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Monthly Archives: February 2010

Extroverts and the Concept of ‘Deserval’

We turn on the TV and encountering the concept is inevitable:

“I deserve it.” says a waifish, urban thirty-something woman as she justifies buying that expensive dress or that decadent slice of raspberry chocolate cheesecake in the store window.

“Why pay more? We’ll give you the low price you deserve!” says the affable fortyish car salesman with a silver buckle and cowboy hat during the commercial break.

When we turn off the TV encountering the concept is inevitable:

Most extroverts seem to have a concept that there are things they ‘deserve:’

Lower prices, a raise, free health care, flexible mortgage rates, a pension, a secure retirement, a facial, a new set of power tools, disposable income, a stable career, honest politicians……….

How do they decide what they deserve?  Why do they deserve it?  Isn’t the whole idea of deserving completely subjective and fluid?  Another TV cliche comes to mind:

Henchman: Master, I brought you the power crystal as you commanded!  (hands it over)

Cardboard Cutout Villain:  Ah, finally!  I have it now.  Now I will give you exactly what you deserve!

*Henchman greedily anticipates goodies right up to the moment Villain pointlessly kills him with the power crystal*

As an introvert I looked to history and to the people around me without finding any sensical answer.  I was confused.  Surely the concept of deserving was entirely meaningless.  No one gets what they want just because they decide they deserve it!  Why would anyone actually be swayed or flattered by a sycophant assuring you that you ‘deserve’ more?  Why would someone justify their actions with ‘deserval.’  What do they see in the whole empty idea of deserving something?

I got an inkling when I for a time interacted with kids in a classroom setting.  The people I was working for insisted I give the kids points for answering questions in class and taking away points when they misbehaved or didn’t turn in homework.  There was an entire elaborate system on the board for everyone to see with a tally of total points for every kid who passed through the room in the course of a day.  The kids had created an entire system of social prestige around these point rankings that they took very seriously.

Children have a very strong sense of a primal, tribal level sense of social justice.  They would be horrified if they thought one of the students deserved a point and I hadn’t given it.

When given an extra point on accident, even the beneficiary would instantly come forth and tell me to take away the undeserved point.

The kids always screamed for the worst possible punishment for anyone they saw breaking the rules.  When punished themselves, they accepted it glumly but without question.  As much as they hated punishment, they seemed to concede that they deserved it.

I realized that most of these children, especially the extroverted ones carry some semblance of this tribal level concept of social justice into adult life.

I began to realize I was rather strange for not having an intuitive grasp of ‘deserve.’  Upon further reflection I realize that the whole idea ceased to have meaning for me long ago during my own childhood.  Living as an outsider from the outset, I took plenty of punishment just by virtue of being insufficiently protected from the pent up malice of others.   It was clear I hadn’t done anything bad to anger those who gave me difficulty.  There was no reason for any of it.  Whether I deserved or didn’t deserve had no meaning at all.

As an introvert, I was never truly part of the tacitly understood justice system that governed most of the other children.  Partly because of my fundamental personality and predispositions, partly because of the isolation created by my predispositions, I never fully acquired the concept of ‘deserval.’  In absence of this tribal justice, I viewed the school world around me in terms of power relationships.  Bullies didn’t deserve to have power.  They had power because they were able to take power.  Really quite simple.  I also had an inkling at an early age that bullies would never treat insiders the same way as outsiders.  They would even be quite deferent to someone higher ranking.  Was there any reason the people the bullies respected deserved respect?  Not really.  They just had more power.

A group of kids who knew each other in a structured classroom environment functioned well using their inborn senses of deserval.   The point system I had to use made abundantly clear how every kid in the classroom was aware of the exact prestige level of every other kid.  Each kid had an astoundingly precise mental tally of what every other kid deserved or didn’t deserve in class.  Their feelings of justice and injustice were visceral and resulted in emotional protest whenever there was the slightest breach.

