jr conlin's ink stained banana

i'm an introvert.

Right now, any number of folks that know me are probably laughing. Wait, me? The guy that tells jokes at the drop of a hat? the guy that has no problem getting into a discussion with anyone? who has a freaking blog he posts to nearly every day? the guy that works for the Evangelist group? An Introvert!?

Well, yeah. i am.

My brother is the outgoing one having no problem being in the spotlight and standing up. Heck, he was in sports, theater, frats… Heck, he even appeared on 60 minutes without being part of a perp-walk before-hand.

Me… well… not so much. i'll do it, (well, not the 60 minutes/perp-walk bit) mostly because i realized that the society we live in doesn't reward keeping to one's self, but i'm not going to jump at any opportunity.

So, why am i bringing this up? Partly because i found myself constantly agreeing with this article. There's a lot of truth to that, particularly the "recharge" and "hating small talk" bits. Well, not "smalltalk", more "so, how's about them Mets?" kinda stuff. For what it's worth, i love talking with a guy about a canister light he was building from scratch than the subtleties of the last episode of Survivor.

There was also something else i realized, it's the counter part to the anonymous internet fuckwad theory. When i'm on the computer being part of the great on-line social experiment, i'm not in a crowd. It's me, at my desk. It's not so much that i'm anonymous as you are. i can be constantly embarrassed or nervous around you and you'll never know. i don't have to worry about my posture, or speaking clearly, or my appearance because, well, you'll never see that.

For an introvert, it's really quite liberating.

Now, if only i can figure out some way to do the same thing for expos and booth duty…