How to be happy, whether you’re a talkative introvert or quiet extrovert
Understanding personality types helps you understand yourself and others - especially in a marriage.
Well here I am, the Cockroach Woman – the talkative introvert.
Impossible.
Margaret Chan? That woman who out-talks everyone in a group, who dresses so flamboyantly, who hammed it up on TV as the matriarch in Masters Of The Sea to deliver that infamous line, “I will crush you like a cockroach”... an introvert?
Well, the one person who truly knows me, my husband of 50 years, calls me a social recluse.
Hubby, on the other hand, is my polar opposite – a quiet extrovert.
Most people think of introverts as shy, and extroverts as talkative. That is often true, but it is not that introverts do not like to talk. In a one-to-one conversation with a close friend, the introvert can talk, and listen, for hours.
Extroverts enjoy the company of others. Nothing can be more exciting for the extrovert than to be the centre of attention. But knowing how important an audience is, can make an extrovert self-conscious and so shy and quiet.
I investigated my personality type as part of self-help therapy. The depression I experienced with retirement had to be understood in order to be managed. Understanding myself allowed me to embrace and enjoy retirement and banish the dark clouds of purposelessness that made me miserable.
Knowing I am introverted, I now allow myself to revel in days spent alone in my room. I am not purposeless but doing what I want and emotionally need.
My research into personality types has also helped me better understand others, and I can truly say it forms the foundation of the loving and contented twilight years that my husband and I share.
The pairing of likes instinctively propose shared enjoyment. But Western psychology affirms that the pairing of opposite personalities can prove harmonious, and the Chinese ancients teach that yin will always join yang to achieve taiqi, the ultimate essence.
Learning to agree to disagree
Knowing our personality types allows us to understand, and so manage, little annoyances that, cumulatively, can make a relationship untenable. For example, hubby forgives me for always being slow and tardy, and I forgive him his impatience.
Family members will testify that through the decades of living with each other, hubby and I can disagree, but we never yell at each other.
A truly yin-yang situation between my quiet extrovert husband and myself as a talkative introvert is when he asks me a question. Inevitably, I go into a long spiel, and he will impatiently change the subject. Beyond a moment of pique which the talkative me will share right away – “I am irritated” – we shrug off the moment. Neither of us is hurt. We understand and accept that we are different.
Introversion and extroversion are not imagined natures. Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, was the first scientist to propose the personality traits of introversion/extroversion. These are regarded as the most strongly hereditary of personality traits.
Sure, environmental factors also mould personalities, but biology shapes our response too. Extroverts are said to have a more developed sympathetic nervous system so that they are alert to “fight-or-flight” situations. The introvert’s nervous system requires them to “rest-and-digest”; this is why I am slow to react, but once I bite down on a task, I hang on doggedly like a pit bull.
The need for ‘alone’ time
Of all the findings that helped me most with self-care was the understanding that as an introvert, I need alone time to relieve stress and recharge.
I am very uncomfortable at a party where I am expected to circulate and make small talk, such as at large Chinese New Year family reunions and office parties.
I get overstimulated in noisy environments. My family knows that I feel physical distress when there is noise, so the radio is never on when I am in the car. As much as I love my grandchildren, their loud play or blasts from the TV are hard to bear.
Of course, I have learnt to cope, but then I need alone time, perhaps the whole of the next day, to de-stress.
How, then, can the introverted me be a professional actor? Acting is not simply performing for an audience. Acting is going deep into ourselves to understand how and why people behave in given circumstances. On stage, we immerse ourselves in the characters. But offstage, most actors, especially comedians whose jobs demand the high energy needed to get people to laugh, are usually very quiet.
If you meet celebrities in their own time and they come across as aloof, remember they are not necessarily snobs, but more likely introverts coping with attention and small talk – things that upset and tire introverts.
This is not to say extroverts do not need alone time. They do, but long stretches of this make them weary. They need the stimulation of being up and about in society.
My husband only wants to watch what I call bing-a-bang shows: Action movies, cops-and-robbers, fighting scenes. I find TV shows generally shallow and annoying. I have never bothered to watch my own performances on TV or film. I only watch TV with the husband and always just for his companionship.
I survive TV shows by analysing out loud character, stage directions, camera framing, make-up, costuming, stage action. I can chatter non-stop, so that once hubby snapped: “Why can’t you just watch the show?”; I reminded him of my nature, and the moment was forgiven and forgotten. Hubby gallivants every day. Lunch with friends, golf games thrice a week, even window-shopping.
Every day, I peep into my calendar and feel soooo happy when there are NO APPOINTMENTS.
My contentment comes from studying languages or researching, thinking deeply and writing. Seventeen-hour stretches working on research and writing make for bliss.
Hubby worries (rightly) for my health and asks me to at least get up and move every half hour. He is right, I know, but I get so deep into concentration, I never move unless I absolutely must go to the toilet.
He enjoys the excitement of searching for and buying “nice things”, like a sports car, or tens of watches. I only bother with functional purchases.
Knowing that I am an introvert has helped me forgive myself for not socialising enough and refusing appointments even with friends and relatives. I absolutely love intimate time with family but only with my children, their spouses and the grandchildren. At monthly dinners confined to hubby’s immediate family, we eat and talk in loud voices for hours. I have so much fun because I am soooo talkative.
- Dr Margaret Chan is a retired Singapore Management University associate professor. She is also a stage, TV and film actress known for her roles in Emily Of Emerald Hill, Masters Of The Sea, The Golden Pillow and Army Daze.
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