Ambivert: someone with qualities of introversion and extroversion, finding comfort and energy in both social interaction and solitude depending on the situation.
Growing up with the internet, as my generation did, I should be comfortable with knowing when to make online announcements. I am anything but.
While certainly not a classic introvert, I know I am also not a full-blown extrovert. A cursory search reveals I am an ambivert, as is, in fact, a large proportion of the population. We enjoy our social situations and our share of the spotlight, but also need solo time to recharge, in roughly equal proportions.
I like to follow a rule of “one day on, one day off”, if I can, meaning for every after-work drinks, dinner out, or party, I give myself the same amount of down-time.
But how does this translate to our online lives?
Here, our proportions of “extro” and “intro” vert-ism may stretch and distort, and we may feel more comfortable giving more of ourselves, or retreating further into our social media hermit holes.
I have heard from more than one friend the joy of deleting Facebook, the feeling of freedom it gives.
However, for us living abroad, we do have a duty to keep far-flung family and friends up-to-date with our movements and whereabouts. Some sort of guide, schedule, or at least set of ideals to follow could be useful. So what is to be done?
Well, for a start, take your own ego out of the equation.
For a long time, I was loath to put any update on social media, thinking it would smack of vanity, and that people would either mock any post I made, or (the horror!) ignore it completely.
The good news was, this aversion was almost entirely in my head. The people who would actually appreciate seeing what you’re up to and which corner of China you’re in next Spring Festival are those who may not always ask; aunts, uncles, grandparents, old co-workers; who use Facebook but not Wechat. They are those who don’t get included in the picture dumps to close friends and family, but who do like to see what life in the Middle Kingdom is like. They are definitely those who would love to have the tea spilt to them on any new relationship you feel can be Facebook-hinted-at via a casual couple picture, if not Facebook-official yet.
As for anyone who would ignore your post, so what?How will you even know? It’s not the same as being ignored when actually making an announcement there and then. In this case, I would share your feeling of wanting to crawl into a hole and disappear. My issue with this, in my youth, had much more to do with my misplaced sense of self worth than it did with people’s day-to-day routines and the time they had available to interact online with people in their second or third degrees of separation.
If you still can’t shake the feeling that posting of your exploits and escapades is somehow vain and ungrateful, don’t try to cover it with sarcasm, like I once did. Living in London at the time, I’d seen a deluge of holiday posts with captions such as “#blessed”, “be rude not to”, and “could get used to this view”.
I was growing tired of the picture-perfect beaches of Greece and exquisite sunsets of Southeast Asia, and, if I’m being honest, a little envious.
So of course, being the mean-spirited bugger I was at the time, I took a picture of a particularly foul stretch of the River Wandle, adorned with someone’s abandoned shopping trolley and some turgid, backed-up run off. I threw it up on Facebook with the tags “#so blessed” and “#Londonliving”. I thought I was so clever.
So did over 50 of my Facebook friends, it turned out, as the likes came flooding in. Having never really been a social media poster, Instagrammer or TikTok user, this rush of approval was new to me. The dopamine hits were like fine wine.
But now when I look back at my Facebook as a record of where I was and what I was doing then, it appears I spent my time skulking around enormous supermarkets and photographing trash.
More importantly, I missed vital chances to share and connect with my wider network; the extended family members and previous colleagues who did care what I was doing but weren’t close enough to ask.
So, as an ambivert, as an “in betweener” who doesn’t feel comfortable over-posting and over-sharing, but who knows that it there is value in getting out of our hermit-hole, perhaps we best set ourselves a level of announcing with which we are comfortable. It doesn’t have to be a strict schedule, but it probably should be more than once a year, and it definitely shouldn’t be only when the devil of mockery inspires you to roast the enthusiastic holiday snappers.
