If you’ve been pretending to be an extrovert, it’s understandable. The world which we’ve grown up in, and in which we live, can make it hard to believe that you can be successful as an introvert.
But it may be completely outside your awareness that you are overriding your natural quieter sensibilities. This can typically start at a young age because way back you felt you needed to show up in a more extroverted manner in order to be seen in the world.
Over time, the need to masquerade becomes a permanent fixture and gets tangled up with success, self-worth and confidence, creating issues.
When ‘quiet’ doesn’t feel like a compliment
Have you ever been described as quiet and felt yourself kind of flinching? Perhaps shame or awkwardness came up. Or maybe even sheer frustration because the image you’ve been trying to portray is so much more confident than that.
The problem is words like quiet, reserved and softly spoken have negative connotations in our culture. All of those illustrations of the quiet mouse create an image of someone meek and overlooked. A quick look at quiet in the thesaurus throws up silent with alternatives such as unobtrusive and inaudible. Not descriptors you want to be adding to your social media bio anytime soon!
The ‘shoulds’ that show you’re masquerading
Let’s begin by recognising that you might not be consciously aware that you’re pretending to be an extrovert. But if took a step back and considered areas where you feel some discomfort, the word ‘should’ might start popping up.
Do you feel you should be out and about rather than at home? It might be that you feel you should keep up your social life and have a sense of FOMO when you’re not part of group gatherings. Or that you feel you should be less tired after social events.
At work, do you feel you haven’t fulfilled your potential and should be doing more? That you should have a bigger job, say more in meetings or take more credit for your efforts, instead of your bullish colleague doing so.
These can all be signs that you’re overriding your more reserved nature. That you might be striving to be outgoing and successful in an extroverted way, but that it’s taking up a lot of effort.
The cost of overriding your quieter self
The impact of spending years trying to override the quieter part of yourself can show up in physical, mental and practical ways.
I’ve written about burnout and the exhaustion that comes with it, and this is a good example. I’ve seen how burnout often happens to a more introverted person who is finding it difficult to remain themselves at work when the organisation becomes more dominated by stronger, louder personalities.
As a quieter person, there’s often the reality that you’re the calm, capable one and so your needs get overlooked. This can show up in all aspects of life. But, whilst you’re not being any bother, it can mean you don’t get the support you deserve. And, of course, you don’t want to ask for it either because that might put a spotlight on the fact that there’s a weakness you imagine a more outgoing person wouldn’t have.
Overriding your true nature can also bring up this sense that you’re not living the life you want to live. Despite all your best intentions, you may be really aware that you have not created a life that feels successful.
In my counselling practice, I see how this results in a client feeling that they’re not where they need to be but at a loss to know what they need to do to change. This discomfort can be all the more frustrating because they have been striving so hard for so long to achieve goals they thought were right for them.
Why the pull of extroversion is hard to resist
Even when you begin to consider if pretending to be an extrovert is an issue, the allure can remain strong.
After reviewing your relationship with extroversion, your gut instinct might tell you that it’s not your natural state. But sitting with the discomfort of this can be difficult.
It may be you have coping mechanisms which have masked the discomfort of being an introvert for a long time. This might include a tendency to avoid having a lot of time to think. Or perhaps a need to numb feelings with food or drink, or just your relentless self-criticism.
If you look around, there aren’t very many people showing us that being quiet is cool. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The merits of being outgoing, social and ‘shouty’ are more lauded as the way to get ahead than ever before.
So, it’s understandable that despite knowing that being quieter suits you better, it can take time and strength to become comfortable with this fact.
Letting the extrovert mask slip
What I’ve come to value in recent years is that when you realise the quieter part of you is the more real and authentic one, it can bring with it a sense of relief. Quite simply, you can find it’s much more suited to your nervous system than pretending to be an extrovert.
It may be counterintuitive initially, but as you learn more about your quiet and calm self, you might discover you have more strengths than you ever realised as a masquerading extrovert. That’s because you are acknowledging who you really are rather than battling to be someone else all of the time.
The process of recognising your need to be extroverted can take time. A starting point might be to recognise when you criticise your innate need to withdraw. Or you might choose to do quieter activities more regularly and check in with how that feels.
Being a quiet person is not something to overcome. It may be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.
