Reading People Read online

  I couldn’t type myself, but I was beginning to suspect I’d been all wrong about the INTJ diagnosis. I was studying up, trying to find myself (for real this time) in the type descriptions.

  So I sat at home on my couch, in my comfy pajamas, with a copy of Please Understand Me II from the library and a hot cup of tea. I flipped it open and started reading.

  It Changes Nothing; It Changes Everything

  That night I opened my book to a new chapter in Please Understand Me II, where I’d left off the night before. That chapter was all about temperament and romantic relationships, including the strengths and weaknesses for different pairings in married life. When I came to the part where David Keirsey explains how the Rational (NT) types function in married life, and especially what a pairing between the Rational and the Idealist (NF) looks like, my jaw fell open. That was us. He was describing Will (clearly an NT) and me (who must be an NF) so accurately it was spooky. It was as though I was reading the history of my courtship and early marriage, right there on the page. (Don’t worry about the alphabet soup. We’ll get there.)

  Here’s what I learned that night. First, because of Keirsey’s dead-on description of the way an Idealist tends to handle conflict unhealthily, I was absolutely sure I’d been typing myself incorrectly. (This would be the first of many times I would discover that the easiest way to type yourself is to pay attention to how you’re likely to screw up.) For the first time, I could see clearly that my behavior matched the NF type. The description was so uncannily accurate in regard to my behavior that I knew instantly I’d been typing myself incorrectly for years. It was suddenly clear where I’d gone wrong: I hadn’t been seeing myself as I actually was but as I wanted to be. No wonder those personality rubrics hadn’t helped me.

  Contrary to my belief, Will, who I could now clearly peg as an NT, wasn’t terrible at conflict. In fact, his approach to marital disagreements was textbook for his MBTI type. And my behavior was textbook for mine. We were experiencing what Keirsey called “an endless problem”5 in relationships between our types (which, except for this sticking point, Keirsey declares are extremely well-suited for marriage). My type is naturally emotionally expressive; Will’s type is naturally resistant to emotional displays. When we disagreed, I would tell Will how I felt, and he would remain calm, seemingly cold. I thought that meant he didn’t understand me, or care, and I’d get upset. He didn’t understand why I was upset, because he definitely understood—and felt my disappointment deeply. Then I’d get angry that he seemed not to understand.

  That night I finally understood that Will wasn’t being cold or trying to exasperate me. He just wasn’t me, and I’d been expecting him to act like me.

  I cannot tell you how freeing this insight was. Let’s just say the clouds parted and I’m pretty sure the angels sang. We were still the people we’d been the day before, a couple who still didn’t know how to fight. But that discovery dialed our conflicts down from epic to ordinary. Our disagreements weren’t alarming; they were normal. Expected, even. My epiphany didn’t change anything except our perspective—not that day, at least—but it changed the way I moved forward.

  For the first time, I began to see the dynamics at play when Will and I disagreed in a new light. It was my first big aha! moment about personality, the first time I felt the power of having accurate information about my personality (and, in this case, my husband’s personality) and applying it to my life. Once I understood what was actually going on, and why, I could begin to do something about it.

  Maybe when I first started exploring personality—and couldn’t get mine right—I’d made an honest mistake. Maybe I simply wasn’t comfortable with the true self that lay deep within me. But I suspect the problem was simply this: knowing yourself is hard. It’s difficult to clearly see yourself for who you really are. The process requires that you ask a difficult question of yourself and face the answer with as much honesty and grace as you can muster, because sometimes “What am I really like?” is a scary question.

  Asking yourself this question and facing the answer is intense, but it’s also possible—and absolutely worth it.

  Probing your own personality isn’t an easy process, not even in the best scenario. But I’m keenly aware of how my frustrating experience could have been so much easier if I’d known—even a little bit—what I was doing. Looking back, I wish someone had pointed me in the right direction. I wish I’d had someone looking over my shoulder, encouraging me when I headed in the right direction, and gently calling me back when I wandered off track. I needed someone to ask me the right questions at the right moments and to point out the key things I should have been paying attention to. I’m a big reader, so I wouldn’t have minded if this guidance had existed in the pages of a good book. I can’t go back and smooth my own road, but maybe my experience can make yours a little less bumpy. Stay with me, as that’s what I hope to do in the chapters ahead.

  2

  Communication Breakdown

  introverts and extroverts

  “Anne, this is my friend Mrs. Baker.”

  “Anne, this is my friend Mrs. Baker.”

  “ANNE, this is my friend MRS. BAKER.”

  My mom was trying to get me to say, “Hello, Mrs. Baker, how are you?” but my six-year-old self just couldn’t do it. First, I was introverted and hated talking to strangers (and a good many nonstrangers). Second, I thought that was a dumb thing for a kid to say. I didn’t know any other six-year-olds who talked like that.

  I was a good girl, the kind who never got in trouble—except for in moments like these.

