Forums → WEPR → The Shy
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A topic that fascinates me.
Why is it that shy people are usually seen as depressed or anti-social? A question that has puzzled me for a while. Why is it that when people are looking to make friends, they stray away from shy people, and go for the outgoing people? I have noticed that when shy people have loyal friends, they never get into fights with them! I believe that shy people would make excellent friends - loyal and trustworthy. It is improbable that a shy person would gossip or be hostile.
The shy expect the least from their friends, they are not demanding, they strive to maintain a relationship once they have found a friend. I always think shy people are intelligent. Indeed, they are usually deeper than other people. They are not continually bragging about themselves.
So, we established that the shy have excellent qualities, why is it that people go for the outgoing people, rather than these extraordinary people? Why is it that there are many programs and guides to make people overcome shyness, when it is such an excellent attribute? Why is it that shy people wish they were outgoing?
- 42 Replies
I'm a shy person. I have friends who are loyal. I'm not very outgoing, most my friends came from a natural share of interest. I don't really make new friends just by going up and saying hi, I couldn't see myself doing that unless we shared some interest.
I'm sure that there are as many extroverted, intelligent people as there are introverted, but extroverts and introverts both have distinct advantages over each other in life and enough has been posted about shyness. I guess there are different types of intelligence and extroverts possess certain types that introverts don't like social intelligence. I saw in a high school counseling book something called "EQ" which is i guess emotional quotient. I guess that that would be something that they would score well on.
I don't want to sound arrogant here but, I was recently in a math class for the extremely talented. About three quarters of the class were the type that could not shut up, the rest rarely, if ever talked, there was only one that seemed to be in the middle. The introverts as a general principle were able to understand the materials on their own and got better marks. The extroverts tended to figure it out by talking. This leads me to the conclusion that intelligent people are either highly inquisitive and ask others many questions or they rationalize the solution or look it up in a book. I have to go I was going to add more.
I would completely agree necromancer!
And I will say that in both the views of myself and a personality test i had to take, i am that "middle" person u mentioned. At some times i just don't feel like saying anything at all, and just observing (i enjoy that more...) while at other times i feel i should speak up and assert myself. I have no idea why its so off and on, although i tend to find that around certain types of groups i act differently. Around a rambunctious group whether i know them or not, i will probably stay back. But if leadership is needed or its a group of people who just don't have much to say, i usually assert myself. All that being said i don't really think it matters as to what your personality is, you can be "smart" either way. In My IB/AP classes its obvious that both groups exist...
Though the perception of intelligence is apparent in the shy, because not speaking is better than sounding like an idiot (no offense...)
@eyetwitch
Though the perception of intelligence is apparent in the shy, because not speaking is better than sounding like an idiot (no offense...)
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. - Mark Twain
I, like you have a degree of variability in shyness (more on the introvert side), I don't talk often but with my close friends or in debate I am much more social. The person in the middle I mentioned did not seem quite the same, as in they talk more or less in different situation, it was just that every day they had a different level of introvertness/extrovertness (I made those words up :P) that didn't seem as though there were visible outside factors affecting his talkativeness.
Now I can't remember what else I had to say in my original post. LOL
I am a quite shy person. I do have a few friends, and I am content with that. The way I see it, the more friends someone wants, the less self-esteem they have.
Necromancer,
LOL, thats the exact quote i was trying to recollect. But, i just couldn't Thanks though.
Oh i understand about the person in the middle...oh well, thats how i would describe myself, in the middle. Actually with almost any personality trait i tend to lean neither one way or the other. (except in tolerance(high) and spontaneity(low))
@^^person above me(i'm on the wrong page)
I would have to say that once again low self-esteem, like intelligence can be either or. I know plenty of extroverts with a lot of self-respect/esteem and i have known introverts without any...(as well as vise-versa). Superlatives generally don't work....
sorry about my previous post, I had to leave so I only had time to skim my situation and not discuss much.
