Welles,
I read that last post that you linked and this one hit my situation right on:
14. Socializing can be draining, but an introvert can love spending time with an extrovert. Opposites do attract, and one fulfills the other. There are things an introvert cannot do without an extrovert, and vice versa.
My wife is almost the exact opposite of me in this respect. Over time she was able to draw me out a little bit but not much more than small gatherings. I have always considered myself a watcher. I like to watch for a long time before I interact with anyone in a situation if possible. This lets me get a feeling for their personality, their mood, their current topic and many other attributes of this person. Normally when I switch employers and am around a whole new set of people I dont interact with many for about 6 months or so. This gives me time to figure out who is real and who is full of BS.
Even here, I lurked this board for a long time, probably close to 6 months before I ever put up my first post. I was trying to get a feel about everyone's personality, well at least the people that were actively posting at the time. Though you can not get the tone deflection that proves a point from the text of a post, a lot of times you can tell from writing style at least generally what kind of person you are dealing with.
At the job I am currently at I was drawn towards a guy named Edward. He seemed to be all up front, have his ducks in a row and knew where he was going. He is a web programmer, a very good one at that but at the same time was studying to be a licensed pastor. We would talk about everything from politics, to religion to the current state of the country, to programming and so on, pretty much any topic we could come up with. He never shot down my views or opinions and I never did his, we just discussed why we each held onto the belief's that we did. At one point I cursed a lot on a daily basis and after he got deep into religion and studying to be a pastor I asked him one day "Does my language bother you now that you are on your religious path." His reply was verbatim "No it does not and I would be more upset if you changed just because of my choices, you are you and I am me and that is the way it will always be." That is a rare person to find especially in the US these days. I was truly saddened when he took another job, but it was a much better move for him and his family. He moved about 100 miles away but we still chat a couple times per week. He did end up finishing his pastoral training and is now a licensed pastor who shares sermons with the current pastor of the church.
The point of the above paragraph was that he was an extrovert and I lean towards introversion, or as I said above, I am a watcher..
--Bryan
)
as I prefer to watch, to listen to and to study those around me. I don't get that opportunity, social opportunities often these days. In fact, we were talking about this subject yesterday with the Mormon missionaries who are visiting us. (two lovely... well, 6 lovely young men as they are sort of interchangeable and we are not sure which two of the six will visit us every couple weeks. We laughed so much yesterday I couldn't help but smile at the "smile article" Welles posted today in misc... definitely did my heart good to have some belly laughs with some young men who remind me so much of my own boys.