What interested me most when I finally read the book recently was not the details of his clandestine adulteries so much as the nuances of privacy in the life of this world-famous British writer.

David Cornwell – Le Carré’s real-life name – was an introvert who had the ability to be exceptionally charming in company. This combination of traits made him very well suited for the unspecified work he did for British Intelligence prior to his breakout success as an author. After all, the spy business runs on being able to convincingly play various deceptive roles while keeping certain things to oneself.

Like many writers, Cornwell cherished being left alone and working alone. In a 2017 “60 Minutes” TV segment on him, he told his interviewer that he loved living by the sea in Cornwall, about as far west from London as possible, because his neighbors “don’t give a damn for celebrity, if they even know what I do,” he said. “Not a head turns in the street when I walk by, and that’s enormously soothing.” In the barnlike studio on his property, he would spend mornings alone with his characters and his words. He walked in the afternoons and edited his work in the evening. And when traveling to soak in foreign atmosphere for his books, he deliberately did so alone, maximizing his opportunities to observe.

Yet when he hung out with friends, he became a “social dazzler,” in the words of a writer who profiled him for Vanity Fair in 1989. A gifted mimic, he would spin stories that kept a roomful of dinner companions rapt. That ability to keep others enthralled probably went back to his unusual childhood, as the son of a roguish con man whose escapades had the family living like royalty one week and like paupers the next. As a boy, David Cornwell learned to cover for his father with fluent lies, plausible excuses and clever compartmentalization.

His exuberant social persona coexisted with barriers protective of his inner self. As reported in Sisman’s book, here is how that worked for Nicholas Shakespeare, a friend who was a generation younger than Cornwell:

“Though the two men became very close, and remained friendly until the end, David was not someone whom he felt able to ring up and have a chat with. While very open with him when they were together, David was at the same time immensely private, and guarded his privacy to a ruthless degree, frequently changing his telephone numbers to exclude unwanted callers.”

What had me scratching my head after finishing Sisman’s exposé, published after Cornwell’s death, was the earlier tug-of-war collusion between Cornwell and Sisman, which proceeded as follows. Cornwell agreed in writing to cooperate with Sisman on a biography that the latter researched and then published in 2015. In the course of his research, Sisman inadvertently learned about several of the affairs that Cornwell had conducted in secret. When Sisman pursued the clues that had turned up, the women involved initially talked, then later clammed up, apparently on orders from Cornwell. He thus left such stories out of his Le Carré biography. After the deaths of both Cornwell and his loyal wife Jane, Sisman corrected the record by chronicling a number of Cornwell’s infatuations, ruses and betrayals in a second book.

What puzzles me is, first, why Cornwell agreed to cooperate with the biography at all, knowing that it would probably be published during his lifetime. Perhaps Cornwell believed he was so skilled at deception and concealment that he was confident he could control his biographer’s narrative. And second, why did Sisman agree to publish the original biography with such significant omissions that he felt duty-bound to supplement it with The Secret Life of John Le Carré later? I did not find Sisman’s justifications in the corrective volume convincing.

Aside from those psychological and ethical issues, I came away from this topic appreciating another variation on the theme of how introverts manage to be in the public eye while remaining fundamentally private. David Cornwell rationed his participation in interviews, but he performed amiably and persuasively when they took place. Wary about being perceived as part of the Establishment or as a participant in literary rankings, he turned down a knightship and refused to let his books be submitted for the prestigious Booker Prize. He broadcast the image of a cozy and faithful marriage while his loyal, hoodwinked wife not only typed up every line he wrote but also shielded him from interruptions while he connived to meet mistress after mistress. David Cornwell made partial peace with being a public figure, but secretly and privately he lived his life his own way.

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Without such preparation, I would umm and uhh, failing to recall what I knew and feeling inadequate rather than competent and in charge. There are reasons for that. Introverts generally don’t perform well or feel at ease in situations where we are totally on the spot. We’re the tongue-tied ones who think up the perfect verbal comeback hours later, not in the moment. Yet by rehearsing or by assembling ingredients for a performance, we can shine. Here’s why.

1. Internal-first preference. When allowed to choose, introverts would rather mull something over at length and speak only after working it out. Extroverts thrive on thinking out loud, exploring ideas messily in ways they might not later want to stand behind. For extroverts, the interaction is the crucial part, while introverts care about coming up with what we really, firmly think. That takes longer.

2. Spontaneity stressors. Situations like an on-air interview or a live interactive talk need to proceed smoothly, with few pauses and no silences. When unrehearsed and completely spontaneous, this is not a rhythm that suits introverts. The same goes for party chatter, which is supposed to be fast, bright and unstopping. Insincerity there is perfectly OK, which introverts tend not to like. The presence of an audience who might be judging the speakers adds a further layer of pressure for introverts.

3. Esteem for excellence. Introverts value clear expression and in-depth meaning. Extroverts might put more emphasis on someone’s overall impact, overlooking sloppy thinking or superficial comments. For an extrovert, keeping the energy going might count as a valued element of excellence, whereas for the introvert, the content ideally should be coherent and worthy of being cast in stone. I remember one National Speakers Association presentation I attended, where almost everyone in the audience rose applauding enthusiastically and I caught the eye of someone else still sitting, like me. “What did he say?” I asked that person, probably also an introvert. She shrugged. “No idea.”

Preparing or practicing can help introverts without leading to a performance that sounds pre-packaged or scripted. Think of it as a kind of semi-spontaneity, where half of the contents are collected just off-stage, ready to be placed into a flow in the moment.

If you’re an introvert and have the courage to improvise on stage in front of an audience, I salute you. I’ve taken a comedy-style improv workshop and improvised musically with a friend, but I would put those activities into the category of, in the words of Outside Magazine editor Kevin Sintumuang, what “confuses my algorithm.”

