Most people I meet dread the passing of time and aging.  I feel the passing of every day to be a gift, especially if it passed without too much trouble.  I will see having a white head of hair as accomplishment because I have a feeling of good fortune and privilege to make it even as far as I have.   My life has rarely been in serious physical danger, yet I feel I’ve had to claw every inch of the way out of stone.  I feel I’ve already been alive nearly forever yet most others consider me to be quite young.

This sort of mentality, this subsistence of the soul is an attitude that utterly baffles most people I encounter.  Rather, they find my actions strange because they know nothing of the code by which I act.   How would one even begin to explain face to face in a way that really made sense?  Would one want to if one could?

Do I really want to explain that every grain of rice, every red cent is another precious second of my life won from the birth society’s capricious standards and demands?

That I still make the most out of every grain of rice as I had to with every good feeling and happy moment?

That cultivating such reverence produces the sort of emotional rewards that make life worth living?

Though it could be tough to hold myself together in the worst times, I would find myself inspired to joy by things people around me didn’t even seem to notice.

Living with a lean soul has had its advantages.  I find I require far less than others around me to be content with life and therefore there are less things I fear losing.  I have an ongoing relationship with death in my everyday life while others postpone the very thought of it until telltale signs of aging can no longer be ignored or covered up with denial.

Most importantly, living by subsistence of the soul has the potential to teach one: fulfillment when distilled to its quintessence has very little to do with pleasure.

Years later during the deep black states of mind of my teen years, I learned that by doing something intimate and intricate with my surrounding environment could revive me.

Once as I high school junior, I was crushingly depressed and lonely.  It was a depressingly sunny cheerful day near the end of the school year when everyone else seemed so happy and unified.

I turned my attention as I had done since childhood to the leaves and branches of various shrubs.  I knew well how to search.  I soon noticed small bumps that I instantly recognized as plant galls.  Plant galls, I well knew were the nurseries of the larva of tiny parasitic wasps.

I broke off some galls and snuck into the biology lab.  No one was there but me.

I delicately cut open the galls and extracted the larvae for viewing under the microscope.

My state of mind was much improved when I was done.

Something, any small thing that makes you appreciate the enormous intricate beauty of our universe will save you.

Any small thing at all will work.  Sometimes all I had to do to ground myself was simply to stop and watch the afternoon shadows of swaying tree branches, a single autumn leaf drift all the way from its branch to the ground, a ray of sunlight suddenly shoot through a high window as the sun rose just the tiniest bit higher.  The key is shifting one’s attention from the social plane and becoming aware of the vast, chaotic extra-social reality that surrounds us.  Eventually that outer Void becomes home.

I look back on twelve years of schooling and can’t think of much beyond basic literacy that was truly important in the long run.  Even with literacy, my first reading lessons took place at home, not in school.  Classes at school did teach me useful things.  A lot of the classwork that was boring for other kids was pure fun for me.  Yet did it really need to consume 12 years of my life?  By the time we’re 18, the better part of our youth is irremediably spent on years of school.  Yes, humans have higher life expectancies now but the fact is we start our slide into aging soon after we hit biological adulthood.  With schooling, we get barely a decade to be active in the world at our peak.  People in past generations generally had begun adult-level activities by their early teens or even younger.  Now a college graduate at age 21 is only beginning to be functional in the adult world.  Is our increased life expectancy nearly as great when we have nearly a decade less in which to do things?

What is it all for?  One obvious purpose is the simple containment of youth who would otherwise be roaming around the streets all day.  With child labor laws, there’s nothing better to do than lock them up.   The result is a strange combination of minimum security prison and daycare.  It just doesn’t make much sense to the Subtle understanding.  To really ‘get’ the spirit of school it is most illuminating to examine the extroverted view and justification.

Every well-adjusted person I’ve talked to gives me the same message when I dare criticize compulsory education and public schooling.  “But it’s for socialization!”  Having tipped my ideological hand more than was wise, I end up with an earful of reminiscences about fun extra-curricular activities.  This always confounds me.  Whatever happened to the 7 hours a day sitting at a desk doing nothing?  That wasn’t fun!  It wasn’t particularly social either.

When I express desire for there to be some alternative from regular schooling, I get a blank stare for a second or two followed by “Your kid wouldn’t be able to develop properly.  He/she would be lonely and cut off.”  Every time I hear this ubiquitous answer, I pause for a few seconds before finding a way to just change the subject.