Any way as I was going to say; I think why some people are shy (or at least me) is that with strangers, you don't really know what to talk about, and if you go up to the person, not knowing who they are they might get a 'wtf are you doing, go away' sorta look so you, and to just avoid the whole awkwardness, you just avoid talking to them. Or sometimes you might know the guy and your interest are so far apart that you just don't want to be with that person.
And to the discussion at hand, (the one about shy people being smart) a lot (i said a lot, not all so don't yell) of shy people are smart because they just naturally are smart, and in the times we live in know it's not cool to be smart (sucks doesn't it? I'd expect that as time progresses that intelligence would be appreciated more rather then when life was less civilized. I mean this is the INFORMATION age not the stone age, so woul- but I digress, I'm starting a rant on another subject...) so unless they stop being themselves they tend to go a bit more solo.
Skullzero1
I don't think that its "not cool" to be smart, but its that a high intelligence, unfortunately, most often comes with social awkwardness at a young age. (or for some their whole lives). If its any peace to you skull at your age (if you are actually 14) that may be commonplace, but things start to change in high school, when kids start to actually mature and they realize that acting the fool isn't a good way to go through life and as such smart people are generally respected versus looked down upon.............. or, that could be because of my general lack of caring in what everyone else thinks, and i have created that illusion (or disillusion, since "coolness" is all an illusion).
I've decided that personal anecdotes might actually be the best way to go here:
I don't think that its "not cool" to be smart, but its that a high intelligence, unfortunately, most often comes with social awkwardness at a young age
I had a bit of a 'shaky start' when I was younger, with some diagnoses of, of all things, developmental difficulties and mental retardation. Once that had been rectified, I turned into the misunderstood precocious know-it-all who couldn't shut up. And I don't think I was able to personally relate to anybody for most of my school life. The friendships that I formed were either bound entirely by circumstance or exploitative (with me being the one exploited), and I guess it was a rather lonely existence. In this case, it really wasn't cool to be smart because, well, I alienated everybody through my desperate attempts to demonstrate such as something to be valued by.
By the time I got to high school I was spending all my days alone in the library. I took a particularly antisocial turn in the latter stages of that, and by the end of school and when I got into university life, I'd finally discovered the joys of talking to people that one could relate to- perhaps also because by this time one is more along the way to navigating the identity minefield, but I daresay that due to my history, I was quite late in doing this. Shortly after it became quite clear that I was bipolar and since I haven't taken to medication yet, the mood swings can completely change my conception of who I am- often in one state I completely forget what I was like in another, which can result in variability in how 'introverted' or 'extroverted' I am.
The way I see it, the more friends someone wants, the less self-esteem they have.
These days I'm motivated to make friends wherever I go- I prefer not to make many but the ones that I do make are those that tend to view me as a confidant. Why is this? Because owing to my utter failure as a child to relate to anybody under any normal standard of socialisation, I (and this may be unusual) studied and analysed the skill and made it a way of life later on. Trust me, I'm still a little bit weird now, but people see me as welcoming rather than threatening because of the way I present myself. One might claim that I've 'ut on a mask' but in my case, this 'mask' became something else- that which you feel you pretend to be may still change you.
In this case I'm going to have to partially agree that the quote above has some bearing in some cases- in my case I know I am constantly preoccupied with what people think about me (a habit, though I try to manage this), and so it seems that in a way, being able to relate to people on such a personal level is some kind of validation, or even vindication from my past.
I think why some people are shy (or at least me) is that with strangers, you don't really know what to talk about, and if you go up to the person, not knowing who they are they might get a 'wtf are you doing, go away' sorta look so you, and to just avoid the whole awkwardness, you just avoid talking to them. Or sometimes you might know the guy and your interest are so far apart that you just don't want to be with that person.
Some people tend to be drawn to interests that are not mainstream (I'm one of them). In the real life dominated by popular culture and the idiot-box, this tends to be the case- in fact this is why the internet used to be full of 'geeks' and 'nerds' until it became fairly ubiquitous. One of the reasons I started learning how to relate to people in real life was in fact because I learnt that, zomg, I really wasn't a social failure according to people I could actually relate to online.