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“I have been asked throughout my life: What are you hiding? I don’t know what I am hiding, and the more I try to deny it, the less trustworthy people find me. My mother used to comment on my stealthiness to our guests. A woman in charge of admission at the public bathhouse often confronted me, asking what I was hiding from her. Nothing, I said, and she would say she could tell from my eyes that I was lying.

“Reticence is a natural state. It is not hiding. People don’t show themselves equally and easily to all.” —Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

As Li attests, reticence is not a deliberate act or strategy but a natural expression of a reserved temperament. Yet somehow it triggers suspicions, anger, hostility and accusations in some others. Why? Why do some people react as if they’ve been insulted, tricked or threatened by someone like Yiyun Li who is simply being herself? “Why are you so quiet?” is one way this reaction commonly gets expressed, when the tone is not curious but resentful or aggrieved. From the perspective of the reticent person, taking offense that way can seem unhinged. After all, how does my personality harm you?

Reasons for taking offense at reticence

Social psychologists cite three factors driving this dynamic.

1. The norm of reciprocity. When someone offers information, a gesture or an emotion, we are supposed to respond in kind. That might be a hello, a welcoming smile or observations about the setting. For an introvert who is slow to warm up to people and who dislikes fakery or small talk, it may be hard to do what’s expected. An exchange that should have proceeded routinely then gets disrupted, and the first person feels rejected, ignored or snubbed.

2. Uncertainty and projection. When a reticent person doesn’t respond according to social protocol, the situation becomes ambiguous and fraught. Oh, they don’t like me? Oh, they’re being snobbish? Oh, who do they think they are? Speculations rush into that void. The more expressive person projects, filling in the empty space with their own fears and preoccupations. In Yiyun Li’s example, the bathhouse attendant read into Li’s posture, facial expression and behavior things that Li never intended.

3. Uncompliant = not controlled. Someone who doesn’t respond as expected can come across as resistant, defiant and a threat to authority. They are not playing the social game properly. A higher-status person, feeling indignant or angry at perceived insubordination, may try to force the restrained other into line.

We need to be suspicious of certain adjectives that get applied to introverts who simply don’t respond as extroverts expect: sullen; arrogant; unreadable; cold; stubborn; self-centered; disengaged. Perhaps they are just processing the scene around them internally or carrying out their preference for quiet. Intentionally or not, a silent, taciturn or reserved person may also be wielding a quiet form of dignity and power.

If this reaction comes your way

If someone takes offense at your reticence, remember first that you haven’t necessarily done anything wrong. Someone got triggered by the way you are, that’s all.

Develop a comeback if you feel you need to de-escalate the conflict. Subtly remind the other person, calmly or with a smile, that you haven’t meant to provoke them. You merely have a personality that they find uncomfortable.

“Still waters run deep, my grandfather always said,” you might try. Or “Quality, not quantity, is my watchword.” Or “When I have something to say, you’ll be the first to know.”

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In other words, if you asked the average person to point out either a stranger or a known colleague who is confident, they’re highly likely to indicate someone who acts like an extrovert. This follows from scads of stereotypes that pile praise upon extroverts, including these conventional indicators of confidence:

• Verbal fluency. Someone whose words flow easily, up to and including the master improvisational bullshitter, is taken as more confident than someone whose words come out with pauses to express ideas with precision and thoughtfulness.

• Initiative. A confident person is supposedly the one who steps forward, volunteers and leads others – not someone who stays studiously silent.

• Expressiveness. Animated gestures, words and actions that strongly convey emotions are another element in this cluster of confidence markers. Restrained or reserved people don’t fit this image.

• Comfort with attention. According to common pigeonholes, confident people take up lots of space, enjoy being seen or heard and become positively memorable without much effort. Less confident people can be found in the back of the room, removing themselves from any spotlight.

These conventional benchmarks for confidence overlook or misinterpret our quirks and strengths as introverts. Most importantly, confidence can be an internal characteristic that comes out only in subtle ways. For instance, think of an environmental expert who stands up at the end of a public meeting dominated by emotional testimony that’s in favor of a new city ordinance. So quietly that she has to be asked to repeat herself closer to the mic, she explains that the measure failed when tried in Houston, Nashville and St. Cloud, Minnesota. She knows her stuff, and listeners can tell that she does. She has rock-solid inner confidence even though she may not be an impressive speaker, charismatic, assertive, a born leader or comfortable in the large group.

Introverts’ confidence can also show up in personal decisions they make that go against the crowd, without fuss or fanfare. I am thinking of the people who had the clear moral compass to refuse invitations to hobnob with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his crowd, when so many other movers and shakers fell over themselves to join his bacchanalian games. Or consider the successful person who chooses not to carry a smartphone, believing he can more easily reach his goals without constant connectivity and interruptions.

Confidence can also involve maintaining boundaries, tolerating anonymity, remaining calm during conflicts or persevering in private ways. Picture someone who knows how not to be fooled but doesn’t go out of their way to flaunt their knowledge in public. The introvert who doesn’t perform wouldn’t be picked out of a crowd as the confident one – and is happy to let showboaters bask in the attention.

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It would have been nice to have an older sibling or friend to give me a heads up about how things were going to change as I grew and as my body changed. How people, especially girls, were going to change and evolve too, why they became bitches. But I didn’t. At one point (either middle school or high school) my mom handed me The Life Cycle Library for Young People. Published in 1969, I can only assume it was given to her by her parents and was also the extent of her sex education. It did not quite jibe with what I was seeing every morning before school on MTV and VH1. It did little to explain any of the habits of dating for a young girl in the late 90’s-early 00’s. I did wind up making new friends, but this trend of me finding out what was cool or how things worked after everyone else seemed to already just know continued, and it continued to be mortifying.

