let us discuss the first letter of myers-briggs types with regards to friendship. (those unfamiliar with m-b will catch on quickly; i'm swimming in shallow waters.) the general consensus about extroverts (or, "e's") v. introverts (or, "i's") in friendships is fairly simple:
1) extroverts have many friends, but their friendships are more cursory.
2) introverts have few friends, but their friendships are more, oh, in-depth. (a better word escapes me.)
let me propose a different theory, however:
1) extroverts have many friends, and while many of those friendships are superficial, many of them are quite, um, high-level. (perhaps an even worse word than "in-depth," and please do not interpret "high-level" how I know you want to.)
2) introverts have few friends, and they don't even necessarily have more “friendly” relationships (oh dear; now we're sounding more than vaguely sexual) than extroverts, because:
a) if an introvert has one best friend, that friend often consumes all the friendship time that our introvert wishes to allow to the outside world; our introvert doesn’t even really want another high-level friend. (marriage could easily be that one relationship for some.)
b) since they start with fewer friends, there’s less opportunity for introverts’ friends to “move up,” shall we say.
c) many introverts find themselves more interesting than the entrants in the potential high-level friend pool. (this is probably even more true for the intelligent/creative introvert, who can be quite picky regarding friends because of this reason; why spend time with someone duller than yourself?)
does the introvert care about the lack of high-level friends? (yes, i’ve decided on my hyphenated adjective.) it depends, i suppose, on which letters he or she uses as an explanation. agreeing with “b” or “c,” could go either way, but agreeing with “a” probably means our introvert has reached his or her “high-level friend limit.”
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
