Introverts vs Extroverts: Understanding Social Energy

Extrovert and introvert

Attachments
I was talking with my son today and we were going on about making friends and I mentioned that you have to be careful who you make friends with because they have a tremendous influence on you. He already is very careful of who he makes friends with. The reason is because he, like me, was an introvert, spending time with people makes us tired. It is a good idea to learn how to master your energy. I have spent years training my extroverted skills so I can deal with lots of people. But outside of work I don't spend a lot of time with people. He is the same. Meeting new people makes introverts tired.

Attachments

This made me think about attachments. When we make attachments they take a lot of our energy. I started to think I wonder if introverted people make stronger deeper attachments to those around them. Whether this is good or bad, and why this is so, I don't know, but it seems to be the way. It seems to me extroverts aren't quite as worried and don't seem quite so deeply attached to the people around them, so they can have many more friends and acquaintances.

Not too many Friends

As an introvert I'm concerned about how many friends I have. What I mean is I don't want too many friends. As valuable as friends are they also consume my energy. Perhaps that's putting it wrong. They don't consume my energy. I use my energy being around them. So I want to not have too many friends, so I don't spend too much of my energy. I have noticed a deep correlation between my energy level and my happiness. The more energy I have the happier I am. Therefore, I want to conserve my energy. I try to practice this conservation at work and at play

Act Extroverted

I imagine if I were an extrovert, in order to have so many friends, I would have to use less energy on each of them. To this extent, I would have to be less attached to them. Now I've spoken in other blogs about attachments. I think attachments are a problem, and I'm trying to reduce my attachments. If I reduce my attachments, well it's easy to be with more and more people. In that sense as I reduce my attachments, I find it easier and easier to behave extroverted.