I See You: Introverted Language

School recently tied me down, more like handcuffed to a chair by my own personal choice, but I have this need to write something beyond my scholastic mind that still penetrates the desire of thought and yet continues to be the inevitable...verbal vomit. LoL However, do not think that I forgot about this quest of mine to examine the awkwardness of being an introvert.

As I had addressed before in a previous post, I wanted to observe the language of introverts and not necessarily just mine considering I would be extremely conscious of my actions and inadvertently tampering or corrupting information. Lucky for me, I recognize other introverts who have confirmed with me to do the same things that I do and react the same way I do to certain events or situations.

Story time!!

If you keep up with my blog you will know that I just relocated and started a new job, this means sitting in a class for training.  My class was built up of five individuals besides me that slowly dwindled down, but the behavior of the class intrigued me as we progressed throughout our two weeks.  

Each student/coworker/peer sat at his or her own table which seemingly reflected the uncomfortable nervousness of the needed personal space or inevitable bubble.  I personally could have used the whole room as my bubble, but that is beside the point :P  With this distance, it was easy to observe each other and get to know one another.  I sometimes laugh at this description because it sounds like a lion observing prey except that the term 'prey' is viewed negatively considering the outcome of the situation.  For us, it was a way of building trust to get confirmation and understanding who you could depend on.  We also learned who to go to for clarity in the understanding of information concern the tasks of our employment positions.  Guaranteed, once out of class things tend to change, but the foundation of understanding still remains.  My favorite moment is when my classmates and I had a specific lesson that included other senior member employees and we were all able to have a discussion without any verbal conversation.  The senior member would ask questions about scenarios we knew nothing about and were completely out of context or order of the lesson plan.  This in itself confused my hired class and irritated us.  One, we did not have the foundation that the senior member did, so going off on a tangent does not offer new hires a stable understanding of their job description, which does not help a company.  Two, with the tangent in action, scowls became more visible, eyebrows and mouths frowned, and lips pierced with grinding teeth out of irritation.  This my friends, is how to piss off an introvert.  I must say I was a bit disappointed that the trainer did not notice how many scowls were aimed in her direction as if lasers were coming out of our eyes, but then again, you cannot expect everyone to understand everything…even reading people.

Now I am a person whose looks can be loud or give a clear indication of how I am feeling, but it still surprises me when someone is able to pick up or understand a particular expression.  One of my coworkers was assisting me on a project and after some time the individual simply asked the question, “Are you okay?”.  I hate to admit it, but due to my very deeply embedded independence I will 99.9% of the time reply with “I’m fine” whether I am or not.  Yes, I had a scowl on my face.  Yes, I pierced my lips together and muttered insane vulgarities under my breath.  Yes, I slither away into my own little world to be left alone until the world made sense again and I felt safe.  YES, SOMETHING IS WRONG, but I can handle it as I am self-aware.  Now I know how I respond to certain situations, but to have a stranger or at least someone who barely knows me recognize this and simply ask if I was okay still surprises me because I want to ask “Why do you care?”.  My actions and reactions are my own issue that do not necessarily involve someone else and yet they do because once my coworker uttered those three words the weight of my frustration was immediately lifted.  I am sure my face reflected this too as the scrunched forehead, curved eyebrows, and gritted teeth slowly disappear.  For me to accept that my co-worker saw me was a little intimidating, but it was a bit comforting to have this person indirectly say "I see you."

As I continue on and get to know my co-workers better I also find that I am more fluent in my own body language when I receive confirmation on another’s personality.  Given the right topic, and introvert can talk as much as any extrovert.  Quiet does not always indicate shy or the idea of being better than others, but it can simply be the fact that “This is my area and right now I need to concentrate” or “I am a deep pondering type with a million thoughts going through my head.”  I love being able to understand a bit about a person by reading body language.  You can pick up on someone’s personality by the books they read, the food they eat, the items they surround themselves with, etc.  Based on looks alone I can usually determine topics of discussion, commonly understood jokes, intelligence, dependability or things that give some indication of a potential, if not, type of connection.  I can also tell if a person is worth the investment of time by how many other people they spend their time with, who is important to that person, what kind of drama does that person have in his/her life, and allowing me to decide “Even though this person and I could be good friends, is now truly a good time for that.”

For now, there is nothing extremely special about body language, unless you have the confusing resting bitch face that actually translates into “I’m deep in thought” or “I AM actually relaxed,” but I think some people miss taking a moment to observe when they instead decide to jump to conclusions.  I like to sit back and watch a person for a while and not in the creepy stalker way but with the intent there is something more to this moment between two people than just silence.  I guess I try to “listen” to what people do not say which is more of how an introvert speaks.  We are like flowers…we do not want to draw attention to ourselves, we just simply want to be pretty.