But when you are bullied, when your closest friends suddenly cast you out and always seem to be in possession of knowledge that you just can’t seem to figure out, when your peers all seem to surpass your understanding of the world and you are constantly that lost puppy playing catch up to understand what the hell you are supposed to say, or do, or wear (and constantly doing all of those things “wrong”), you are bound to reach a breaking point. Mine came somewhere in junior or senior year of high school. This is when I discovered Teen Vogue and a world outside of Summerville, South Carolina. Because I spent so much time in my room, alone, and so much time reading, both books and magazines, I began to read two very different things with lessons that forever changed my approach to myself and my life.

In Teen Vogue I learned that all of the clothes that the girls in my town wore were wrong (sorry, girls, but they were) and on me, they looked especially wrong or I just didn’t do them right. Pearls, polo shirts, anything khaki, anything Vera Bradly or Lily Pulitzer, Sperry’s boat shoes…please, God, just burn it all. But Boho Chic with a hint of the now grown up and in college Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen attitude, yes please. A little Sex and the City? OK! Did I wear stilettos to high school? Sure did. Did I get made fun of still? Sure did. But this time, I was proud of it because I finally knew why I was getting made fun of. It wasn’t because I was behind and didn’t know what the latest trends were, it was because I was ahead. I was wearing what the fashion students in New York City were wearing, but go on, enjoy your overpriced Lacoste shirts.

I also read On the Road by Jack Kerouac. That book did something for me that was so necessary and life changing that I will forever stand behind its value in the world. It taught me that there were people in the world who value intelligence. Whose entire existence can rely on the need to sit and talk. About life, about books, about music and emotions. Not sports. Not Jesus. But everything else under the sun that is important to the rest of humanity. Traveling and meeting people who live differently than you do can be educational and can shift your perspective on the world, and most importantly, shifting your perspective on the world is the only way that you can ever live in the world. The only way that you can coexist with people who do not fit into the little boxes that you are used to. Those people are beautiful and wonderful and valuable, just like you. You, who also do not have to fit into those little boxes.

This was also when the movie Rent came out, and that was also monumentally life changing. Rent told me where to go to find my people. Teen Vogue said New York City for fashion and career. Rent said New York City to meet artists and musicians and the weirdos that Kerouac was talking about when he wrote, “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

I moved to New York at 19 and found my people — the ones who wanted to sit and talk about everything that mattered, who didn’t care what you were wearing as long as you had something to say. But here’s the thing I didn’t figure out until much later: it wasn’t that I had finally found the right group to belong to. The weirdos in New York didn’t accept me despite my differences — they made the whole concept of fitting in completely beside the point. Nobody was keeping score. Nobody cared. There were no rules to decode because nobody was interested in rules. There was just conversation, and books, and people who thought deeply about things, and it turned out I had been training for exactly this my entire life without knowing it.

The girl on the library couch wasn’t broken. She wasn’t behind. She wasn’t doing it wrong. She was building something — quietly, alone, one book at a time — and all those years of not fitting in, of retreating into her own head, of being the sad lost puppy following people who didn’t want her? That wasn’t falling behind. That was the head start.

Margaret Cioffe spent her childhood on library couches and her twenties in Brooklyn. She’s been sober for five years and is writing a recovery memoir called Everything is Gray — because black and white thinking never did her any favors. She writes at margaretcioffe.substack.com.

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However, in Andrew Miller’s 2015 novel, The Crossing, almost no one knows what to make of Maud Stamp, an imperturbable woman who is a brilliant, reserved scientist and an avid sailor. Others in her world project many kinds of meanings onto her, viewing her as either alluring or suspicious and disquieting. The novel doesn’t make this point, but I believe it’s clear that they would not regard her this way had she been a man.

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I’m revisiting past musings after encountering research reports that set out a fascinating scientific context for the contrasting well-being of introverts and extroverts. Here are four sets of findings that, taken together, explain why the question of who is happier, extroverts or introverts, really does turn on how one defines happiness or well-being.

1. Introverts prefer low-arousal states. Researchers have found that for extroverts, the picture of happiness as someone being exuberantly excited or bursting with delight is highly motivating, whereas for introverts, the ideal emotional state tends to be calm, peaceful and relaxed.

2. Solitude is one key tool introverts use to regulate their level of arousal. Whereas extroverts seek out energetic social interaction as a way to reach their ideal emotional “up,” introverts create opportunities for solitude in order to return to the more serene state we prefer. For introverts, stillness is regenerative.

3. Introverts often pursue meaning rather than high-arousal states. According to Jungian commentator Elaine Schallock, introverts choose their values and life direction using an “inside out” approach. We create or find a compass within ourselves, placing a high importance on reaching satisfaction according to our self-definition. This matters much more to us than transitory emotional excitement.

4. Much scientific research on happiness uses extroverts’ definition of happiness. Psychologists have tended to ignore the appeal of tranquil contentment as a motivator and instead measure contentment by a person’s degree of high-arousal elation or joy. Perhaps they take it as self-evident that anyone would prefer to experience highly pleasurable states. On the contrary, however, many introverts do not pursue extroverts’ happy highs, preferring a neutral mood that is more conducive to reflection and to our involvement in meaningful pursuits.

All of this goes back to a key distinction I explained in my 2023 post on Finland coming out on top as the world’s happiest country six years in a row. On the one hand, there’s the “hedonic” concept of happiness, in which the happiest person has the highest proportion of supremely pleasurable or delighted experiences. This fits with what motivates extroverts, and this is what most psychologists measure as happiness.

On the other hand is the calmer, more neutral experience of contentment, meaningfulness and satisfaction praised by Aristotle and the Stoics in ancient Greece as the aim of life. They called it eudaimonia, which is often translated as “well-being.” When introverts gravitate more to this concept as their ideal, they come out as less happy by the hedonic measure of happiness – an unfair conclusion because it’s driven by a one-sided definition of happiness more than by objective, independent data.

