Are You Introverted, Shy, or Both? Discover the Key Differences

Written By Caroline Smith

It’s a common misconception that introverted means you are automatically shy and scared of socializing with people, but those terms are actually not synonymous. You can be introverted and not shy at all, shy or anxious but not an introvert, or simultaneously shy and introverted which comes with its own set of issues.

This episode explores the key differences between introversion, shyness, and social anxiety, how to know which one you are, and how to overcome your fears of socializing if you happen to be both introverted and shy.

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Transcript:

Welcome to The Introverted Misfit Podcast with me, Caroline Smith, where we discuss topics related to the human experience of connection and communication with a slightly awkward, introverted twist.

In today’s podcast episode, we’ll explore the key differences between introversion and shyness or social anxiety, how to know which one you are, and how to overcome your fears of socializing if you happen to be both introverted and shy.

I want to start out with what may be a slightly controversial question: Are you actually an introvert, or are you shy or maybe even socially anxious while hiding behind the label of introverted?

It’s entirely possible to be simultaneously both, but as I find myself scrolling through my social media feeds looking at all of the introvert meme pages I follow, I notice that a lot of times, people will describe behavior that is indicative of a fear of socializing and sometimes hints of social awkwardness, but they are, in my opinion, falsely contributing those behaviors to that of an introvert.

It’s almost like they think, “Oh, I’m terrified of going outside and actually seeing a person and having to say a full sentence to a person, so I must me an introvert,” and as someone who is an introvert and who used to struggle with severe social anxiety and social awkwardness, those terms are not synonymous.

So how are they different?

Well, an introvert is someone who is more reserved and quiet, tends to be more introspective, and enjoys spending more time alone than with others.

Or if we do spend time with others, you can pretty much guarantee that is won’t be a lot of people and it won’t be an overstimulating environment.

And if it is very loud and overstimulating, we’ll start off strong by socializing with a few people until our social battery runs out, then we will find a corner somewhere, trying to get away from the crowd or find a fellow introvert that is also trying to remove themselves from the action.

We tend to communicate best in one-on-one interactions or with just a few people at a time, which allows us to create more meaningful connections.

It really is about quality over quantity for introverts. That’s not to say extroverts don’t desire quality over quantity in relationships, but because our interactions are so few and far between, it’s much more of a priority for us.

There are actually neurological differences in the way our brains are wired that makes us very different from more extroverted, outgoing people, and I go over those in detail in episode 2. The Valuable Role of Introverts in the Introvert-Extrovert Balance.

But the short form of it is that introverts and extroverts have differing dopamine reward systems that determine our preferences for either very quiet, peaceful activities, or very social activities.

That’s what an introvert is.

So how is being introverted different from being shy or having social anxiety?

A shy person is someone who is nervous or timid in the company of other people, and social anxiety, which is a little more severe than shyness, is a mental health condition in which the person has an irrational fear of interacting with others.

Quick side note: as someone who struggled with social anxiety for almost a decade because of being on the autism spectrum, I sort of disagree with the concept of social anxiety being called an “irrational” fear because I know for me and lots of other people who have lots of experience with past social rejection and bullying, the fear of people is completely rational and makes perfect sense, because we’ve been scarred by people so much that we don’t even trust them anymore.

It’s really our brains way of protecting us from what it views as a danger or a harm to us because of our past negative experiences.

But, I’ll save my personal story for a little later in this episode.

So the key differences to remember are that an introverted person prefers to not be around other people most of the times, and shy or socially anxious person is nervouse or even fearful of other people.

These are the type of people who are so scared to even look at a person out of fear that it will lead to a conversation.

They will go out in public and intentionally keep eye contact with the ground or the floor because they don’t even want to risk meeting a stranger’s eye.

Their heart starts beating faster when they see a person coming towards them.

It turns out that at the root of shyness and social anxiety is a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

I wrote an article on my website titled Why Am I Shy and Socially Awkward? which I will link to below, and in that article I include some scientific studies done on identical and non-identical twins about the origins of shyness.

And the findings in those studies suggest that genetic contributions account for the stability of shyness — or what they call “social inhibition” which sounds like an introvert if you ask me — from the ages of 6 to 12, and the individual environmental factors such as how school peers responded to them earlier in the school years account for the differing levels of shyness.