As an introvert in the system, I felt lonely and cut off.  I didn’t fit into the school society at all.  I was non-socialized in school.  I can pass as mostly normal now, but when I first graduated high school, I still had the social skills of a small child.  I’ve spent the last several years learning everything from scratch and I’m finally feeling as though I’m somewhat caught up.  I’ve been through several halfway houses, but I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m establishing a life for the first time after a long prison sentence.  I spent a good portion of that time, especially the later years in something akin to solitary confinement.

It took me a long time to figure out why extroverts assign such importance to collective schooling.  Every well-adjusted person seems to understand the reasons on some intuitive level but lack the ability to analyze their beliefs and articulate them.  I will do my best to translate the idea of ‘Socialization’ into Subtle-ese.

I gather that extroverts value schooling primarily for its ability to imbue millions of children with a common formative experience so that they may smoothly interrelate as adults.

This ability to relate to others is like being able to speak the same language.  It is one of the most critical things we’re supposed to learn.  It’s the base of belonging we need to be able to establish romantic relationships and find careers.  In Subtle terms, I suppose we could consider compulsory schools as a massive network of commonality factories.  In the Surface world, these factories are not idle or pointless, they are busily producing vitally important social commodities.

I think the idea of social adjustment helps explain why nerds are portrayed in popular culture as morally stunted, silly, contemptible, short-sighted, petty people who have missed everything that is really important in life.  The nerds were focusing on all the wrong things in school and they serve as  symbols of everything one should not become.  They are representative of defective units that were never properly calibrated despite the best efforts of the factory workers.  In the movies, nerds are rather unsympathetic characters because they usually rudely reject the efforts of well-adjusted people to save them.  The overall thesis:  social adjustment is open to everyone, but there will always be a few who insist on being self-destructive.

The truth that they never realize is that most people don’t ask for a clash with the system.  Some people are going to have the wrong configuration as they roll down the assembly line.  The standardized parts that seem to fit with most other people just don’t apply.  The true introvert frame reaches the end of the assembly line not only bare of all the necessary components, but dented and bent from going through a long series of incompatible processes.

When I tell a regular person that “School was awful.”  I am often met with agreement.  If the conversation goes on, it becomes clear that most of the perceived awfulness for the Surface person stemmed from completely different problems.  They don’t complain about homework or classes usually.  They talk about all their human relationships and ultimately how it was a time for social learning and tough lessons in human interaction.  From the way they talk about it, it doesn’t sound like it was awful at all.  Most of the time it seems they were having fun, but it got bad for awhile whenever  some conflict arose.  When I realized that this is their definition of  ‘awful’ it was clear there could be no bridging the gap.  In moments like that, it becomes clear we don’t even speak mutually intelligible languages and that we’ve lived our lives in separate universes.  I have difficulty explaining my experience precisely because I was never properly adjusted.

I would be bold enough to suggest however, that true introverts live in a social ghetto.   We don’t fit in and are forced to live as misfits and outsiders on the margins.  Most extroverts barely even seem to realize that we exist.  We are pushed aside into a separate ‘neighborhood’ where we live out an isolated existence.  Our state of existence is one of social poverty.

Growing up and even into college, I had to fight off resentment whenever extroverts complained about relationships and other forms of social connection I hadn’t even the luxury of aspiring to.   I understood that these people lived in another universe and that there was no way I could hope to make them understand that I had truly lived most of my life at the bare subsistence level.  Even if I could explain my situation to the other person, the response might be bewildered pity or possibly even contempt, but never understanding.  Part of the torture is that I couldn’t even really talk to anyone about my situation.

Over years, a lot of my energy had been focused on merely surviving.  It makes long term planning very difficult for me to this day.  Not long ago, I was bewildered whenever someone asked me questions about marriage, or having children.  That was all so distant as to be completely off my map.  The asker, usually a girl, would see my deer in the headlights look and conclude I was weird or just stupid.  To me, stable social relationships and settling down was a thing that the Accepted liked to talk about.  It had no relevance at all to my life.

Every encounter I had with normal people became akin to a clash of understanding and values sooner or later.  Usually sooner.  Our expectations of life were on different planets.  They were counting on a comfortable life and a family.  I was hoping for survival.  I could very well be in the same economic bracket as the person to whom I was talking yet clearly I was in some way impoverished.  Truly I lived in another place altogether from these normal people, a social ghetto of sorts.

