Introversion is awful enough as it is for anyone – but for a single person looking to get involved with someone, this can be torture. All of the talking, meeting friends and family, and general time spent with others can be overwhelming for those of us who do better in solitude. Here are the top 5 dating fails all introverts make:
Never knowing what to say.
Any and all text messages leave you uncertain of how to respond. They think the weather is nice? All you have to say back to that is, “Yeah, it is.” Romantic texts are even worse. What do you say when someone confesses how they feel? After leaving your phone sit for an hour, you come back to it equally as clueless as ever. Any signs of flirting leave you confused as hell. Communicating can be unbelievably complicated.
Emotions.
The never-ending battle of emotions plagues on for introverts. It leaves us totally uncomfortable, no matter what it is they’re talking about. Whenever bae starts to get all mushy, we immediately freeze up. What do you mean you like me? Can’t we just go back to assuming the feeling is mutual? You wouldn’t ever dare have the “what are we?” talk, because bringing up how you really feel about him is pushing the social envelope a little too far.
Meeting their parents.
This is totally unnerving for everyone, but especially for us introverts. Meeting his parents mean two pairs of eyes staring back at you, seemingly judging everything you do and say. Our minds are constantly bogged down with the situational. What if they think you eat weird and they’ll never be able to erase the memory of you struggling over dinner? Inevitably, your sentences will either be never-ending, or too short. You’ll probably come across angry and mean when you’re really just ungodly nervous.
Leaving the “Security Zone.”
Every person is different, especially when it comes to their security zone. Some people have a special coffee café they feel “safe” in, others have an art gallery. I have my kitchen table and getting me to leave it is highly unlikely. A guy has to be really special to get us introverts to, you know, get ready and face the outside world when we were more than happy reading with our coffee. Once you get us out, we will sit and wonder if we are hypothetically doing anything wrong, saying the wrong thing, or totally misunderstanding what he’s saying. Needless to say, we spend the whole date daydreaming of crawling back into bed.
Having to be social.
Being social is about the worst ever. Yet, this person is interested in you. All they want to do is talk and get to know you better, and for us introverts, this concept is completely and utterly daunting. They genuinely want to text you, make plans to see you, and *gasp* maybe even call you. Like they pick up the phone and you have to answer because you’ve been on Facebook all day so he knows you must be home. No longer can we hide behind our laptops; we must be brought out (sometimes literally) into the light and have real-time face to face conversations. And it’s terrifying.
Dating, for anyone, is a confusing maze of missteps and confusion, but for your everyday introvert, these simple social moments are filled with pure terror. The only real solution is to be patient with us as we feel our way into the dating game. We’re socially awkward and totally weird – but that’s exactly what you love about us.
Featured image via Lisa Fotios on Pexels