So basically, the bulk of shyness comes from a series of constant social rejection and/or bullying in addition to some genetic predispositions.

Now we at least know the differences, but what happens when you are both an introvert and you struggle with shyness and social anxiety?

This can be a much bigger cross to bear because on one hand, you are at peace when you are alone or with just a few trusted people, but when it is finally time for you to venture out and talk to people — whether it’s at school, work, or everyday situations like going to the grocery store — you can barely function because you’re not only operating from a place of introversion; you’re operating from a place of fear, self-doubt, and low self-confidence.

I do want to share with you some helpful ways you can start to overcome your shyness while connecting with you’re unique strengths as an introvert, but first I want to tell my own story about overcoming both social anxiety and social awkwardness as an introvert.

Because although my story might be a little different than your unique story, there are a lot of similarities I think you can relate to.

From what my parents have told me, I struggled with my social skills, communication, and emotional intelligence since I was about 6 years old.

All of the really basic behaviors that kids my age were learning and doing naturally, I just didn’t understand.

Things like how to walk up and start a conversation with a stranger, how to create and maintain a relationship of any kind (whether it was with a crush or a a potential friend), how to manage my facial expressions and eye contact in a conversation for more than a few seconds, how to read other people’s social cues and body language, and especially how to communicate my emotions.

I’ve got so many stories I could tell you just from my childhood and adolescent years alone.

I remember being on my high school JV tennis team in the 9th grade, and in this particular story I was playing a doubles match with my teammate in a competition.

I was at the net in this round, and I completely unintentionally hit the ball right into the opponent’s forehead.

I was really sorry about it and felt really guilty, and so I apologized by sayin, “I’m sorry.”

But what I didn’t realize at the time is that if you say those words without any urgency, vocal inflection, and change in facial expressions or body language, the apology can appear insincere and even sarcastic.

So naturally, she decided to hit me in the face on purpose the next go round, and very dryly mimicked my exact apology.

And like I said my apology was actually genuine, but I just didn’t realize that my delivery was all wrong, so she didn’t get that impression.

I also remember being around 16 years old, and going to a holiday party that my dad’s coworker was hosting, and as soon as we walked into the party and I saw just how many people there were talking and mingling, I immediately reached for my mom’s hand and basically didn’t leave her side the entire night.

That sounds like very strange behavior for most 16 year old girls, but I was just so overwhelmed at the thought of having to talk to people who I had never seen before, especially considering I already struggled so much in that area.

So pretty much from the ages of 6 to 24, I was sitting on the sidelines and watching people my own age instantly form connections with people without even trying, and what was even more upsetting for me — especially in college — was watching the girls my age interact and flirt with the boys.

I just remember thinking to myself, “How are they doing that? What is the magic formula that they just automatically know, and why can’t I figure it out when it looks so simple to them?”

I even remember walking up to a group of my female cross-country teammates in middle school at a practice one time and just directly asking them, “How do you talk to boys?” and of course they just laughed at me.

So now you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with me being an introvert.

Well during my junior year of high school, I get diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which is a neurological disorder that affects my ability to socialize and communicate in the way most other people do.

And it is a spectrum disorder, which means it looks different in each individual who has it, but basically the brain neural pathways that enable social and emotional communication are just not connected in the way that most people’s brains are.

So now you can imagine that all of my life experiences up until this point are starting to make a lot of sense to me and my family.

And looking back, I realized that my natural reaction to my innate social and emotional ineptness known as autism was to socially withdraw myself from the outside world, which in my mind makes me an introvert, because I had eventually figured out that it was a lot less stressful, overwhelming, and embarrassing to be by myself or with just one or two other people than it was to be with a lot of different people all at once.

The stakes are just way to high in groups of people.

So that’s the story of why I call myself an introvert.

Now how did I overcome those struggles, and how can you do the same without compromising your introverted personality?

It really comes down to three crucial concepts: 1). Getting to the root of the insecurities that are making you socially withdrawn, 2). Connecting with your strengths as an introvert, and 3). Not being afraid to try again.

