“You’re looking tired.”
“You look like you just got up.”
“Why don’t you go to bed earlier.”
These are frequent comments an introvert hears in the morning at work/school/whatever place we must subject ourselves to.
Night time, especially the wee hours is the one time of day that is completely quiet and undisturbed. These hours are the most valuable temporal real estate by far.
They are the one time of day the introvert can live without inhibition, without the fear of unorthodox habits resulting in punishment.
In the darkness, any extroverts still wandering about cannot watch everything everyone else is doing and their copious energies are nearly spent.
Even this brief glorious window of time cannot be enjoyed without price. As if they can smell the dried juice of forbidden fruit on one’s shirt front, those social people are there in the morning asking suspicious questions. It as if if they sense one has dared live for a little while outside their jurisdiction.
Affronted, the introvert shrinks from them and from the daylight in which they bounce about and thrive.
Does this sound paranoid to you, reader? If so, you just don’t get it.
Seeing aggression in probably innocuous behavior is part of life as an introvert:
-They are a part of the social machine that is causing harm to the introvert. This is aggression. It is not deliberate or even individual aggression, but that of an immune system or that of a strangling vine(of which they are but one probing tendril).
-They may know not what they do but this just makes it more annoying.
-It makes it more annoying still that it is impossible to talk with them about their conduct. Every incident is a reminder of one’s Incorrectness and their Correctness.
Bah! I hate the morning long live the night!
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I have to laugh at this! The other “morning,” (3 a.m.) I was out walking the dogs along a trail that follows a meandering creek. Unexpectedly, we encountered another person, which rarely, if ever, happens. I apologized for my dogs’ curiosity at finding another out at such an hour. The guy gruffly said, “You aren’t the only night dweller.”
And while I laughed at his comment, it made me think. I never considered myself a “night dweller,” for when I’m out and about at such an hour, it means that I’ve already enjoyed 8 hours of peaceful sleep. I’m a VERY early riser…but that’s another side of the same coin, I see now. I just choose to dwell on the night-into-day side of it all.
I often think that I should find myself a night-job so I could be out and about when the world is thankfully peaceful and devoid of loud people.
I enjoy sleep immensely, my favourite part of the day is often the twenty minutes spent in bed before unconsciousness descends. I wonder why it is that I crave unconsciousness so much? Could it be that it is one of the few times when I can escape from this noisy world?
I could cry. I thought I was peculiar and eccentric. Yes to night dwelling. It is so peaceful and tranquil. I have constructed a whole identity around it. I live in New York City. One of the loudest most populated cities in the world. However despite popular belief. It isn’t the city that doesn’t sleep. As dangerous as it may sound to others, I go for long walks at night through the city. I watch the skyline over the East River from my Brooklyn neighborhood. I play guitar, read and complete my best work at these hours.
Many have viewed this behavior as odd because they do not understand it. It is the only time I can be myself at my own pace without all of the egos that bask in the glow of the sunlight.
I have been this way my entire life. I never used to join the family for dinner but instead wait to everyone went to bed to heat up a small meal of my own. I pride myself on being a nocturnal creature.