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You Should Probably Be More Extroverted

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You Should Probably Be More Extroverted

Sasha Chapin
Jan 5, 2021
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You Should Probably Be More Extroverted

sashachapin.substack.com

I used to think that my primary talent was verbal ability. That was dumb and I was wrong. Though I’m a good writer, my primary talent is a tendency towards extroversion. Extroversion is an unreasonably effective life strategy, and I naturally adopt it to an unusual degree.

It should’ve been beaten out of me. In primary school, I was at the bottom of the social ladder—kids who licked trees and ate markers were extended a level of sympathy and understanding that I would've begged and cried for. One time, as a popular boy was passing my chair, I happened to inhale, and he shouted that I had tried to sniff his ass. Instantly, I became “the butt-sniffer,” and was greeted by loud sniffing noises in the hallways every single day. Though this example stands out for being comic, it basically reflects the status quo. For years, I cowered and cried, smelly and quivering, frequently making my way to whatever corner was available, wishing I could blend into the pools of dust I sat in.

Nevertheless, I remained irrepressibly chatty and outgoing when I happened to stumble upon someone who wasn’t immediately cruel to me. And the positive effects of this are hard to overestimate.

Note that I’m not talking about being extroverted skillfully. My social skills were awful, and they remained so for some time. It took me a long time to develop even a smidgen of charisma, and I have a touch of Asperger’s. Most humans, I annoyed. Also, during the interval between my first bipolar episode and my first competent psychiatrist, I was chatty and insane.

But a few people found my bumbling, overbearing quality charming. My interactions with those people, bit by bit, began shifting my life course from “depressed, undateable lonely nerd with no skills and no ambition” to “happily married published author, startup founder, and writing coach.”

There was, however, one secret to my strategy: it wasn’t a strategy. I had no goals other than making friends and seeking attention. When I thought someone was interesting, I talked to them more. It didn’t matter whether they were a litigator, drug dealer, video store clerk, homeless person, or professor. Although I occasionally approached someone with an end in mind, it didn’t generally go well, so I mostly stopped doing it.

And it turns out that people present you with opportunities even when that’s not what you’re looking for. “Opportunity” here can mean a career choice you wouldn’t have considered, an idea that could alter your behavior, or even just the jolt of energy that the right kind of conversation generates. Many of these opportunities will be things you didn’t know you wanted. This is another reason to approach conversations without specific intent. Bringing an agenda to a conversation restricts the horizon of possibility to your preconceptions. This is often detrimental. People are a lot more surprising (and they tend to like you more) when you’re not after their utility.

But there’s a lot of utility to that. So there’s a “try not to try” thing going on here. If you talk to people because you just enjoy their company, without any focus on getting things, you end up getting things, as well as making friends. Thus, while I’m writing this to advocate that you become more extroverted, I’d only advocate it on the condition that you start a lot of conversations without having any particular outcome in mind. Don’t “network.” Just shoot the shit with people you like more often, try to have genuine curiosity about their lives, and seek out people you might like more aggressively.

Here are just a few examples of what happens when you talk to people simply because it’s an enjoyable thing to do.

When I was 25, I invited myself for a drink with a restaurateur who complimented an article I’d written about a local chef, and she ended up introducing me to my agent, who got me a publishing contract.

When I was 16, I went to Rocky Horror Picture Show, vigorously introduced myself to a bunch of people, and then transferred to the alternative high school they were attending, where I first found some modicum of social happiness.

When I was 32, I met up with a Twitter acquaintance because I liked her internet energy, and she informed me that I was undercharging for my coaching services, and this brief moment of a lovely conversation made me thousands of dollars.

When I was 19, I talked to a friend’s roommate, and he didn’t like me, but he needed a warm body to staff his restaurant after somebody quit, and thus I entered the fine dining industry and doubled my income.

Last month, I struck up a conversation with my neighbor, and it turns out that he’s a talented musician who was in need of a lyric writer, so I just co-wrote a few songs so amazingly catchy that you may be tired of hearing them on Spotify by Christmas.

This is maybe 1/10th of the set of notably positive outcomes of my extroversion. They’re not crazy outliers.

But, of course, most conversations don’t lead to anything like this. Most of the time it’s just pleasant. There’s no real way to game it, other than to hang out with the most interesting people you can find. Also, many people will ignore you, and some people won’t like you. There are plenty of people who don’t like me—some from my recent past, and many many more from my distant past, when I wasn’t a particularly good person. It doesn’t matter. Nobody can arrest you for being annoying. There are certainly people who mutter darkly when my name enters their attention. I wish them all the best.

My extroversion has also benefited others. Often, my somewhat shy wife puts me on extroversion duty—I introduce her to people, or spur her to make connections. Friends of mine have gotten jobs, relationships, and revelations because I’ve thrown them at other friends. Being extroverted can improve the freedom of association of everyone in your proximity, which can have amazingly multiplicative benefits.

It’s true that extroversion isn’t sufficient to produce the life changes I’ve spoken of. You have to work at some point. But probably not as much as you’d think. Moreover, a tiny number of people are so settled in their lives and priorities that there’s probably little to be gained from introducing new people at random. But you are probably not one of those people. I’m confident that almost everyone reading this should be more extroverted, including me.

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You Should Probably Be More Extroverted

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14 Comments
Dyske
Writes Philosophical Plate
May 7, 2021Liked by Sasha Chapin

I'm 53, so I'm going to take a pedantic tone here:

Yes, it's true; if you don't meet people, nothing much happens in life. But there is no need to be an extrovert to be social. Introverts have their own ways of being social. The problem with trying to be an extrovert is that you end up adopting their styles, which is not suited for you. Typically, this leads to even more people who are annoyed by you because people can sense that you are trying to be extroverted with your nervous energy, like fake laughter.

Introverts just have to figure out a way to avoid sensory data overload. In most cases, you should focus on quality, not quantity. The advantage of extroverts is that they can navigate a large party without being overwhelmed (because their senses are dull), which helps them pick out the best people to talk to and get to know. However, introverts now have the Internet for that purpose, and in fact, it's a lot more efficient than finding interesting people at a large party.

So, just use the Internet to filter and target, and then meet them one on one or in a small group. There is no need to be an extrovert.

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Tom VanAntwerp
Writes Here's Some Stuff
Jul 12, 2021Liked by Sasha Chapin

Yeah, I'll get right on being more extroverted just as soon as I'm done being taller and more handsome. Oh, and I've been thinking about changing my sexual orientation too—might try that first.

Seriously, do you think it's not obvious to introverts that extroversion is very beneficial? It's *extremely* obvious. I can and do "turn on" the extroversion sometimes because I know how useful it is. But I'll always be drained by it. Always. Everyone in my family is this way. We are just not wired to be extroverted. Rather, we do our best in a society that expects it anyway.

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