I’ve never been a fan of cities. New York and Los Angeles hold no fascination for me. Rome is historically interesting, but I wouldn’t ever want to actually go there. I’d rather spend some time in the Italian countryside somewhere, out of the way of the crowds and slowly learning Italian.

Or I could spend my time in suburban Utah. The hills don’t stay as green, and we have a lot of snow and cold and suchlike to deal with, but on the other hand I don’t have to learn Italian.

But cities spread, and they spread around those of us who moved here specifically to avoid them. It doesn’t seem fair. The biggest challenge facing us introverts is accepting the fact that we’re connected to all those other people all over the place; you know, the ones we’re being introverted from. Extroverts like us, because they like everybody, a fact we can’t quite make ourselves believe. But for them people are as necessary¹ as solitude is for us; they seek out people the way we seek out quiet places.

So cities spread, communities form. In our more rational moments we introverts can accept that community and civilization are important, we just don’t want them around here.

Then there are the even more conflicted introverts; the ones who need the city support system to provide them with quiet little coffee houses and public transportation and eclectic bookstores. Forever taunting themselves with the crowds of happy people that don’t include them, knowing (because all introverts are amazingly, painfully self-aware²) that the crowds probably aren’t judging them, that the only thing stopping the introvert from packing up his journal and latte and finding happiness in the company of other people is his own blasted self.

And there are those of us (like me) who enjoy time with people, but still need to make a quiet retreat into our own little world, where our thoughts are the only ones around and we can start to decompress, unwind, and come up with other metaphors for releasing stress after being stressed out in a fun (but tension causing) social setting.

People often talk about having an “introvert battery” or an “extrovert battery”, recharging by being with others or recharging by being alone. I think we probably all have both, but for some people one person a week charges their extrovert battery more than enough, and for others the introvert battery gets all the charge it needs when they spend a few hours asleep. I need a pretty solid dose of both social time and quiet time, but probably just a little more quiet time … which is part of why I’m a blogger instead of a city councilor. Or whatever it is more extroverted people do.