  1. Getting to the root of the insecurities that are making you socially withdrawn.

    I strongly believe that at the root of many emotional and mental problems — like shyness, social anxiety, emotional withdrawal, etc. — is insecurity in oneself.

    The causes of those insecurities vary based on our individual differences and experiences, but most of the time they lead to a lack of confidence in yourself.

    Maybe you were bullied and rejected in school which made you believe that you are worthless and unlovable, which if that’s the case for you, you should listen to episode 5. When Being Bullied as a Kid Makes You an Emotionally Withdrawn Adult after this episode is over.

    Maybe you have a strained relationship with your parents that has broken something inside of you years or decades later.

    Whatever the reasons for your insecurities, I encourage you to work through those issues, and come to terms with the fact that sometimes bad things happen to us even though we didn’t deserve it, and we can’t change what happened in the past.

    This type of mental work is not an overnight process, but you just have to start somewhere, whether that’s with therapy, journaling, exercising, self-reflection, or time with family.

    I promise, once you do finally leave your insecurities behind, there really is no turning back.

  2. Connecting with your strengths as an introvert.

    You may not be an extroverted socialite who’s the life of the party, but you’ve got your own strengths you can leverage in your own quiet, reserved way.

    Those strengths are the power of quiet, the power of introspection/deep thought, and the power of one-on-one connection.

    For quiet people, all of the important work is happening underneath the surface in peace and quiet, both in our alone time and in the moments where we are just listening to someone.

    And when we are finally ready to talk, whether it’s just with one person or a few, it’s likely to be a very thoughtful and meaningful conversation.

    I’ve even been in situations where people are willing to listen to you even more, because they are not used to hearing you speak and they actually want to hear what you have to say.

    When you really think about it, that is nothing to scoff at.

    By harnessing those strengths, you can be a mover and a shaker in a lot of different ways, even if it’s not as loud and visible as the more extroverted behaviors.

  3. Not being afraid to try again.

    As we talked about earlier in this episode, the root of many mental and emotional problems is insecurity in something that makes us doubt ourselves, and we also talked about how to go about overcoming those insecurities.

    But the work doesn’t stop there.

    The final, and in my opinion that never-ending step, is to stop being afraid to try again.

    In the context of this topic, that includes not being afraid to try again at socializing, connecting with others, maintaining relationships, and being yourself.

    This point is one that really hits home with me, because although my issues with socializing are a lot more manageable when they have to be, there is always going to be that part of me that makes me a misfit of sorts.

    But, I refuse to let that keep me in a state of constant fear. So whatever your fears are, you can’t let those keep you from trying again.

    I once heard someone say that instead of looking at failure as something that didn’t succeed, we should reframe it as an experiment that just didn’t work, and so we’re just going to keep trying at it in a different way or from a different angle than last time.

    I think this issue calls for a reframing of that nature; instead of thinking as your past experiences with social rejection as you being a failure, think of them as a period in your life where something just wasn’t quite right, and now you have the power to try again with a slightly different mindset and strategy.

    Maybe back then, you were confined to socializing in a school settings with young people who weren’t necessarily a good fit for you, but now you have the freedom to try other places that are a better fit for you.

    Or maybe in the past you didn’t have the best social skills and were a little awkward (or maybe you still are a little awkward like I am), but now you’re not surrounded by people who are constantly set on picking at every little thing you do, so you can be a little more confident when you try to initiate conversations again.

    So, get out there, and keep trying every day, because every day that you’re alive is a new opportunity to be better than yesterday.

That’s all for today’s episode, but before you go I want to offer you my free guide to becoming a socially confident introvert, which I will link to in the description of this episode, and if you are an introverted woman who is looking for a more tailored and extensive help with becoming socially confident without having to act like an extrovert, you might enjoy enrolling in my self-paced online course, Communicate with Quiet Confidence, which I will also link to in the description.

If you enjoyed this talk, please don’t forget to hit the follow or subscribe button, leave a review and/or comment on whichever platform you’re watching on, and share this podcast with a friend. Thanks for listening, and have a great day!

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Caroline Smith

Caroline is the founder of The Introverted Misfit, a community committed to helping socially inept people become more socially confident in themselves.

https://theintrovertedmisfit.com
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