I’ve just finished week 1 of my Myers-Briggs trials. This week focused on extraversion.

The timing of this experiment helped me tremendously. Since I’m on a mini-retirement, I have a lot more free time. That made it much easier to spend more time with other people, because I still had plenty of time to myself. If I was still working, it would have been ten times harder.

Even so, it’s a good thing I decided to judge myself by effort instead of results. Despite my efforts to talk more than any reasonable person should, I still had someone ask me, “Why are you so quiet?” Oh well, I tried. My main difficulty is that I find it so hard to talk when I have nothing to say. I just can’t get random words to come out of my mouth.

While I confirmed that I like introversion a whole lot better (as I expected), there’s one particular aspect of extraversion that I think is worthy of consideration by introverts. Introverts tend to be slow to speak, and then later be mad at themselves for not saying anything. Extraverts tend to be quick to speak, and then later be mad at themselves for saying something they shouldn’t have. Of course, both extremes are bad, but maybe it’s worth trying to err a bit on the other side for a change.

I found it funny that some people didn’t want to let me be an extravert. One night I was having dinner in a bar, and the bartender wouldn’t stay and talk to me, even though he wasn’t busy. I was thinking, “Come back here! I need to make small talk to get extraversion credit!” But I didn’t force it.

Some people say that eating in front of other people makes them nervous. I don’t feel that myself, but I do prefer not to talk much when eating, because it’s just too much going on. Besides, you’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full, right?

I also don’t like loud places. I just don’t get how people can be energized from being around noise. I managed to avoid the peak times at the bars, but one place was still pretty loud. It didn’t kill me, but it’s sure not my preference. I don’t like smoky places either, but fortunately I didn’t find any.

Twitter is a great socialization tool for introverts. Even though it’s online, I think tweeting can be considered extraverted because it’s all about shallow conversations with lots of people. The reason it’s great for introverts is because you only have to follow who you want to follow, you only have to reply when you want to, and you can turn it off whenever you want. In the last week, I spent much more time on Twitter, and tweeted a lot more by relaxing my standards of what was tweet-worthy. I didn’t find this hard at all, but it came with a huge downside of taking up lots of time because of the constant interruptions.

I spent a lot of time on the phone, which was kind of hard to do. I like face-to-face conversations a lot more than phone conversations. I’m not sure why, but they feel completely different. Spending time with someone means something, but a phone call always seems like an interruption to me. Sometimes it’s a necessary interruption, but then I feel like I have to say what I have to say, and then get back to what I was doing. Even when I like the call, I always think that seeing them in person would be a much better use of my time.

One extraverted ritual that I decided not to partake in is the phone face-off. I was talking to someone when another call came through, and I pushed the “ignore” button. I told the person I was talking to that for some reason, my new cell phone keeps beeping even after you push “ignore.” When they heard I had another call, they said it was fine if I wanted to take it. But it never occured to me for a second to do a phone face-off. I think you should just talk to who you’re talking to, and let the other person leave a message. There could be exceptions, but I didn’t even know who the other person was.

Well, extraversion isn’t for me, but your results may differ. I’m glad I did this experiment, but I’m looking forward to returning to normal.

In week 1 of my Myers-Briggs trials, I’ll be focusing on extraversion.

The key difference between introverts and extraverts is where they get their energy: from themselves, or from others. If you imagine that each person is powered by a battery, an introvert charges their battery when they’re alone, and drains it when they’re with others. For extraverts, it’s the other way around.

As king of the introverts, this trial would normally be very difficult for me because I often use up my whole battery at work. After I get home, it’s a struggle to seek out more socialization. It’s nothing against anyone personally, but that’s just how introverts work; they need their alone time.

This was a shame because I used up my whole battery on people that I didn’t necessarily want to use it for, and then people I did want to use it for were greeted with my dead battery. Fortunately, I’m on a mini-retirement now, which will make this much easier.

I have a wedding to go to this weekend, so that will provide plenty of opportunities for extraversion. Other than that, I plan to spend much more time with people in person and on the phone. I’ll also practice vocalizing my thoughts before I have time to finish them, doing my thinking out loud. And Twitter will provide a good outlet for small talk.

I can’t go completely extraverted because I still need to read stuff, etc. But the point is to make a significant effort to act far more extraverted than usual. I’ve already done one day of this, but I’ll save my thoughts for the end of the week. Go extraverts!