As well as working out identity, one also has to work to find an environment they find themselves confident in.
Also, once again, I will mention the importance of skeletons in the closet. Stigma and a fear of judgement (on topics like sexuality, for example) can really put a damper on one's ability to socialise.
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Okay, point of the story is to raise a few questions, the main one being 'what is self'? We're talking about these generalisations but I feel that some are assuming the constancy of certain traits. Others appreciate that there's a certain dependency on history and environment.
The one universal assumption we've made here is that "it's rewarding to socialise" in some way or form. In what ways would you hold this to be true?
Strop, you said something about wisdom-based intelligence last page, what did you mean? Personally I've developed a model that can explain the different levels at which the human mind can effectively operate. I don't know if someone else came up with it because I don't study psychology or philosophy, though I do catch a few ideas here and there.
There is a hierarchy of wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge. Knowledge is processed information, raw data analyzed and organized to form meaningful and memorable 'facts'. Intelligence is the ability to use knowledge effectively in a particular situation in order to attain a specific goal. Wisdom is the ability to manage different types of intelligence throughout life in order to attain broader goals, such as overall happiness.
Intelligence as wisdom... that's another idea altogether I would think, so I'm curious as to what you meant and how/if it might relate to my own conceptions.
In regards to both the versatility of minds and the variability of extroverted/introverted modes of behaviour depending on social context, I have some anecdotes of my own.
I'm studying in Denmark for a year, and Scandinavian culture places great emphasis on group activity. Most Danes are members of several groups, some organizations serve to get people together who want to play sports, but there is also a lot of consumer organizations, very powerful unions, organizations of unions, business leaders, union leaders and business leaders, temporary groups that want to put a stop sign here and a traffic light there, etc. And work is seldom done alone... 'togetherthink' is a term I learned years before coming out here and I've had the opportunity to see how it works... somewhat. Instead of 20 page essays written individually I've written 100 page projects written in groups. It gave me the opportunity to learn a lot, but not enough, about organizing ideas and analyses of many people into a coherent whole, negotiating every tidbit along the way, etc. I think I still have a lot to learn but from these groupwork situations I've learnt a lot already.
Sometimes, when the situation demands it, I will take a leadership role, talk a lot, draw answers out of people (sometimes rather aggressively) and organize the ideas of many into an operational whole so that progress can be made before the next meeting. Other times, when I haven't done enough work between meetings, I will be extremely passive, saying very little and simply trying to accommodate whoever wants to take the leadership role that day. Other days, I may not feel the need to be a leader but simply a challenger of the leader, critiquing methods, engaging their thoughts, etc... those are the best days in terms of productivity I think because a lot of thoughts can really get fleshed out collectively. I've yet to be in a situation where I'm leading and I have a challenger but I think there are things that I can do to help that situation. I've become a bit more self-conscious of being a big guy with a deep voice, especially when working with girls who, while often very intelligent, can easily become defensive or intimidated by my gruffness. Part of being in Europe is also the lesson of how to be more polite, especially to women. Women where I'm from are a bit less feminine I think, at least they are able to engage with men in a man on man sort of way. Culture is so complicated, I don't even really know what I think about the differences I've seen in my twenty-one years on this planet of ours.
I enjoyed reading your little personal history, Strop, but I don't know how much I could say about now that is directly related to the topics at hand. I can say also, though, that I've always been one of the weird smart ones throughout school, I have obsessive compulsive disorder and a highly active imagination, but I also had an active social life and I always had some status in school, especially high school, because I wasn't exclusively brainy, I would help other less academically inclined (I really don't like using words like dumb, I think that with good upbringings everyone's level of intelligence would be similarly high) students with their work during the day and then get drunk and high with them at night, while my inner circles of friends connected me to anyone I wanted to be connected to in a positive way. I wish I was more social back then because I would've had a lot of opportunities to get to know a lot of people that I think, retrospectively, would be quite interesting... but I've always (and still do) highly value my personal space. My ways of relating to people are still kind of unusual (and undeveloped in some ways) but I value what I have and I will make progress along my own chosen path at my own rate.
