greatest strengths!

If you don’t mind my saying so, among the women in this podcast you talked the most, and then said you were sorry the podcast went by so fast…for example…your warmth, enthusiasm and the way you share so easily about yourself in podcasts or in writing are sure signs that you are an Extravert. If you were an Introvert you would be like Anna Wintour, the most powerful woman in fashion about whom the public knows nothing except that she likes tennis. She wears sunglasses all the time not because she wants to looks cool but to deal with the public as an Introvert. Following the sunglasses idea, I am an Extravert through and through, and I couldn’t even keep my sunglasses on once when I had puffy eyes from an allergic reaction to hide and was starting a conversation with someone – I so need and love to make that personal connection through eye contact. I’m guessing you may be the same way.

However, for years I thought I was an Introvert. I can’t believe how completely wrong I was, and how little I knew myself…and how little I paid attention to others and knew them. Only when my husband (an Introvert) said, “If you are an Introvert then what am I?!” did I begin to question, which led to an extensive self-study of Myers Briggs theory.

I was confused for a few reasons. First, because I love my alone time reading a book or visiting a museum. But now I know that’s because I am also Intuitive on the Myers Briggs test, which means I like being alone with my thoughts.

Another reason I thought I was an Introvert was because, yes, I too often left social events exhausted from having jumped here there and everywhere all night long. I just don’t try to keep any reserves like an Introvert would and so I do get depleted. Now I know this is me being energized by being with others, as the misleading personality test question puts it, but I didn’t recognize I was energized being with others before, and that poorly worded personality test question didn’t draw it out.

Also I do think women feel compelled somehow to “be” an Introvert, for whatever reasons that may be – more submissive? More intellectual? Less assertive? It’s just an assumption from culture we don’t really question.

Only when I finally understood I’m an Extravert did I put my finger on the pleasure, energy and joy I get in connecting with people, in groups or individually. I had been self-centered, thinking everyone was like me, walking into a room at a party so excited about the possibilities. Now I know not everyone is like me and so I’m much more understanding that some need time to observe before jumping, time to reflect before speaking.

Also just putting my finger on that joy I get from being with others or connecting with an individual made it real like it hadn’t been before, when I didn’t even realize how much fun I was having.

From my experience I think it is really important to know thyself. I have met several women who, for reasons I believe similar to mine and to yours, Garance, I am sure are Extraverts but believe they are Introverts. To me they are missing out on the peace of realizing and accepting who they truly are.