What’s new here is the research that exposes an academic bias in favor of the type of happiness that favors extroverts. If you define happiness in terms of excited, hyperactive moments, this will make it seem introverts don’t want to be happy. That’s wrong. Introverts are not less happy than extroverts. We have a different, comfortable and quieter route to achieving happiness.

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Seeking YOUR introvert insights

In a new series of posts, I would like to feature your insights and experiences related to being an introvert or dealing with an introverted spouse, child, employee, boss, neighbor, etc. The more specific you are about the setting and the relationship dynamics involved, the better.

Please send your essay/article/post to innies@yudkin.com.

Target length is 700 to 1500 words. See the first post in this series at https://www.introvertupthink.com/p/reader-stories-1. If I use your post, I will of course credit you with a byline and a brief bio.

Thank you in advance for sharing your story.

- Marcia

Since all three of those urban walkers were introverts, I had to take back my assumption that introverts couldn’t thrive in a world-class metropolis. Instead, I cast a clear-eyed look at the features these “Best Cities” lists considered suitable for introverts. See what you think of these criteria as I catalog them.

A 2022 article on the gaming website Mr Q had me scratching my head as it measured suitability for introverts by the number of remote jobs, average wifi speed, number of outdoor trails and parks, museums, libraries and theaters and its “Happiness Index,” among other criteria. Perhaps introverts do gravitate more to remote jobs, but by definition those could be headquartered hundreds or thousands of miles away from the target city. And I’m not sure I understand why introverts would care more than extroverts about cultural amenities, wifi or the supposed happy vibes of a place.

A 2025 ranking on a home loan website similarly ranked cities for introverts according to criteria like green spaces, libraries, safety and average happiness. Again, though, except for the libraries, wouldn’t those features matter across the board, not only for introverts? The introduction to this site’s rankings claimed to measure how conducive cities are to tranquility and reflection. Introverts, they say, seek “peaceful cities that prioritize safety, mental wellbeing and clean, healthy surroundings.” Okay, but here I once more wasn’t impressed with the website’s quantifications.

A digital nomad’s frankly subjective 2025 take on cities she had traveled to made much more sense to me. She defined “introvert-friendly” locations as those with plenty of mind-one’s-own-business coffee shops in areas where people aren’t overly curious about strangers and where serenity in nature is easily accessible close by. For her, this included Asheville, North Carolina, Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota, Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico – and New York, New York. Hear her out:

“The most populated city in the U.S. also happens to be very much a solo city, and everyone is usually doing their own thing and keeping to themselves. So if you’re looking to go about your day without the awkward small talk, you’re in good company. You’ll blend right in with the crowd and remain anonymous wherever you go.”

On the other hand, another subjective roundup of best locations for introverts, from 2022, placed a high priority on low population density, which ruled out New York City and ruled in Portland, Oregon and Nashville, Tennessee. Other criteria mentioned by this writer included a slower-paced lifestyle, quiet streets and plenty of things to do solo or in small groups.

From my brief survey of best-for-introverts recommendations, I feel the no-numbers articles offer more ideas worth pondering than the rankings that purport to be objective. Probably it’s just common sense: To find comfortable spots for settling down, consider what qualities matter to you, visit the top candidates if you can, pay attention to your reactions and remember that someone else’s enthusiasm, even if backed up by data, may not mean much for your satisfaction.

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“Was I nicer than other people at the restaurant? I was. Was it genuine? That depends on what you mean by ‘genuine.’ I’d kind of grown this personality, or I thought I had… Almost thirty years later, I can still feel the waiterly poses in my body. I can feel my weight shift, my head tilt. I pause when I hit a mark and wait for the customer to absorb its shape and meaning. Shift, land. Shift, land.”

Bursch didn’t know much about fancy serving norms, so she tried extra-hard to be pleasant to customers. It worked: The diners liked her, and the restaurant kept her on even though she couldn’t name the different types of oysters or smoothly remove the cork from a Côtes du Rhône bottle. Even now she can’t say whether her waiterly behavior was the real Heather or not.

Bursch‘s essay meshes nicely with a theme I’ve been turning over in my mind lately. In a culture where introverts often get judged as abnormal, innumerable introverts feel under pressure to act socially smooth, talkative and upbeat, especially at school or at work. Is that kind of acting always bad? In some instances, it amounts to simply learning a skill, like cooking an omelet or driving a car, that the person can use or not. You can learn to approach strangers, for instance, to say “Glad to meet you” as if you mean it or to keep silly conversations going longer than the average tennis volley.

In other instances, such acting involves taking on an extroverted role that becomes physically and mentally exhausting for the typical introvert the longer and deeper the act goes on. Continuing in that direction, it amounts to pretending to be someone one is not, fooling strangers, coworkers and acquaintances about one’s actual personality and preferences.

On the one hand, I remember many evenings I spent at networking events when I lived in Boston and was building a business. When I went up to someone standing alone, introduced myself and asked what they did, I didn’t feel I was faking being someone I wasn’t.

Approaching a stranger was a stretch for me, but I genuinely enjoyed one-on-one conversations where I might learn something or begin to make a friend. I regarded it as doing something grownup and productive that was initially out of my comfort zone. Heather Bursch’s extra-nice efforts at Balthazar seem to me to fall into this category of skill learning, too.

Note that I didn’t pursue an encounter by cracking jokes, breaking into a chummy group or chitchatting about the Red Sox, any of which would be highly uncharacteristic of me. After I outstretched a hand, the other person was conversing with the real me.

On the other hand, I recently came across a couple of blog posts where introverts described themselves as “masking” throughout their daily lives. As I understand it, this is a term often used by high-functioning autistic people for their exhausting efforts from dawn to bedtime to come across as socially “normal” in order to be more accepted. To understand better the difference between the mild stretching of adapting and the high stress of masking, and how this might apply to introverts, I read up on “masking” and the pain that accompanies such a long-lasting, comprehensive type of pretending.