On the internet, I’ve been discovering more and more people who grew up in the same neighborhood that I did and I’m enjoying it very much.

As a final note:

The first ghetto, Il Ghetto, was not an economic ghetto.  It was a holding area in the city of Venice where all the Jews in town were forced to live.  These Jews were often quite economically wealthy, but their social unbelonging led them to experience another, equally oppressive form of poverty.

-Acknowledges and reinforces the larger society’s belief that introversion is a mental sickness.

-Reinforces a lifetime of having to conceal one’s true self.

-Reduces one to lying for one’s own selfish purposes. Forces one into a lifestyle of operating under false pretexts and diminishes one’s character.

-Consumes huge amounts of time and money. Becomes a distraction from the acquisition of knowledge, the sharpening of the intellect, from every other pleasure life has to offer.

Every time I was faced with the dating scene and how I would have to lie, lie, lie to get anywhere, I thought of how devoting myself to such a toxic environment would diminish me and force me to deny myself. I never could bring myself to truly devote myself. Yet, like most men, I was unwilling to live a life of celibacy. I had my needs, the unfulfillment of which proved another annoying distraction in my life. There had to be another solution. A solution that consumed a minimum of time and resources while being as ethical as possible. Mainstream persons might be shocked at the answer that occurred to me:

prostitution.

Perhaps the main appeal was simply the stark honesty in it.

-There is no lying or misunderstanding. Both parties are absolutely clear in their intent and motives. There is no possibility of misleading or deceiving someone. One need not stoop to becoming a deceiver.

-There is no need to act like someone else or hide one’s own personality. One need not suffer the indignity of denying oneself in order to get the prize carrot at the end of the stick.

-The cost of a prostitute is usually going to be less than the cost of dating.

-The cost in time of a prostitute is always going to be much less.

-Once again, honesty to oneself and to others. Unless a man feels genuine affection and affinity for a girl he mostly wants just one thing. Lots of men on the dating scene have to lie to themselves about this, but it’s the truth.

I was already in my twenties and still hadn’t lost my virginity. My body had lusted ceaselessly since my earliest teens. After a decade of eternal unfulfillment, I’d had enough. I needed sex, but I was both unwilling and unable to trick a girl into doing the deed with me. What I needed above all, even as much as intimate physical contact, was to have the knowledge of what sex was actually like. All I had to go on was the obviously distorted images of it in hollywood movies and TV shows. To lose my virginity was to engage in exploration, same as reading a book on a new subject. It was also to attain another degree of separation from my birth society. I needed my own definition of sex in my head apart from all the televised nonsense.

I finally got my chance in Amsterdam’s red light district while travelling across Europe. It is illegal for the prostitutes there to have pimps, most I’m told are independent agents just making money for themselves. They are just like any other self-employed people under the law of their country and can get themselves checked for diseases whenever they like. I chose this place in particular because I wanted to reduce my risk and be sure I was going to be with someone who was in the business by her own choice. The experience was very satisfying but it didn’t feel extraordinary at all. Yet, I felt as though I had been cheated all my life of something integral to human existence. It felt like one of those normal pleasures that ought to be daily and routine like eating a good meal or taking a good dump. It was just as natural as eating. In fact, I best enjoyed it on an empty stomach and then I’d go eat at a restaurant with that pleasant buzz still in my body. The experience confirmed what I had already known. The hype in pop-culture is completely undeserved and it exists because of the simple fact that sex makes money. It makes money because it is so hard to find a desirable partner in real life. People tend to want what they can’t have, even if it’s not deserving of such intense desire.

I am aware that what I did would be considered by most people to be ‘sleazy’ at best.   Some of my friends were horrified when I admitted what I had done(they asked). However, I still understand what I did to be the most ethical solution and that is why I’m writing about it today. The majority culture in English speaking countries strongly disapproves of prostitution. Yet the same culture is perfectly OK with men who just want sex deceiving women who are searching for long term relationships.  It seems rather warped to me. Just another indictment of my silly birth culture. Just another reason to turn away from the accepted orthodoxy. For the most part, people aren’t trying to be ethical. They’re just mindlessly following whatever they were taught and reacting to the values of the majority of others so they don’t get crushed.

