Sometimes, it can be difficult to feel like you belong to the groups you interact with every day, whether it's at the office with colleagues, at your kids' school, or even in your social circles. This sense of incongruity is often perceived as a weakness, but it may be a hidden gift, suggests a recent article in The Guardian .
Maybe the problem isn't that we're "weird," but that we simply don't fit into classic personality categories. Maybe we're neither introverts nor extroverts, but extroverts.
This new term was introduced by American psychiatrist Rami Kaminski. It describes people who often feel like outsiders in a social group, but who actually have a unique and profound way of thinking, a sincere desire for meaningful human connections, and an aversion to superficial socializing.
What makes a person extroverted?
Kaminski, who couldn't categorize himself and some of his patients as introverts or extroverts, recalls an episode from his childhood that illustrates this feeling: during a youth activity, even though he was wearing his school uniform and saying the pledge with the class team, he didn't feel any emotion in common with the others. He was physically there, but emotionally somewhere else.
According to him, we are all born extroverts, but over time many of us adapt to our circumstances. Those who do not adapt are “immune to the Bluetooth effect,” a metaphor for our natural tendency to connect and harmonize with the group. Introverts, Kaminski says, resist this immediate connection, do not immediately fall into sync with groups, and retain their own personal beliefs and feelings.
Frida Kahlo, Kafka, Orwell, Einstein, famous overtaker?
Kaminski believes that many of the most famous figures were outspoken, who saw things differently, because they didn't fully belong to any group. He cites names like Frida Kahlo, Franz Kafka, George Orwell, and Albert Einstein, who were often marginalized in their time, but who, precisely because of this distance, were able to see more clearly and create more freely.
"History is full of independent thinkers who were not emotionally attached to any specific group and, for this very reason, could recognize the fanaticism of the collective mindset much earlier than others."
Kaminski emphasizes that being an extrovert doesn't mean you're unable to connect with others. On the contrary:
"The fact that you don't emotionally connect with different groups makes you more committed to that small circle of people you carefully choose to have around you."
Extroverts are not emotionless loners, but people who seek depth and meaning, who refuse to conform simply for the sake of inclusion.
In a world that often favors conformity and uniformity, extroverts stand as distinct voices, silent perhaps, but very thoughtful. They maintain emotional and intellectual independence, think outside the box, don't settle just to be like the masses, and seek deep connections.
