Do extroverts exist?

Recently, I've been spending some time with various types of people. Really listening to how other people feel about social situations has made me reconsider how I think about extroversion and social intelligence.

Situational extroversion

I think many know the feeling; we meet someone we don't know very well, are naturally driven towards socializing with them, and after the obligatory "how are you" and "nice weather, eh?" you find yourself at a barrier of silence. Neither party has something to directly contribute to the conversation, and an awkward moment emerges where both ends of the now-stalled conversation blankly stare off in the distance or start fiddling with whatever they happen to have in their hands.

This situation not only happens with one-on-one interactions, but also with groups. We behave differently based on the social situation. This became evident in a very specific example I went through the other day, and this specific occasion was interesting because halfway through the experience, the social situation changed. Interestingly, so did the mental posture of the person I was talking to, and rather unexpectedly so.

The instance went as follows. I was chatting with a rather extroverted person. They are (especially compared to me) extremely outgoing and full of social energy. Even though I am a little socially underdeveloped, our semi-private conversation was flowing very well, with none of the aforementioned silences. I also would say it was a decently well-balanced conversation; both me and them contributed our fair share to the dialog. It made me feel rather at ease, since I felt there was little need for social anxiety related to unfortunate misunderstandings or conversations uncomfortably halting. Then, two new participants arrived, and joined our company. Interestingly, this decreased the stability of the situation, and suddenly the awkward pauses mentioned above started popping up here and there. I later realized the curiousness of the contrast between before and after doubling the group size, especially given the shared factors across the two sides of the comparison.

Of course, I don't have answers. But I do have guesses. And I think there are two main reasons that things happened the way they did.

• Firstly, my natural behavior changes drastically depending on whether I am in a group setting (i.e. two or more others) or am having a dialog. I am much better at positioning myself socially in an environment where there is only one other participant. It allows me to focus on the right things, and I am incentivized to balance the interaction equally between me and my conversational partner. When in a group setting, I tend to become more of a flower on the wall; I prefer to listen to other people's conversations, and due to a general lack of knowledge on the things people generally talk about, I often feel I have little to nothing to contribute to the topics that arise.
• Personalities can fit together well, even if they are completely different. The first one-on-one conversation was smooth because we responded well to each other and that kept the chat stable and enjoyable. When the other two joined, this became a bit of a mismatch; suddenly there were multiple different wavelengths going on at the same time and silences started occurring.

Social discomfort

Extroverts experience social discomfort just like introverted people do. Giving a presentation in front of a large group is stressful and difficult even if you have high social intelligence in group settings. I think this is moreso the result of a lack of experience and confidence rather than a built-in predetermined setting you get when you are born. When I approach a math problem, I have confidence in my ability to solve it even if it throws a curveball along the way. I think this is the way "extroverts" experience social situations, and conversely, the less mathematically inclined experience approaching a math problem like I do social situations. While I do believe that the ability to be confident in social situations can be learned, much like solving math exercises, perhaps it is a more natural path to walk for some than it is for others.

The definition for extroversion that would follow from this thought process is that extroversion is the natural "talent" for learning different social situations, whereas introverts have to put in more effort to gain that confidence. This seems to oppose the idea that "extroverts gain energy from social situations" because actually the energy gain or loss is not relevent to one's extro- or introversion. Introverts might have (painstakingly) learned to handle social situations well, and they too may be energized from it. The truth in the statement exists only because extroverts have to spend less energy on attempting to fit in well and therefore have more energy left to enjoy the interaction, whereas perhaps learning introverts are incentivized to spend energy on analyzing body language, phrasing, etcetera, in order to gain more social confidence.

Just do it

For me personally, this realization has made attaining social confidence seem more attainable. It has become less about trying to navigate and survive interactions with extroverts but more about learning to get on their level. How much this will reduce social anxiety remains an open question, but at least there is a perceptive benefit to this realization.