How to become more extroverted

Yeah, yeah, it's a "false dichotomy"

As an adolescent, socialising was not something that came naturally to me. I was physically and mentally awkward, easily embarrassed, introverted, and intensely depressed in a very private way.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I had enough social awareness (and pride) to know that being a total loser wasn’t an option. It was necessary to become – well, if not quite a social butterfly, at least a passable species of moth.

Here are the things I learnt that might be useful to others.

Copy people you admire

I suspect that one of the reasons autism is underdiagnosed in women is that women are, generally speaking, socialised to be gifted mimics. We learn from infancy to imitate the gestures, speech patterns, and vocabularies of those around us, so we can better smooth social transitions and put others at ease.

Illusionists and magicians do something similar when seeking to induce hypnosis, or lead subjects to certain specific conclusions.

This is because humans feel comfortable around those most similar to themselves. It’s normal for the less confident person in a social interaction to ape the behavioural patterns of their interlocutor – from crossing one’s arms to adopting a regional accent. We are saying: look, I am like you, approve of me. We might even find ourselves adopting expressions appropriate to characters of the book we’re reading, or borrowing idiosyncratic turns of phrase from friends.

This kind of social echolalia is unconscious in its advanced form. But to start with, you’ll want to do it consciously and on purpose. Pick your targets carefully, because imitating someone with your own problems or neuroses won’t make you better. But when you’re around someone who seems confident, at ease, and assertive in social situations, watch their behaviour – from their speech patterns to whom they’re looking at, from how they carry themselves to what kind of information they share (and don’t share) about themselves.

Don’t be a creep about it: if someone notices you’re copying them, you’ve gone too far. And don’t assume that something they’re granted social permission to do will be something you can get away with too, at least not at first. One of the crucial reasons that some people’s behaviour is perceived as “flirty” and the same behaviour in others is perceived as “creepy” is that the latter group often lack awareness of their own social role and status. By showing that you’re unaware of your own impact on others, you’re revealing that you’re happy to transgress social boundaries for your own gratification. This is a big red flag to most people. So take it slowly!

Get new friends

If you’re constantly exhausted after spending time around others, there’s usually more going on than straightforward introversion.

The first possibility is that your social group isn’t a good fit for you. You might not have much in common; you might have very different values or ways of seeing the world. You might just not gel. This is often the case if the majority of your socialising is done with colleagues or school friends, i.e. those you’re forced to see by circumstance.

Try socialising more with different groups. Not just different people, but different types of people: take up a weird hobby, or a contact sport, or whatever else best exposes you to people from your outgroup. Identify people from those environments that you vibe naturally with, i.e. around whom you don’t feel obliged to put on a persona. You’ll know because you spend less time thinking about what to say, and you’ll worry less about what they think of you (because you’re both busy enjoying yourselves). You’ll also be less tired after the interactions, and able to spend more time with them without using up your energy.

Hang out with those people more. Work out what they have in common, and try to find others like that. Turn them into your friends.

Know thyself

Obviously, if you don’t know what makes you happy, you won’t be able to find more of it. A lot of people are lonely just because they don’t realise that their friends aren’t the right group for them. They might never even have met people who are.

If you’re left with a strange sense of isolation or malaise after what should be fun evenings with those you’re close to, consider doing a quick evaluation of your friendships. It’s normal for people to change a lot in their 20s and 30s, not to mention teens, so it might well be that your best friends of yesteryear are no longer making you happy.

This doesn’t mean you should cut them off. It just means that you might want to think about forging some new bonds, perhaps with people whose lifestyles or attitudes more resemble your own.

As part of this, spend time trying to notice what makes you feel good and what makes you feel bad. This can be really hard if you’re used to squashing down your feelings (for your own convenience, to avoid being inconvenient, or for whatever other reason). It might take a long time, and the prospect might be scary: what if you realise that something really big in your life is wrong, and then have to change it?

The alternative is worse. The alternative is not realising that something really big in your life is wrong, and continuing to experience it indefinitely, growing more unaccountably miserable all the time.

Give yourself firm permission to experience feelings and then act on them. It’s a good idea to do this regularly.

Push the right boundaries

The chances are that you’re used to being stressed, overstimulated, and out of your comfort zone. “Try harder” isn’t good advice. But concentrating your effort on a couple of high-impact activities, instead of constantly dragging yourself to parties you won’t enjoy, is.

One of the best ways to overcome any form of social anxiety (which often, though not always, lies behind introversion) is by performing in some way. Improv, theatre, music, dance, debate – anything that involves putting yourself in front of a crowd, however small, is a very efficient way to stare down your demons. You don’t have to invite people you know. You don’t even have to be good. You just have to do it.

Stick with something performance-based until you can basically manage it without terror. Stage fright is normal, and happens even to the most habitual performers. But aim to move past the animal fear that makes you want to run.

It’s likely that some people will always be more introverted/extroverted than others. This is normal and good. But if you’re on the shy side and would like to change that, I hope some of this advice is useful. Let me know how it goes.