In any case, I benefited greatly from my experiment. The experience helped put things into perspective that my birth culture had distorted. I had known intellectually that women, like men were creatures of flesh and blood but until I educated myself, I had not known this truth on the visceral level. After this experience, women had far less power over me. As a result, women were far more attracted to me.

I hadn’t the luxury of thinking about fine cuisine until I had escaped famine conditions.  Once I knew I had some potential outlet for basic sex, I could turn my mind to the possibility of actually building a relationship with a woman for the first time in my life. Because I had an appreciation of just how ordinary sex is, I was able to pursue my private studies without any doubts that I was indeed missing out on something unfathomably great. I was more focused in my solitude than ever before and more content. I could finally look on all the extroverts who always seem to pair up with ease without any particular envy or insecurity. All because of a few nights not very good sex.

And when I say not very good, I mean it. You can pick any girl you want, but I have to warn prospective johns. She will try to do as little as she can for as much money as possible. You should haggle over the price and be 100% sure that it is mutually understood what you’ve agreed to do together. It’s not very good sex because one must constantly be on guard against being cheated. Also because a guy has a strict time limit to finish up. Knowing that the clock is ticking doesn’t make for the most relaxing of sessions. It’s not very good sex, but it is sex and with whoever you want.

And something that goes for anywhere in the world: DON’T USE STREETWALKERS. Most of them are under the control of pimps, might even be sex slaves, might be trying to fuel a drug addiction or all of the above. They’re also one of the best ways in the world to catch a disease.

While in a puritanical English speaking country, the best bet is undoubtedly to call up escorts and gradually find out which ones work out best.

A very important thing to know: If you are a virgin, don’t EVER tell them that you are a virgin. It’s the equivalent of going to a car dealership and telling them you’ve never bought a car before. If she knows you don’t know anything, she will use every trick in the book to quickly separate you and your money. If she thinks she can get away with it, she might even try to extort you once you’re too far along to easily stop. These ladies are not the victims they’re portrayed as in the movies. They’re tough and they’ve seen it all. They are quick to manipulate and intimidate when they think it will get them somewhere. The john and hooker relationship is not one-sided and it’s more complicated than moral puritans realize.

The bottom line: take all the cautionary measures you would if you were making any other purchase. This is business and male introverts who remember this will get the basics of what they need, what has always been impossible to get within the hostile confines of their birth society.

Most important of all:

Ability to satisfy the basic male need for sex without being forced to subjugate oneself to the standards of the accepted orthodoxy.  Sex no matter how uncool one’s hobbies are or how divergent one’s personality and interests.  Sex without having to spend months learning courtship procedures all the other guys learned as a part of basic socialization.   For introvert men, this means removal of the last great means of leverage society still has on their lives.  It is a form of emancipation; the ability to simply bypass all the usual onerous steps and get to the truth and purpose of the matter.

Women tend to be  more socially oriented than men and this can be a huge obstacle for the least social of men who are also the least social human beings.

Relating to women is difficult because the highly social ‘girly girl’ is the polar opposite of a Subtle man.  She is a creature of brightness, daylight, and fleeting passions while the Subtle man loves the safety of shadow, anonymity, and long term devotion.

If we envision a visible human spectrum, we could suppose we could find extremes in the infrared and ultraviolet.   The most socially grounded females in the ultraviolet range, the least socially grounded men in the infrared.   Ultraviolet females are a challenging personality for even the most social men when it comes to sustaining relationships, but their tendencies often seem to actually facilitate finding relationships in the first place.  While there is most definitely intense competition amongst females, getting cut out of the gene pool entirely by competitors isn’t a huge concern like it is for men.  An infrared male on the other hand has a huge disadvantage without any section of the female population to match his temperament.  He lacks an asset, an edge possessed by all other males.

It is thus easy for an introvert man to come to the conclusion that he hasn’t the slightest thing in common with women and has very little place for them in his life.

On the other hand, a Subtle man is still a man.  One of his strongest instincts is to desire a woman in his life.  A life without sex and physical affection is difficult and lonely.

When it comes to girls, he is torn between the anger seeping from his lifetime of emotional scar tissue and his annoyingly unkillable hope for intimacy, love, and acceptance.

Thus we have the Girl Conundrum that is the torment of introverted guys everywhere.