  My mother didn’t understand my reserve, and we battled over these sorts of introductions for years. In hindsight, our dynamic makes sense. My mom is an extrovert to the core, a vivacious people person, the sort who’s never met a stranger. She loves being out in the world; she’s always loved meeting new people and making new connections. She revels in introducing her husband, friend, or daughter to her third-grade teacher’s mother’s next-door neighbor. Or her best friend’s little brother’s mail carrier.

  “What a delightful small world it is!” she’d often say to me.

  Mom couldn’t imagine that not everyone thought it was a delight and a joy to chatter for hours about anything at all with friends, acquaintances, and strangers and that I wouldn’t likewise enjoy meeting them and learning all about their personal histories. It never occurred to her that her introverted daughter didn’t enjoy being constantly on the go, meeting new people and connecting with old ones.

  My mom thought I was being cheeky, tapping into my latent rebellious side. She was baffled by the outright refusal of her otherwise obedient daughter to cooperate on this one point. She didn’t understand until many years later that I was an introverted kid, reacting exactly as you’d expect an introvert of any age to react when forced into such a situation. It was as though I was right-handed and she was asking me to write with my left. I couldn’t do it. Nor did I want to.

  What You Need to Know about Introverts and Extroverts

  What both my mom and I know now that we didn’t understand then is that introverts and extroverts are prone to misunderstanding one another. Introverts are often thought to be shy, and they may battle the perception that they dislike people or company or that they’re grouchy or social misfits. Extroverts, however, battle the perception that they’re flighty or shallow or relentlessly happy. People tend to assume extroverts are bad listeners, hate being alone, and are irrationally “needy” for the company of others.

  To truly understand introversion and extroversion, we need to cut through the misconceptions and grasp what these terms really mean.

  Grammar geek alert: introvert and extrovert are verbs as well as nouns (although, to get even geekier, the verb form is actually extravert). And to further complicate matters, Carl Jung spelled his noun “extravert,” but the modern spelling is more often “extrovert.” You will see the words spelled both ways throughout this book, depending on the context. />
  The North and South of Temperament

  Even though Carl Jung first introduced the terms introvert and extravert back in 1921 (in his now-classic volume Psychological Types), the concepts—especially introversion—crashed into the public’s consciousness in 2012 with the publication of Susan Cain’s Quiet, which greatly increased awareness of “the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking.”1

  Cain succinctly defines introverts as “people who prefer quieter, more minimally stimulating environments,” compared to extroverts, who seek out—and even thrive on—noise and stimulation.2 Introverts are fundamentally attuned to what happens within, while extroverts focus externally on the world around them.3 Both types naturally want to spend more time in the “real world” but disagree on which that is—the external world of experience or the inner world of thought.

  Researchers generally agree that introverts and extroverts are born, not made. While one’s tendency may shift over time (people tend to become more introverted as they get older),4 they don’t choose to be one type or the other. Studies estimate that one-third to one-half of us fall on the introverted end of the spectrum.5 Men are ever so slightly more likely to be introverted than women.6

  As far as personality distinctions go, introversion versus extroversion is an important one. Scientist J. D. Higley calls introversion and extroversion (or, as he phrases it, “inhibition and boldness”) “the north and south of temperament.”7 These traits affect the very core of who we are.

  Understanding the Differences

  While we all need to spend time introverting and extraverting (yes, these are appropriate verbs), our innate preference is reflected in our brain chemistries. If you’re an introvert and you’ve ever had a baffling conversation with your extroverted roommate and thought, My brain just doesn’t work like that, you’re absolutely right. Your brain doesn’t work like that.

  Introverts and extroverts are literally wired differently. Scientists have discovered measurable physiological differences between the two groups that affect everything from how quickly they think on their feet to how their bodies react to caffeine.8

  Extroverts think faster than introverts, processing information in less time. Extroverts can pull this off because information travels a shorter pathway through their brains. The pathway is shorter because that information bypasses parts of the brain that introverts rely on more heavily. A shorter pathway equals faster processing time, and this faster processing time accounts for many of the observable differences between the two types.

  The nervous systems of extroverts and introverts also function differently from each other. Introverts prefer the sympathetic side of the nervous system, the side responsible for the “rest and digest” mode. Extroverts more frequently use the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, the side responsible for the “fight-or-flight” response. Unsurprisingly, this results in different behaviors.

  Introverts and extroverts are quite different when it comes to risk-taking. Extroverts are more responsive to dopamine than introverts, which means they’re more likely to take big risks and enjoy doing it. They crave stimulation, whether that comes in the form of lights and sound or social interaction. But introverts, quite literally, prefer the quiet. They tend to have a more developed prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for abstract thought and decision-making.

  Morning rituals for introverts versus extroverts can look very different too. We’re talking about coffee, of course. The caffeine in a cup of joe is a boon to extroverts and often a burden to their quieter counterparts. Research shows that caffeine boosts extroverts’ performance but hinders introverts’ productivity. Introverts simply don’t need the additional stimulation caffeine delivers.9

  Extroverts and introverts are truly different on a physiological level, and those differences play out in real life. Introverts, with their preference for the inner world, need regular periods of quiet alone time to feel like their best selves (ideally) or a functional human being (realistically). For many introverts, that means a solitary walk, a long run, or some time with a good book. They need regular retreats into their own inner worlds to stay healthy, happy, and sane.

