Before I knew what to call the matrix of traits that make up my personality, i was taking some stabs in the dark (as it were) and had sort of settled on Militant Introvert as a pretty decent descriptor of my personality. What that meant was that I am and always have been very much introverted, but unlike other introverts I’ve observed in the wild, is that I will confront and stop extroverts when they come storming into the room with their inane babble and vapid small talk and just shit on the rights of any introverts unfortunate enough to happen to be in the room. Here’s an example. I’ll be in a room in the evening, before dusk, when the lighting is low and things are nice and dim. I might just be sitting quietly in a break room at some job, or I could be in the kitchen slicing potatoes for dinner in the pleasantly low natural evening light, when in walks some presumptuous extroverted bunghole who sees that I (and maybe some other “quiet types”) are in there, doing whatever we’re doing with the lighting as is, and the first thing they do, apparently without giving the slightest consideration to how unbelievably rude, inconsiderate, and self-centered it is to walk into a room already occupied by other humans and just start changing things, not only without asking the people present if they approve of the change or not, but not even acknowledging the possibility that other people in the world are different from them and likely have extremely different priorities and preferences than they do.
I used to just live with it…these aggressively rude intrusions into my world, my comfort, my peace of mind and well-being. “They can’t help it…they’re just unaware, like children,” I’d think to myself, having no one else to think to. But as I got older, and stronger, and better, I became less inclined to suffer for the ignorance or inconsideration of others. These days, if I’m doing my thing in a low-lit room and some jackass waddles in and casually flips the lights on, causing actual pain to my eyes as my pupils desperately try to slam shut fast enough to ameliorate the discomfort, I will stop what I’m doing, stride over with malice aforethought, turn the fucking lights back off, and stand there and glare at the person to see if they want the lights on more than I want them off. Thus far, the offending parties have seen the wisdom in not pushing the issue.
Sometimes they will whine. “How can you see in here? I need the light to see.” Then you’re gonna need to come back later, you blind motherfucker, because your inability to function in conditions that are necessary for me to function is not my problem if I was here first. Which is key. I would never walk into a room full of extroverts babbling vapidly at each other and start turning lights off. Which is another thing: if these same people walked into the same dimly lit room and excused themselves and asked if they could turn on the light because their eyesight just isn’t what it used to be, my response would always be, “Of course…no problem…please.” Because I’m not trying to be confrontational at all. If I stand up and slam the light off after someone just walked in and unceremoniously slammed it on, what I’m doing is not “being mean,” and only feels “aggressive” or “confrontational” because extroverts are not at all used to introverts standing their ground because it basically never happens, and when all of a sudden it does, they don’t recognize the feeling and don’t really know how else to process it.
Okay…I need to pinch this off. I got go on for pages about this stuff. But I only mentioned it because this headline just popped up in my news feed: 15 Best Jobs for Introverts – Top Jobs for Shy People. I just wanted to say that introversion is totally different than shyness. Goddammit.
Okay…back to the book.
P.S.: Oh yeah…there’s a new Prince album out tomorrow. It’s so cool to be saying that in 2019.
N.P.: “Novocaine for the Soul” – Eels