Solution #1 – PUA

Many introvert men notice that they have never had success with women and they decide they need to change.  Who do they need to become?  The pickup artists who can seduce girls whenever they want, of course.  The PUA community promises access to what was inaccessible, power instead of helplessness, and even vengeance intead of being trampled underfoot.  All these together form an irresistible formula and indeed many gurus of pickup claim to have once been average frustrated guys with no ‘game.’   Indeed, many outcasts find a home in this place.  This community has lots of philosophy and insight about human nature.  It’s an exciting, stimulating place to be for bright, outcast men.  There’s nothing to lose and no reason not to take as much from women as possible.  After all, every introvert man has seen numerous times from his low ranking position how awfully, how truly condescendingly girls treat anyone they consider beneath them.  He has no reason to offer any mercy or concessions.  He would rather just be himself, but her unfortunately outdated packet of instincts precludes honesty.   Against a lifetime of isolation and struggling for survival at the very bottom, the realpolitik philosophy of pickup makes sense.

Unfortunately it still doesn’t resolve the Girl Conundrum.  Provided someone gets somewhere with PUA tactics, that’s definitely an improvement over isolation, but all the same issues remain.   Reducing women down to a packet of instincts hardly fosters respect for them and yet he still has that desire for love and acceptance with a woman he respects and trusts.  His desires remain in contradiction.  Some introverted guys understandably relegate ‘loving relationships’ to the trash heap of other outright lies and unhelpful advice they’ve been given all their lives.  Their anger is strong, but they would love nothing better than to learn that they’re mistaken.  They remain torn between hate and hope.

I never got into the pickup community, but I definitely read some PUA works and benefited from them.   For some people it takes the almost mechanical pragmatism of these books to awake from the reigning politically correct gender feminist garbage.  It’s potentially a step in the right direction.   Two out of four stars.

Solution #2 – MRA

I didn’t know these guys existed until I looked for them on the internet.  A few years ago, I’d just returned from a foreign country where the girls had been much nicer and I was experiencing severe reverse culture shock in my home country.  Surely someone had noticed that girls here were impossible!  I entered search terms into google, probing for anyone out there who might have had the same thoughts.  To my surprise there was a lively community of men who are tired of the contempt and disrespect that men regularly receive from women and the feminist establishment.  Unsurprisingly, a good portion of these men seem to be introverts, who have seen mostly the very worst of the opposite sex.

For me, MRA writings have done more than any other source to get rid of cultural baggage and put maleness in its proper perspective.  They have a broad focus and explain methodically with statistics how gender relations work in aggregate across entire societies.  The system revealed by their analysis is one of stark injustice that stems from both the facts of biology and social expectations.  MRA writers like to patiently and systematically point out all the ways that women are in fact privileged.  One comes away from such reading with higher confidence and with lesser need to put women on a pedestal.  However, this literature doesn’t endear women to the reader or bring one much closer to a loving relationship.  Girl conundrum unsolved.  Yet it is vital in teaching men how not to be exploited by the opposite sex.  MRA writers provide a plan for independence from women, an end result they persuasively argue will benefit both sexes.  This is not the solution to the problem, but it is most definitely a gateway and enabler.  Four out of four stars.

Solution #3 – Use A Prostitute

Continued in the next post…

If looking for true friends, watch closely for people who:
-avoid the party scene
-spend more time in their dorm room than out of it
-bear the marks of eccentricity when you talk to them (unusual mannerisms or word choice)
-are quiet and go out of their way to appear very ordinary, who would escape your notice if you weren’t watching for them.
-aren’t very expressive when you first meet them.
-always keep their drapes/blinds shut

These are hallmarks of someone who might be living under the surface.
Of the candidates you find, a couple might be what you’re looking for. College is ruled by extroverts. True introvert friends, unfortunately, are hard to find.

One way I check for people with compatible interests is to make a joke or in reference about something only someone who spends lots of time around books will know. Social people shrug it off as nonsense and soon forget. The right sort of person gets it and responds at once. It is a means of broadcasting.

When someone asks a series of questions, what you learn from one question leads to the next question. So be truthful, but brief; snappy, yet vague. Just neglect to give them anything that would allow them to continue inquiring.
I needn’t be the whole truth. The answers only need be something that can be construed as true.