  Extroverts are the opposite: they adore stimulation. Without it, they feel just as drained and exhausted as an introvert who is forced to talk all day long. These are the people who organize raucous Saturday paintball games or margarita night for twenty. Extroverts build lots of social interaction into the rhythm of their lives, often without even thinking about it. Instead of quiet, they need energetic conversation. Instead of enjoying a solitary walk, they need to take a break in a crowded park. When they’re feeling tired, they need to phone a friend.

  The introversion/extroversion divide affects everything from a person’s risk tolerance to their patience level to their conflict management style to whether they’d talk about their recent bikini wax in mixed company. Your dad who researches every Honda for sale in five states before making his purchase? Probably an introvert. Your friend who loves roller coasters? Probably an extrovert. Your sister who spends ten minutes in the cereal aisle debating which box to buy? Probably an introvert. Your spouse who can’t stand to spend the weekend at home, relaxing—the one who wants to go do things? Probably an extrovert. Your child who takes forever to figure out what to say next, who has a crazy-long mental runway? Introvert.

  While these differences may make it sound as though identifying your type would be easy, that’s not always the case.

  What Makes Things Difficult

  When confronted with descriptions of an introvert and an extrovert, many people find it easy to type themselves because they instinctively recognize which world is their real world: either the introvert’s inner world of ideas or the extrovert’s external world of action. They know if they prefer to turn inward or turn outward, if they prefer the quiet or the stimulating. Others, though, aren’t so sure about their type. They see characteristics of both in themselves, which makes it difficult to pick just one.

  Relax—there’s no such thing as a pure introvert or a pure extrovert. Jung himself said no one person is all one type or the other: “Such a man would be in a lunatic asylum.”10

  We all spend time introverting and extraverting; it’s part of being human. We spend time with our thoughts, in our own heads, and we spend time focusing on the external world around us. We don’t have to plan for this or think about it much; it happens automatically. In this sense, we are all ambiverts. But, according to Jung,11 we are all primarily oriented one way or the other. We can’t be both. We are fundamentally either focused outward or focused inward.

  If you see both introvert and extrovert characteristics in yourself, how do you figure out which you are? It’s not always easy, because appearances can be deceiving. Let’s explore what you need to pay attention to in order to figure out your type.

  Undercover Extroverts, and Introverts in Disguise

  Extroverts don’t spend all their time extraverting, and introverts don’t always look like introverts. Here’s a case in point. A friend of mine spends many Friday nights out clubbing with her musician husband, dressed in tight pants and five-inch heels, rocking out to bands amid large, noisy crowds. To an outsider, that’s a decidedly extroverted pursuit. If she was trying to type herself, she could point to those Friday nights and say, “I couldn’t be an introvert—no way!”

  But my friend calls those evenings out her “hobby,” not her “lifestyle.” She hits the noisy clubs because it’s important to someone she loves, and she’s learned to embrace the fun of it a couple nights a month. What you don’t see is my friend playing the homebody the rest of the weekend, reading books, making soup, and watching movies—embracing her more preferred brand of quiet. After spending a Friday night out in the external world with its people, lights, and sounds, she’s more than ready to retreat to her own “real world” of her thoughts.

  I relate to this, as I can pass for an outgoing extrovert at the right kind of gat
hering. I’m often among the last to leave a party because once I get there I have such a good time; I truly love interesting conversation with interesting people. However, as much as I enjoy those kinds of events, I find them enormously draining. At the end of the night, I’m aching to return to my real world, my inner world of thought. I jokingly say I need two cups of tea and a hundred pages of a good novel to recover from a boisterous night out, but I’m really not kidding. After a night on the town, I need to recharge my battery—by myself.

  However, my extroverted friend—the one who will close down the party with me—will go home and tell her husband all about her night out to prolong the evening, feeling high on life. If you had observed us at the party, you would have thought our temperaments appeared quite similar. But my extroverted friend doesn’t leave drained. She leaves energized from the rush of spending all night in her real world—the external world of people and conversation.

  Or picture this: my extroverted author friend is currently racing to meet a deadline for her next novel. She usually prefers a packed social calendar but is in full-on monk mode, spending eleven hours a day locked in her office, just herself and her computer and her dog (but she kicks even him out if he starts distracting her). If you saw her at work, you would think there’s no way she could be an extrovert, but you would be wrong. She’s an extrovert spending an unusual amount of time introverting because her work demands it, and she’s decided it’s worth it. (Although, in her own words, “When it’s over, I’m going to party like it’s 1999—for a month.”)

  Appearances can be deceiving, but your mental state, feelings, and sometimes even physical reactions will key you in to which is your real world, the external world “out there” or the internal world of your thoughts.

  Putting This Information to Work in Your Own Life