61 Reflection Chapter: Andyvert

When I went out for dinner last Friday with Oli, the subject of introverts versus extroverts came up. I told him about a conversation I had a month ago, when someone told me, “Andy, you think you are an introvert, but you are actually an extrovert.”

When I told Oli that, he said, “Well, yeah, you have a need to see people, so it makes sense that she told you that. I also think you are more extroverted than you think.”

Then I started thinking and replied, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe I am an ambivert.”

Oli jokingly replied, “Nope, you are Andyvert,” which made me laugh. The conversation started to get lighter, and we started to joke around.

For days after this conversation, I kept thinking about it. Not that it matters what I am.

But it also does.

If people think I am an extrovert, does that mean I have the wrong idea of who I am altogether? And if I am wrong about that, what else could I possibly be wrong about myself?

This made me think a lot deeper.

Could people be wrong about themselves? About who they are and who they believe themselves to be?

This subject closely resembles a subject I already talked about, yet it isn’t the same.

Somehow, I am starting to believe it.

I have always had an easy time talking to people, and even now, sometimes I grab someone by the hand and tell them, “Hey, come with me. Someone wants to dance but is too shy to ask.”

Because I know how it feels not getting asked or being too stressed to ask someone else.

Is this the behavior of someone who is introverted?

I don’t think it is.

Yet this is something I do often, and I only recently started paying attention to my own behavior. In hindsight, it made me wonder if maybe I just feel insecure often, and that is what makes me believe I am an introvert.

Maybe I have confused insecurity with introversion.

How strange is this, and how much does self-belief actually matter in the growth of a person?

So, I wonder, do other people believe they are a certain way but actually behave differently? And how does this influence a person’s life?

Do people ever notice the contradiction themselves, or do they need someone else to point it out? Was I just lucky enough to have people who tell me the truth, or at least give me their honest opinion of me?

The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if Oli might be right.

Maybe I am Andyvert.

After all this talk and reflection, I don’t know what I am anymore.

I always saw myself as an introvert, but I won’t deny that I display a lot of extroverted traits. And now that I think about it, did dancing and having more social contact just reveal a part of me I wasn’t aware existed at all?

Since I started dancing, several people have told me that I connect people with each other. Whatever that means, maybe it is another behavior I need to pay attention to if I want to know myself even better.

Then I remembered something Ines told me when we had dinner a few weeks ago. She told me that, as a child, I was always the loud one, talking to everyone, being social, and being nice to everyone.

That surprised me because I always remembered myself as the quiet and shy one.

Maybe I was both.

Or maybe the person I remember being and the person other people experienced were never completely the same. It makes me wonder how much of my identity is based on who I really was and how much of it is based on the story I kept telling myself about who I was.

And as for the reason behind the behavior I mentioned, it is simple.

I like seeing people happy, and sometimes I wish someone would grab me and say, “Here, go dance with this person. She is waiting for a dance partner.”

I also don’t do this with everyone. I am mostly pushed by my own instinct, and it is hard to explain. I can often tell when someone wants to dance but is too shy or doesn’t know who to ask.

When they end up dancing, I look at them and think, “Nice, they hit it off.”

Maybe that is why I do it.

But yes, I agree that this is not the behavior of an introvert.

However, more often than not, I like to be alone. I do things alone.

So, am I an extrovert, an introvert, an ambivert, or Andyvert?

I always strongly believed I was introverted.

But let’s say I am wrong about this and that the world is black and white. What if I am really an extrovert?

Then what other self-belief could be wrong and actually be holding me back?

That is the question that stayed with me.

And in the greater scheme of things, what self-belief is actually holding you back?

What could you be wrong about and not realize yet?

I can’t believe how gray my beard has gotten. i am becoming an old man.