Now let’s look at these kids as adults.  Most of adult life takes place outside of a structured classroom and they live in a society full of millions of strangers.  The tribal level deserval impulse runs amok in this environment.  When most people they meet have outsider status, they are not subject to tribal ethics.  Furthermore everyone needs to compete to get ahead.  Even people who aren’t strangers are often competitors.  As pressure increases, everyone has to work hard for survival and for prestige.  When people work hard just to make it, the deserval meter goes right off the charts.  However, they’re hard pressed to find anyone who will acknowledge the fullness of what they think they deserve. There’s no impartial chief or arbitrator keeping track of points on the board.  Most adults get cheated out of what they deserve.  The daily flouting of their intuitive systems of justice makes them increasingly sure that they deserve compensation while others deserve punishment.  Thus getting what they deserve by any means becomes justified on the most deeply visceral level.  Since others do not even seem to acknowledge the intuitive justice system, they are outsiders who do not need to accommodated or given consideration anyway.

This ‘justice gap’ attitude seeps into all of life until a Surface person sincerely believes they deserve to eat raspberry chocolate cheese cake without paying the consequences of eating it.  On the most primal level, deserving is about compensation for the crushing pressure and wrongs inflicted by an unjust life.  When ‘compensation’ is inevitably canceled out by consequences, the Surface person has been cheated yet again of getting any closer to a measure of tribal justice.

The deep and unobtainable nature of this compensation fantasy makes it ideal content for advertising.  What better way to reach people than to promise to soothe their battered egos, to promise to scratch that itch they can never quite seem to reach, to relieve the hurt that nothing seems to cure?

Introversion and Schizoid Traits

Leads To: Introverts, Asberger’s, Autism

Not so long ago, I was dropped a link by a reader to wikipedia’s entry on schizoid personality disorder.  I was shocked as I read it over.

I read through the descriptions and lists on this page and found that to some degree  I could be seen as exhibiting every single characteristic.

Like narcissism, this schizoid assessment can be kind of tricky.  Obviously, everyone is narcissistic to some degree.  It’s the inevitable result of living as ourselves and no one else.  Where then does normality end and disorder begin?

The same problem with a schizoid personality disorder.  A schizoid personality type shares many traits with introversion(or introversion is considered part of being schizoid) and is considered to usually be within the spectrum of normally functional individuals.  Disorder is diagnosed at the extreme ends of this schizoid spectrum.

Since there’s so much misunderstanding of introverts, I have to wonder if defining schizoids can end up pathologizing introverted traits that are merely incongruent with the mass society.

Here is one of the lists of ‘symptoms’ from the article with my comments on each:

-Emotional coldness, detachment or reduced affection.

(Defensive behaviors against a hostile society force one to emotionally detach in order to cope and survive.  It’s hard to be bright and cheerful while being defensive.)

-Limited capacity to express either positive or negative emotions towards others.

(Defensive habits make it difficult to really open up to others.  Without regular uninhibited social interaction one really gets out of practice.  If one grew up under such circumstances, it’s possible one never learned certain basic social conventions during critical formative stages.)

-Consistent preference for solitary activities.

(If others don’t share your interests, what else are you going to do?  Worse, they’ll probably criticize and ridicule if they find out.  Solitary becomes necessary!)

-Very few, if any, close friends or relationships, and a lack of desire for such.

(So little in common with others that it can be hard to find anyone who’s compatible.)

-Indifference to either praise or criticism.

(Does so many things outside of regular society that one stops caring whether others approve or disapprove.  One has to stop caring to stay sane!)

Taking pleasure in few, if any, activities.

(If one is forced to pursue one’s favorite activities solitarily and secretly then it seems as though one takes pleasure in nothing by the light of day.  Could perhaps be rewritten as: Taking pleasure in few if any socially approved activities.)

-Indifference to social norms and conventions.

(Social norms cause pain and inconvenience.  They stand against one’s personality and preferences.  If permitted to rule over one’s life, the result could only be a denial of one’s deepest self.  They are ignored when possible.)

-Preoccupation with fantasy and introspection.