Based on my research, here are some criteria that can help you decide whether a certain level of pretense should best be understood as adapting or masking.

1. Is the behavior motivated by fear and judgment? People who mask typically are afraid of being stigmatized and excluded. They resent the implication that their natural manner of being is judged negatively, yet they try to “pass.” On the other hand, those adapting may be making a strategic, situational choice so as to fit in briefly or achieve a specific aim, like impressing a hiring committee. Adaptation is more like dressing up for an occasion than like censoring or suppressing disparaged habits, inclinations and desires.

2. Is there hiding of one’s true nature? Masking feels like a massive, far-reaching mismatch between how one is acting and how one really is. One’s authentic self disappears beneath the mask. Daily masking thus can involve a distressing compromise or loss of identity. In contrast, adapting involves minor changes that add to one’s behavioral repertoire – not concealment or disguise. You’re still you, though perhaps in a different mode, the way we all learn to speak differently with friends than with teachers or employers.

3. How mentally demanding is the faking? Masking requires relentless, constant attention to the pretense: Am I making enough eye contact? Here I need to smile and there I had better nod, etc. Ever-needed coping mechanisms tend to lead to exhaustion, despair and burnout. Adaptation, however, involves the kind of attentive effort required for any new learning, but once learned, the new behavior may no longer demand constant self-monitoring. Therefore, adapting isn’t anywhere as fatiguing as masking, though it still can cause a need for recovery time.

4. Is the behavior change demeaning or empowering? Does the mental tape run along the lines of I’m really no good without pretending or With this acting, I can get where I want to go? Masking feels less like a choice than like a necessity, while adapting feels more voluntary and intentional.

Most introverts make at least some behavioral compromises in comparison with choices they might make in a world that accepted and accommodated the full range of personality differences. Choices that can be described as adaptations carry much less danger for the person’s physical and mental well-being than those that reach the level of masking.

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A memoir about watching alone for wildfires in a remote tower has an even more specific, hallowed heritage. On the Road author Jack Kerouac, poet Gary Snyder and environmental pioneer Edward Abbey all were strongly influenced by summers they spent as fire lookouts in the 1950s or 1960s. Because mere miles from my home in Goshen, Massachusetts stands a fire tower whose 65-feet-high iron steps I’ve climbed for a view of five states, I’ve had a vivid mental picture of what manning such a structure amidst forest, forest and more forest would entail. Days and nights alone scanning the horizon for smoke. Unrelieved immersion in wilderness. No one to talk to for the whole season except when calling in a fire on one’s battery-powered two-way radio.

Trina Moyles’ 2021 memoir about being a fire lookout for a couple of summers in northern Alberta, Canada, didn’t match my envisioning of the isolation of this job.

First, Moyles’ setup included a multitude of creature comforts, such as a solar fridge, solar oven and propane heater. For communication from her tower, she had an Internet connection, cellphone and radio. Indeed, she had a radio check-in call with headquarters every night at 7 pm. An affectionate dog provided daily companionship. A helicopter replenished her food supplies once a month. She became friends with other lookouts (all introverts, of course), occasionally had fire crews bivouacking with her for weeks, and even had her parents, niece and nephew come visit with her the second summer. Although most days she fulfilled her fire watching duties alone, her situation wasn’t the extreme solitude conjured up for me in the subtitle of her book, Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire in the Boreal Forest.

The book has many vivid moments, describing both the lookout routine and dramatic events like watching lightning strikes and encountering a grizzly sow and her cubs. I turned down close to a dozen page corners for passages I wanted to reread, like this one, providing journalistic perspective:

“Every wildfire has a story.

Hunters, or day hikers, carelessly leave a campfire to smolder out, but the wind picks up and sends sparks flying into the bush. A brush pile, left unattended, smolders in a farmer’s field and spreads into nearby grass. A woman tosses a still-lit cigarette out of the window of her car into the ditch. A father and son enjoy an afternoon of driving their ATV in a wildland recreational park then decide to go off-roading, and the extreme heat from the engine catalyzes a flame in the tall, dry grass.”

There’s vivid description of nature in the book, as well, such as:

“The smoke column braided itself into a horse’s tail. The fire wanted to run, but she probably wouldn’t go far. Although the fire hazard was creeping up again, the earth was sopping wet, a far cry from the May conditions when the forest was a matchbox waiting to be struck. I imagined all the tiny fire-loving creatures, including the fire beetle, scuttling towards the wildfire, eager to lay their eggs in the charred bark of the burnt trees. In a matter of only weeks, fireweed and other pioneer species would germinate in the ashes of the burn. Deer, moose, elk and bears would come to forage on the new green growth. And somewhere deep in the charred floor, the nitrogen-rich ash would fertilize the opened coniferous seeds waiting to grow again.”

You may also appreciate some of her personal reflections:

“What was it about being the first to observe nature in action? Witnessing what the forest had done for millennia? It made me feel small and insignificant, and yet also like a quiet hero. I was proud to be a small part of the collective effort to spot the beginnings of wildfire, joining the legacy of the women and men who watched before. It was lonely and thankless work, and in the moment of reporting a smoke there was no one with whom I could share the glory – no one but myself. But it didn’t make me sad; instead, I felt powerful and connected and deeply useful.”

In short, Lookout is in some ways a wonderful read. Just don’t expect it to illuminate much about the mysteries, pleasures and perils of solitude. I came away realizing what I should have understood before I read: What you count as solitude depends on your experience, expectations and points of comparison.

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Without saying a word, I eased myself off the picnic bench and looked around for the party host to tell her I was leaving. Not finding her, I let myself out and walked home. There I sent an email that the host would presumably read the next day, thanking her and saying I’d looked for her but didn’t see her when I left.

What I did goes by several names: an Irish goodbye, a French exit, and perhaps also a Dutch dipout, a Samoan sayonara. According to etiquette experts, a vanishing act like this from a small gathering is discourteous. For an introvert whose social battery is nearing the empty mark, however, a faux pas feels far preferable to the drama and pressure that would probably follow an announcement to the group that they were leaving early.