What is self? I dunno. I'll throw out some answers, though. Self is the attachment to the idea of self, and the idea is an illusion. We are born, we live, we die. Along the way we experience many things, become many things, gain and lose connections to places, people and things, but we're dust in the beginning, middle and end... just organized dust in the middle. Even then, we have the same heart as everyone else, and we would be more realistic to see ourselves as one manifestation of humanity, humanity as one manifestation of the natural world, and nature itself as one possibility in an infinite universe, and infinite possibilities as the heart of nothingness. For all intensive purposes, the self is a fleeting birdsong.
Is it rewarding to socialize? Of course! It's also rewarding not to. It's rewarding to find a balance between solitude and sociality based on a critical and compassionate understanding of the states of mind attached to either mode of behaviour.
"A mockingbird... was heard to blend the songs of 32 different kinds of birds into a 10 minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art."
- Tom Robbins
I will just say I am very shy but well it depends I talk alot but when I am around people I have never seen I am very shy but once I get used to them I am not shy.
I have to prepare to reply to my fellow debator, but I just wanted to comment on what eyetwitch said:
high intelligence, unfortunately, most often comes with social awkwardness at a young age.
That is not true in many cases. I appreciate you saying 'most often,' to show that not all bright young minds have trouble socializing with the 'cool' kids. Someone can be intelligent and 'cool.'
Now, Strop has shown that intelligence does come with a price (sometimes). This is not always the case, however.
Back to reading about infinity... *sigh*
Heh, Skyla, you could have sidestepped that typo by using interlocutor. It ends in -or! :P
I'll add that some people personally value the mood swings that come with bipolar disorder- a hypomanic phase can bring periods of great productivity especially in creative fields. It seems that a sizeable portion of leading historical and current cultural figures had some form of bipolar disorder. In my case, I'm not so fond of this changeable nature, and I'm concerned about the possibility of accelerated neurodegenerative processes, so I'll figure out some appropriate way with which to manage.
Anyway...
All the above is pointing towards the difficulty of defining "intelligence" in all its various forms. To reply to Squalick, what I've noticed is that you've proposed intelligence to be something distinct from wisdom and knowledge, whereas it is difficult to separate out the idiomatic usages in this manner. As you said earlier:
high intelligence, unfortunately, most often comes with social awkwardness at a young age.
Which isn't entirely analogous with this:
Intelligence is the ability to use knowledge effectively in a particular situation in order to attain a specific goal.
One of the main difficulties in defining intelligence is that people wish to make it such a generalised term (or a political one, see below) that it conflicts with our understanding of cognitive development. Therefore what I tend to do is take the term 'intelligence' in its broadest sense: some kind of cognitive aptitude, be it memory, recognition, analysis, synthesis or, in later stages, the versatility to balance these processes. When I said 'wisdom model', I was referring to a newer practice of assessing cognition on a more neutral basis, and appreciating that while 'raw power' seems to decline in later years, this does not necessitate the cognitive decline associated with senescence (on that note, the rationale for Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training is from such a school of thought!)
What you've mentioned above points towards intelligence being used as the measure of analytical ability, which is a common interpretation (which, incidentally, if you'll pardon the misappropriation but I'm sure you'll get it, is why your sometimes Continental approach to certain questions throws analytically-minded me!)
(I really don't like using words like dumb, I think that with good upbringings everyone's level of intelligence would be similarly high)
As I mentioned above, the connotations of dumb/smart etc. are highly political, as people have grown accustomed to attaching value to intelligence. What you've suggested here though implies that analytical skill is largely or entirely an acquired one. Perhaps this is true to an extent as practice makes perfect, but I'm also aware that people may have different aptitudes for different things...
...you can see how the inconsistencies are emerging, right?
Finally:
Self is the attachment to the idea of self, and the idea is an illusion
That is a brilliant answer. Maybe you might be interested in looking up the Zen Buddhist philosophy sometime
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