(It’s a great way of compartmentalizing life and getting through all the rough parts without an excess of pain.  It’s another defense.  Who doesn’t daydream in unpleasant and boring situations?  Furthermore, the inner life is where the outer life is interpreted.  It is in the inner realm where patterns are seen and truth is discovered.  If dreams are a way for our minds to interpret, store, and clean up a day worth of overwhelming inputs, a fantasy life while awake can serve much the same function.)

-Lack of desire for sexual experiences with another person.

(Sexual experiences require lots of social skill and status.  Most importantly, it requires revealing oneself to someone who probably adheres to the conventional society.  Only criticism and censure could ensue.)

While a true excess of any of these traits could be construed as a disorder, I see many ways that a fairly normal introverted person could receive a disorder diagnosis.  Rather than truly being emotionally cold or lacking desire to be with other human beings, such an individual could be easily misunderstood, their actions misinterpreted.  I can’t help but notice that solitary activities are a criteria for disorder without any concern for

why the activities are being pursued solitarily or

why there are few friends or sexual relationships.

why there is an unusual reliance on defense mechanisms, emotional detachment, or fantasy just to get through a day

Upon examination it starts seeming less like a mental problem and more like a way of singling out social misfits.

In fact, the social history of an introvert can often be characterized as a long history of misdiagnosis and being singled out.  Many people I’ve encountered in life have assumed the worst about me at every turn.  So much so that I expect it out of people and have to go out of my way to be extra polite and carefully avoid conflict.  I find the schizoid definitions to be an organized list of ways extroverts have misunderstood and then reacted.

I Hate Cold Calling

For an introvert few tasks can be as daunting and titanic as making a cold call.  The very idea of disturbing an unseen stranger over the telephone fills us with anxiety.

-We wouldn’t want to be called by an unseen stranger who just wants something from us.  Why would someone else want to be?  Any ensuing conversation is bound to be an awkward exchange between two people who really don’t want to talk, but are compelled by some overriding necessity.  The tension is bound to be palpable.  This type of interaction is about as pleasant as nails screeching across a chalkboard.

-If only we could do it over the internet somehow without having to talk with anyone!

-We tend to put it off to the last possible moment.  Almost better to wait until the progression of events makes phone calls a moot point.  A mild loss incurred by doing so is probably worth it.  For important calls, I used to spend a few minutes just staring at the number pad before being able to spiritually prepare myself for dialing that number.  I would even have a few false starts dialing before I got through the whole number.

-There’s that horrible pause before it starts ringing, then the ringing starts.  Secretly we hope for every successive ring hoping that no one will answer.  If no one answers, we curse our luck that we couldn’t have just gotten it over with.

-It takes a lot of will power to make each subsequent attempt.  Like lancing a boil, the longer we wait, the more attempts, the more unpleasant it becomes.  The more unpleasant it becomes, the more will it takes to make another attempt.

-Even when we’ve made the call and someone answers, we’re too upset and nervous about infringing on someone else to really push them and demand their services and time in full.  Thus, a rep who’s used to dealing with assertive extroverts senses they can spend a bare minimum of time on us and quickly gets us off the line.  We end up not really accomplishing what we set out to do anyway!  At best we accomplish the bare minimum before we can end the unpleasantness and get off the line.

-An extrovert comes by and asks about the results of the phone call.  Their brow creases in confusion at our account of the conversation.  They respond:

“Why didn’t you ask this question?”

“Or this question?”

“Why didn’t you get a more detailed answer so we can be absolutely sure?”

“Why didn’t you push them until they gave in by doing this?”

“Why didn’t you make the call earlier?”/”Why did you just get around to making the call now?”

“Why don’t you call again?”

There’s a leaden feeling in the stomach.  All that effort and anxiety and it wasn’t nearly enough.  Why even bother.

I’ve gotten a lot better over the years out of necessity.  It’s no longer a trial by fire and I no longer have to deal with lots of anxiety but it’s still not exactly my favorite activity.  I still always check for any way around making a cold call if it can be avoided.  Therein lies my problem.  I see cold calling as a last resort.  An extrovert sees cold calling and taking up time on the line as their first choice.

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