Two days after the party, a neighbor accosted my husband while he was running. “Is Marcia OK? We suddenly realized she was gone and didn’t know why,” she said with concern. Clearly I needed some tips on the art of the graceful goodbye, and maybe you do, too.

Why the awkward evasiveness?

Introverts dislike having the spotlight shine on us when we’re doing something socially frowned upon in order to be more comfortable. We also dislike confronting social pressure that implies disapproval for our preferences. At that party, I certainly did not want to bring up the often pooh-poohed topic of introvert overload or blame anyone else for my own discomfort.

After reading up on what sociability experts and other introverts say about this predicament, I hit on a few strategies that may make sense.

First, we can set the stage ahead of time with the host of a gathering for a no-fault, no-mess early exit. A candid way to do this is to tell the host, one-on-one, “You know, I sometimes get overwhelmed, overloaded or uncomfortable in a group, and I may need to duck out early.” Then with a discreet wink and a wave to the host, we can stand up and leave if that feeling comes up.

If such truthfulness seems inappropriate or unwelcome, we can tell the host a precautionary excuse before the party, like “I promised to pick someone up at the airport at X o’clock.” If we then slip out as I did, the host should not be offended.

Second, we can practice a graceful, no-excuses goodbye, like standing up and saying to the group, “This was wonderful, I’ll see you around,” and then scooting out before anyone has a chance to protest or start an interrogation.

In any event, be sure to thank the host, either on the spot or afterwards by email or text. And if the gathering takes place in a restaurant, under no circumstances should you stick anyone else with the check!

Why an “Irish goodbye”?

According to my research, no one really knows how Irish or French ethnicity got associated with slipping out unnoticed. Some linguistic detectives attribute the “Irish goodbye” expression to the Northeast of the US, especially Boston, which has a high concentration of Irish Americans. Likewise, I could find no consensus on whether or not Irish people consider the phrase offensive. Some yes, but most no.

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This is a widespread classroom scenario when a class becomes noisy and excited, and the teacher grows concerned that some form of critical mass is imminent, where law and order might collapse. For a teacher, confronted by up to 30 mid-teens, the natural instinct is to raise one’s voice in an attempt to restore order. However, I was growing increasingly unhappy with this method; surely, there had to be a better way.

In an attempt to alter the narrative, I fought against instinct and forced myself to become still and quiet, so I could simply observe for several seconds. I looked around the room at each student, gauging their level of participation in the mayhem. I was amazed at what I found. I then shared my findings with the class (once I’d got them quiet, of course). It went something like this:

“I’ve just been watching you all during that spell of rowdiness. It was very interesting. You heard all that noise, yes? Well, do you realize that all that noise was created by only about a quarter of you?”

Faces now displayed the sort of curiosity a teacher hopes will be reserved for the curriculum. I continued, “I must admit I was going to tell off all of you for being so noisy, and not doing your work. But that would be wrong, because most of you, the majority in fact, were sitting quietly, either continuing with your work or waiting for the noise to die down.”

Then, rather than admonishing the noisy minority, I addressed the silent majority with, “So, instead of telling off the class as a whole, I want to thank those of you who were behaving well and waiting patiently to continue your education.”

And then it happened. As I looked around the stunned classroom, the introverts began to smile. Only slightly, but nevertheless, they were smiling their tiny, genuine smiles. They had been caught doing something good, behaving well. They had become, albeit momentarily, the positive focus of the lesson. The noisy quarter of the students began to realize that their attention-seeking tactics were out-of-place in this classroom; they too became thoughtful.

And how did I know I had been observing the introverts? As an introvert myself, I knew exactly what to look for. However, if you’re reading this as an extrovert, I can recommend you start to proactively look for these introverts. They are not difficult to find – you just have to want to see them. Maybe the following might fill in some details.

Many years ago I participated in one of those Myers-Briggs personality tests (we’ll leave discussion of the efficacy of such tests to those who like to argue). By the end of the afternoon, I had been labelled “Extreme (I mean, “off-the-chart”) Introvert.” But I was okay with the diagnosis. It made sense.

Once I had accepted this label, I began looking more closely at the traits making up those of us who make a conscious decision to live on the apparent edge of sociability. And anyway, being on the edge makes it easier to see in, rather than being in the noisy mix, always looking around to find from where the next stimulus might be emanating.

I rarely saw being introverted as a disadvantage. It offered me an objective perspective on life, free from the clamoring noise of the opinions of others. I felt independent.

Strangely, I had embarked on quite a public career path, entering the wild world of secondary education. Once I had mastered the basic mechanics of running a lesson, I was able to fine-tune my style. But, subconsciously at first, in each class, I began looking out for my fellow introverts. And I knew where to find them. These were the students who, quite literally, sit on the edges of the classroom.

Assumed teacher wisdom is that one needs a seating plan to maintain control. As a young teacher, I used to start each new academic year armed with one of these per class. However, as a consequence, I was missing out on valuable information – where a student chooses to sit can inform the teacher of the child’s potential personality.

The basic pattern is that the trouble makers aim for seats at the back of the classroom, the keen, nerdy types want to sit at the front, but the introverts make for the safety of the room’s periphery. Recollections of my own schooling seemed to confirm this. (At the end of the first lesson I even thank the ‘back row’ for identifying themselves as the trouble makers.)

Being an introvert helps in my job. I can relate to, even empathize with, those students who, by choice, sit on the edges of the classroom. They’re my clan. I “get” them. It’s easy for a teacher to focus their attention on the boisterous trouble makers at the back, while wanting to feed the eager nerdy types sat with wide-eyed expectancy at the front. But this is to the detriment of the quiet, introverted students who have deliberately located themselves out of the teacher’s direct eye-line. Don’t they, the so-called average ones, deserve just as much teacher attention as the others?