The key is that short, vague, honest answers are boring answers. Most extroverts assume that someone who gives a boring first impression is in fact boring. 90% of them will leave you alone if you can convince them you are socially acceptable but boring.
The main thing is to stop the questioning quickly. Once they start asking detailed questions about the latest pop stars, tv shows, fashion trends, sports cars, and athletes, the game’s up.
Once they start giving you stories about their favorite experiences at night clubs and other social venues, they will start to notice that you aren’t responding with your own equally thrilling anecdotes.
At some point they pause in between their sentences and say “Wow, you’re really quiet.”

Unfortunately, there’s the 10% of truly Loud people who don’t go away no matter how uniform you can make yourself. Worst of all, there’s authority figures and important people to whom you can’t afford to give any kind of bad impression.

When a Loud person with power over your life or your job starts asking ‘friendly’ questions, the unmitigated truth could be devastating. Boring answers could cost you their good graces. There’s no easy way out of this one, which is just one reason why introverts aren’t usually going to rise to the top in an organization. It takes the touch of a social expert to figure out what the lead extrovert wants to hear and how he or she wants to hear it.

Extroverts are very, very good at what they do. Competitive social interaction is what they have a talent for, what they’re passionate about, and what they put all of their time and energy into.
It is a daydream for many introverts to outmaneuver the Loud people who cause them so much trouble. However, this isn’t so far off from imagining climbing into a boxing ring with limited experience and beating up a professional. This is why it generally stays a daydream. Chances are, if we actually climb into that ring, that we’ll lose.

To succeed in throwing one’s weight around a different strategy is required.

Why didn’t we become experts in social interaction? In part because we have to devote all our time to be good at it. As introverts, we chose to focus on other skills and areas of knowledge.

Extroverts are extreme specialists. There’s one social setting or society that they have mastered through countless hours of practice. It’s the thing they do.
All an introvert has to do is change the game that’s being played and the extrovert is helpless.

One who is defined by society operates by strict parameters that they expect everyone else to share. So much so, that they find it discordant and jarring whenever basic assumptions or conventions are violated. Much of an introvert’s life is spent warding off extrovert knee jerk responses to unconventionality.
These knee jerk responses can also be taken advantage of because they are predictable.

Any given extrovert will try to take your measure according to their narrow concept of how someone should behave. It is amazingly easy to confound all their attempts to figure out your intentions. I hardly even have to try since I operate by very different motives and assumptions to begin with. By playing around a bit with what I choose to reveal or conceal, I can cause confusion. When someone is confused by me, it can give me a lot of room to maneuver. The response to confusion is often hostility. Hostility can be very useful if it causes the extrovert to ‘punish’ you by giving the silent treatment or by avoiding you altogether.
The person in question can’t be too important or long term. This tactic is best used to outmaneuver or neutralize someone who is temporarily in your life. It’s a smokescreen useful for keeping someone noisy and nosy off your back until you move on to the next thing. While they’re busily prevaricating trying to figure out what you’re up to, you do whatever it is you want.

For longer term involvements, it is wiser to play the Iago game. Extroverts expect people to wear their emotions on their sleeve. They make all their judgment calls by gauging emotions in others. It’s another predictable trait that can be exploited.
All my life, I have had to publicly conceal my true feelings and make active display of emotions I do not feel just to survive. Even when an extrovert greatly angers me, I know how to keep my displeasure under wraps. It doesn’t occur to most extroverts that someone who is angry would not assertively make their feelings known. Thus, an introvert has the advantages of secrecy and surprise. If desired, they can wage a war the that the other side isn’t even aware of.

The wise introvert can reap all the advantages of even the most abrasive extrovert’s social expertise while undercutting or sabotaging them when they inevitably get demanding and pushy. Just set them up with distractions or difficulties whenever needed. Stimulus begets reactions. Extroverts simply tend to respond before they stop to think things through. Their attention is easily diverted, even minor setbacks cause them lots of stress and eat up lots of their energy. If you’ve ever seen how an extrovert reacts to not being able to find a single misplaced item, imagine misplacing one of their belongings every time they were rude and aggressive. If they cannot be civil, simply keep them spinning on a hamster wheel somewhere until they are needed.

If there must be games, the most important thing is to not to play in the extroverted realm. That is a sure way to lose.
Better strategies are:

-Changing the rules
-Hiding the rules
-Obfuscation/distraction
-Hide intentions
-Hide the conflict itself so the other side takes all the punishment
-Be inconspicuous, don’t attract attention
-If one must engage, always do so in a place that is unfamiliar and disorienting to the extrovert. Extrovert social mastery only applies to the cultures and environments they know.

