This is so true, and I’m not even as introverted as most introverts. But there are just some totally acceptable human behaviors — like tanning — that I just don’t get.

Okay, so the tanning bit was random.

I was trying to say that there’s two sides to a fence really and what each looks like depends on where you’re looking from.

Or something.

AJ — That flippant line wasn’t meant as an insult, I promise. I just have a hard time imagining myself acting that way. To me, keeping things inside is how I control my situation in times of stress; I try to keep my emotions out of it, and not to give away anything I don’t mean to. I also just don’t tend to feel giant swings of emotion, so often, it’s not that I’m hiding anything; it’s simply that I’m on a pretty even keel. There are multiple ways of being either intro- or extro-, and they produce very different kinds of characters.

Speaking as a freakishly extroverted person, who’s wholly incapable of concealing any internal process, allow me to try and defend and explain my people.

Extroversion is no more false, or vapid, than introversion…it’s equally a concession to nature and environment. In my case its adaptive functioning: when I’m in a stressful social situation actively engaging and helping to shape the context of the interaction makes it more comfortable. And yes, I do try and put forth a socially desirable aspect of myself, but that affect (if stylized) is still a legitimate part of who I am.

From a character stand point ,there are three disparate types of extroverts (though there is often significant overlap between the categories):

Disingenuous manipulators: The kind Sam seems to be railing against.

Open, trusting, social beings: That thrives on the wild, unguarded, random interaction.

Converted Extroverts: That have learned to take the risk of exposure to better shape their social environment.

Lumping them all into the loud, superficial, archetype is no better than asserting all introverts are fearful, wounded, creatures retreating from life. Extroversion is no more a façade than relative passivity and silence: neither fully represents our inner being, or current thoughts…but that doesn’t make it false affect, just incomplete. You experience a person cumulatively, the pace at which they to choose reveal is independent of their substantive value.

This is a really good post. It’s a good reminder that, no matter what people say about our work, we can use it to get better.

Personally I find them loud and annoying and fake and hope they stay in the sales-team part of the office, and find characters like that in books shallow and equally annoying - and as unbelievable and fake as I feel (rightly or wrongly) people doing that “in real life” are. It seems two-dimensional because it’s all on the surface and feels like a facade.

On the other side of the fence, I’m sure they find me dour and miserable and think me incapable of smiling even when I am smiling, and would find the sort of characters I think of as having believability and depth as being stilted and lifeless. It’d seem two-dimensional to them because it seems flat and there’s no difference (to them) across the emotional range of the character. If a character isn’t wailing and tearing their hair out and isn’t utterly incapacitated, they can’t be feeling grief for example.

Of course a lot of extrovert behaviour is just another (noisier) way of being introverted and keeping people at a distance from the “real you”, which may or may not be easier to write and may or may not be interesting. (Nope, not hedging my bets at all. :))

I think you’re definitely onto a good point though, in film and TV I find it much more satisfying if the dialogue can, and is, substituted for by facial expression, to me it’s a sign if a good character if their response to a line can be conveyed by just a gesture or a look - if they can convey a nuance in that manner, they’ve succeded in making a believable character to me (and acted it well!). Other people however find it boring if there’s no talking with hammed up vocal emotions. Strange people.