At that moment in my career, I decided to turn my focus on these introverts with as much frequency and regularity as I could manage.

Then, over the course of the first term we developed our own subtle communication system. For example, if the introvert feels confident that they can offer something out loud to the class, they will smile and give me a small nod of their head. On the other hand, if they wish not to be called upon, that’s okay too – they know that an almost imperceptible shake of the head will render them safe in the class.

I’ve used this tactic consistently since my epiphany, and the effect is always the same, and the genuine smiles of the introverts never fail to warm my heart.

British writer Michael Smith’s fiction has appeared in several literary journals. He has also published Gruseltal (a humorous novel), two short story collections, “Fonts” and “Songs,” and is about to publish his second novel, “Dinner Time,” all available from online bookstores. His website: https://frucht-schleifen.weebly.com/

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Reader stories

In this new series of posts, I would like to feature your insights and experiences related to being an introvert or dealing with an introverted spouse, child, employee, boss, neighbor, etc. The more specific you are about the setting and the relationship dynamics involved, the better.

Please send your essay/article/post to innies@yudkin.com.

Target length is 700 to 1500 words. If I use your post, I will of course credit you with a byline and a brief bio.

Thank you in advance for sharing your story.

- Marcia

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Wynn-Williams then tries for, in embassy jargon, pull-asides – face-to-face encounters where she can gesture Zuckerberg over for a chat with one of the targeted figures. These do not go well, either. She approaches Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, introduces herself and asks if he would like to meet Mark Zuckerberg. “No,” replies Harper flatly. Unfortunately, another Facebook muckamuck has brought Zuckerberg over just in time to get smacked by that bald refusal.

For Zuckerberg, the whole situation is excruciating. An introvert to the core, he doesn’t know how to approach a VIP himself and start a friendly conversation. And the person to whom he has outsourced this task, who normally has it well in hand, unaccountably keeps failing. Delegation brought about the fiasco.

“For the rest of the cocktail hour, the political leaders avoid us. No one approaches Mark. He’s not used to this, to being ignored. Usually he’s hounded by people who think he’s the most interesting person in the room. Now he stands awkwardly in the middle of this fancy party, a fish out of water.”

This scene got me thinking about what can and can’t be delegated by introverts who lack social savoir faire or who can’t initiate or manage important interactions because their heads are up in the clouds.

Most of us know couples where the more extroverted partner manages social activities for both of them, which may involve arranging get-togethers, keeping track of birthdays or anniversaries and smoothing interactions with small talk. During actual interactions, the introvert speaks, listens and cares about the connection. He or she engages despite being absent in the setup.

The delegation may work as long as the partnership remains intact. Such an arrangement may go from convenient to problematical, however, when the relationship ends for some reason and the less involved partner sits out in the cold. Afterwards, the more introverted partner can suffer for not having developed the habit of initiating.

Some well-to-do or well-positioned individuals set up a comparable system where a personal assistant makes connections for someone who then relates well during the interactions. However, the assistant cannot make the actual interactions flow well if the boss holds back out of indifference or awkwardness. Likewise, an intermediary usually can’t afterwards straighten out a situation that went poorly. These represent some limits of delegation.

As for romance, stories abound of intermediaries who are tasked to set up a match but whose very social skills create a connection between the target and themselves instead of with the behind-the-scenes hopeful. Most charmingly, the dynamic appears in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, The Courtship of Miles Standish, where Myles Standish enlists his friend John Alden to court the lovely Priscilla for him, only to have Priscilla gently reply, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”

Delegation may seem like a convenient or efficient solution for an introvert who would rather think about business, science or their own creative projects. But relationships involving trust, bonding, shared interests or intimacy can’t really be delegated. So stretch out your hand and speak for yourself, ye introvert!

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Recently published

“What Women?” An exposé of conditions for women graduate students in the 1970s.

“On the Spooky Road” What was it following me on that road in the woods?

Here are five Introvert UpThink posts that I especially enjoyed researching, pondering and writing in 2025, in case you missed them.

1. The Relatability Trap: A Hazard for Introverts – Pause a moment before you compliment something as “relatable.” Perhaps “unrelatable” deserves to be seen as OK, too.

2. How Not to Relate to Your Introverted Kid – A parent really did write to an advice columnist complaining about a young daughter’s avid curiosities and how she only had three friends.

3. Frederick Douglass, Introvert – What if you had had to fight to learn to read, as Frederick Douglass did?

4. Are Introverts Mentally Ill? The Case of Emily Bronte – Is someone mentally unbalanced because they’re hard to get to know – like many introverts?

5. Introverts and “The Barbie Problem” – One thing none of us controls is the expectations in our social world.

If you’re nodding your head, remembering that these posts made you think, or happily discovering them for the first time, please consider supporting my advocacy for introverts by becoming a Paid Subscriber to Introvert UptThink (if you’re not already a paid subscriber). You get instant access to the full texts of 30 Introvert Book Club posts and the satisfaction of contributing to a more comfortable and fulfilling world for those of us who lean introvert.

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Here’s to 2026 being a better year than 2025!

– Marcia

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

I researched this quote and learned that the legendary psychiatrist Carl Jung, who originated the concepts of introvert and extrovert, wrote it as advice in a letter to a particular patient. What did he mean? And does the quote express a useful truth for those of us who are trying to understand ourselves and people around us?

Initially I found the quote confusing, because I think of dreaming as an interior activity, taking place within, whether it’s night-time dreaming or daydreaming. Introverted children and young people may particularly enjoy indulging in the fantasies and imaginings of daydreaming, interacting with self-invented creatures or people, or taking the stories we read in books deeply into ourselves.

For example, Emma Bovary in Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary believed the romantic notions that animated the books she sneakily read at the provincial convent school she attended as a teen. She bought a map of Paris and pictured herself walking its streets someday.