Perhaps these tactics sound manipulative or even a little evil? Not very sportsmanlike? Never forget that an extrovert will happily crush you and grind you into the floor in an open confrontation. They are professional fighters. They constrict, annoy, and oppress even when they’re trying to be nice. Introverts resort to alternate tactics because they’ve been left with no other choice. The objective is not retribution so much as it is simple survival. An introvert is happy if simply left alone. The extrovert on the other hand grabs for ever more power. At some point it is necessary to take self-defense measures or else be exterminated.
For an introvert, life can seem like war with everyone else and just making through a day often feels like a battle. If there must be war, personal autonomy must be preserved by any means necessary.
Fortunately, much conflict can be eliminated simply by living under the surface and doing whatever necessary to avoid attracting attention in the first place.
Avoidance is the best course of action
If that’s not possible, secrecy.
Never forget that if the conflict comes to light, society is on the extrovert’s side.

-Reduce social obligation and friction of association.

I must begin by explaining the difference of one’s room to the introvert and the extrovert.

For an extrovert, a room is a place to crash in between episodes of social activity. It’s just a tool required for basic rest and shelter.

For the introvert, one’s room is home, sanctuary, and all important private kingdom. One who is Subtle deals with a world that neither accepts nor understands their ways. The room is often the one place in the world where they can really feel safe and relaxed.

An extroverted roommate is one of the introverted person’s greatest fears: The fear that one who is grounded in the orthodox society brings that society with them into the room, effectively eliminating the last haven.

For an introvert, being forced to immerse in the hostile society even in their home is one of the greatest imaginable violations. I imagine that many an extrovert has found themself with an introverted roommate who was constantly surly, closed, and hostile, seemingly without reason.

Some intial steps:
-Keep your movies and music on headphones unless you’re both explicitly watching or listening to it.
-Don’t snap fingers, tap, clap, or slap your knees while listening to music/movies. These noisy antics are worse than second hand smoke.
-For phone calls, take the cell phone out in the hallway, and don’t talk loudly, especially to someone who’s not actually in the room. Extremely rude!
-Don’t make your room an entertaining center for groups of friends, especially not late at night or while all of you are drunk. If you wish for peace with an introvert, just bring in one or two friends at a time and don’t pursue any particularly loud or obtrusive activities. Asking permission, negotiating first will get you far. Actually, just showing respect by giving some form of advance notice is usually good enough.

This might seem like a lot to ask, but consider what all these situations have in common. By doing any of these things in the room, you are imposing your values and lifestyle on your roommate. You are deciding what your roommate will listen to, who they have to live with, and exactly when they have to do these things. You have decided that you are vested with the natural authority to make life decisions for your roommate! As far as an introvert is concerned, you might as well jump across the room, ransack their belongings, and piss all over their mattress.

If you persist with typical extrovert habits when you have an introverted roommate, you will needlessly make an enemy! An enemy who perceives that you have given up all rights to your personal living preferences and belongings. You will be accorded no respect because you never gave any. Your roommate will be watching for any weakness or means of forcing you out.

Your introverted roommate’s essential needs are very simple: one half of one room as their respected and safe domain. From the Subtle perspective, this is not only a reasonable demand, it seems cruel and miserly that someone who has the entire outside world on their side cannot be bothered to spare one 5×12 foot rectangle.

Other than that,
-Do not always give/expect greetings and farewells when leaving or arriving.
-Don’t impose your social expectations on your roommate.
-If in doubt whether it needs to be said, don’t say it.
-If you leave your roommate alone, your introverted roommate will happily reciprocate.
-IMPORTANT! DON’T disturb your introverted roomate if they are clearly concentrating on something unless it is very important.

Once you’ve shown basic respect, chances are, your Subtle roommate will grow comfortable and eventually actually approach you.
The key is that you cannot make control of the room into a social power struggle as extroverts naturally do. You have to respect your introvert roommate as an equal or no deal. Introverts operate according to tacit understandings and unseen contracts. What is most important does not need to be said because it is self evident from the nature of the situation.

Only when friction of association and social obligation are reduced to mutually acceptable levels are there grounds for friendly and harmonious co-existence.