"Our Motto: 'I'm Okay, You're Okay—In Small Doses.'"

I just came across this lovely little article (link via Electrolite) on "Caring for Your Introvert." It starts out like this:

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

Boy, does that sound familiar. Now, for my part, after years of being completely miserable in all kinds of social situations, I've managed to train myself to relax in small groups, to respond to the babblings of extroverts with good-natured politeness, and even, in certain circumstances, to practice the art of social banter. And, yes, I can babble on at length and with considerable animation, myself, if the subject is something I'm truly interested in... especially in a forum like this one, where I can put my thoughts together at my own pace and don't have to worry about interacting with other human beings in realtime. But that paragraph... That describes the true, inner me, as probably anybody who knew me in high school (i.e., before I learned those valuable social coping skills) could easily attest. I've taken a couple of those web versions of the Myers-Briggs personality test, and I come out all the way over on the extreme introvert end of the scale every time.

Anyway, it's a pretty cool article on how to understand and deal with introverts if you don't happen to be one. (Tip: If you come up to us from out of the blue and start talking about things you have absolutely no reason to believe we are actually interested in (e.g. what you had for dinner last night), it will only confuse and annoy us. (That one's not from the article, by the way. That's mine.)) It does smack a bit of the "Oooh, oooh, we're an Oppressed Minority, too!" attitude that I tend to find slightly irritating and overused -- I figure I must belong to about four different Oppressed Minorities now, after adding "introverts" to the list -- but even so, it's impossible for me not to appreciate a sentiment like this one:

We can only dream that someday, when our condition is more widely understood, when perhaps an Introverts' Rights movement has blossomed and borne fruit, it will not be impolite to say "I'm an introvert. You are a wonderful person and I like you. But now please shush."

Man, I can think of a few people I've encountered to whom I would have loved to have been able to say that...