But after thinking some more, I realized that Jung probably meant a negative aspect of the word “dreaming” for this kind of scenario. Emma Bovary’s dreams involved experiences she wanted to have in her outward life because they would prove she measured up to her fantasies. Had her dreams been realized, she would have been able to sneer “So there!” to those who regarded her as a silly nobody. She didn’t really yearn for Paris in itself, but rather for its symbolic significance. This in turn set her up for feeling hollow, unsatisfied and frantic when her dreams never materialized.

When we express a fond wish, a sweet hope or a wistful fantasy, someone listening may respond, “Keep dreaming!” We also use the expression “chasing a dream” to imply that someone has the illusion that reaching their fervent goal will make them happy. In both those instances, “dreaming” implies being unrealistic and disconnected from the genuine satisfactions of life.

This connotation of “dreaming” makes sense in the light of Jung’s views on personality. Extroverts, he posited, find human interaction energizing and look to the social world for direction and validation. He himself, however, was an introvert, finding meaning and value within, in the world of the self. Consider that he titled his most autobiographical book Memories, Dreams, Reflections – all definitely inward phenomena.

On this interpretation, the quote is warning that taking the world of others as one’s touchstone for goals and values carries the risk of inauthenticity and eternal dissatisfaction. In contrast, turning inward opens one to the possibility of self-knowledge and realizing one’s true nature. It appears that with this quote Jung was advising the patient whom he was counseling to wake up to herself in order to engage in psychological growth and transformation.

I doubt Jung meant that quote as general truth, implying that looking within is superior or more evolved than looking outside. After all, as embodied human beings, we’re born into a society where we have no choice but to interact as we grow up. We need both orientations – inner and outer The outer world imposes pressures, provides roles and sets expectations, but it also creates the landscape in which we earn a living, find friends and enjoy the pleasures of the senses. A healthy person, whatever their personality, both acts out in the world and engages with authentic inner sources of meaning.

And by the way, after finishing watching the whole telenovela where the Jung quote came up, I wasn’t able to grasp any connection between the quote and the characters or themes of that story! Maybe prefacing each episode with a profound-sounding epigrah was just meant to strike a more artsy, high-toned ambience for the story.

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That last option is dramatized in the book The Enigma of Arrival by Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul. It caught my eye as an attitude that might be characteristic of some introverts: studying the local scene while being as inconspicuous and removed themselves as possible.

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Do you have an interesting introvert story to share?

I’m soliciting readers’ stories of introvert experiences.

Details at the very bottom of this email.

You know when you’ve had too much people time. You have a headache. You ache all over. Your mind feels frozen. Your jaw refuses to move to say even one word. You want to teleport to home, crawl under the blankets and stay there forever. But is that the best way to recover your introvert equilibrium?

British consultant Sam Sheppard makes the important point that rest alone doesn’t enable introverts to recharge. When your nervous system is overstimulated, lying on the sofa scrolling through your phone is numbing but not restorative. You’ll still feel tired and depleted. Even a good sleep doesn’t necessarily do the trick, points out an article from the American Psychological Association. Nor even an expert massage.

Self-help author Michele Connolly once booked a massage thinking it would be the perfect remedy for her introvert overload. It turned out to be anything but. “The massage dude kept chatting, being friendly, and constantly asking really irritating, intrusive questions,” she recalls. “I spent the whole time clenching everything in an attempt to silently communicate for the love of Pete PLEASE STOP TALKING. It was horrendously unrelaxing.”

Instead of what you feel should relax you, you need to identify what actually enables your nervous system to reset. The method differs from person to person.

Chef and food writer Adam Kelton swears by chopping vegetables as restorative. “Repetitive knife work – slicing cucumbers, dicing onions, shaving fennel – becomes a metronome for your brain,” he says. “When I need a mental reset, I pull a cutting board from the rack, queue up a simple mise en place, and just chop. I timed myself once and realized ten minutes of steady slicing dropped my heart rate and unkinked my shoulders more than a scroll through ‘relaxing’ videos ever could.”

When Illesse Trevis, director of Operations for Dreamscape Solutions in the UK feels drained, she finds that a spot near water works wonders for a “full-body, full-soul recharge”:

“Stepping out of the car and hearing the falls: That’s when the magic really started. I could feel the tension melting off my shoulders, my inner noise quieting. It was like my nervous system finally felt safe to let go. The sound of the rushing water was both powerful and soothing, echoing through the trees like nature’s white noise. The air smelled fresh and earthy, and when we stepped down closer to the water, it felt alive. It was simple, joyful, and exactly what we needed. I left feeling lighter. Recharged.”

For others, the ritual steps of making tea do the trick. Or a walk in the park with no headphones, no particular goal and no multitasking. Or settling down in a half-empty sidewalk café with a sketchbook or a knitting project. Or getting lost in the challenge of solving a jigsaw puzzle. Or at work, retreating to an unused conference room (or the upstairs bathroom!) and counting breaths for 20 minutes.

To identify your individual recovery method, first set aside all of your shoulds – such as that a massage should work. Do the same for other people’s favorite relaxers. Someone else, for instance, may find crossword puzzles frustratingly stressful, while you can immerse yourself in them as if they’re a luxurious bubble bath. Sort through memories to recognize the remedies that truly counteract introvert depletion for you and help you feel yourself again. Et voilà – you have your introvert reset button.

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Reader stories

If I receive suitable contributions, I would like to feature some of your insights and experiences related to being an introvert or dealing with an introverted spouse, child, employee, boss, neighbor, etc. The more specific you are about the setting and the relationship dynamics involved, the better.

Please send your essay/article/post to innies@yudkin.com.

Deadline is December 20. Target length is 700 to 1500 words. If I use your post, I will of course credit you with a byline and a two-sentence bio.

Thank you in advance for sharing your story.

- Marcia