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50 Introverts Reveal The Incredible Lengths They’ve Gone To Avoid People
True introverts know that there's no limit to how far one will go avoiding people and any contact with them. This anti-social behavior may seem crazy to the outside world, but drastic times call for drastic measures.
As Charles Bukowski once famously said, "I don't hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around." Introverted people aren't scared of others - it's those shallow, uncomfortable little interactions we all tend to engage in that cause them to run and hide. We can't even blame them. Who actually likes making small talk with anyone rather than being alone? Besides, sometimes, you just need to be with your thoughts and not have Sheila from accounting interrupt them.
If you think introverts are lazy and unmotivated, you've never seen them maneuver out of a social environment situation. Scroll down to see all the proof about this personality type you need, and if you've got a major stealth tactic of your own, add it to our list at the end.
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My roommates decided to have a random study party, with like 20 people in our apartment that is only 800 sq feet. Because of the unexpected intrusion, I got into the router settings and throttled the internet to dial up era speeds. When my roommates were trying to figure out what was happening, I told them we simply had too many people splitting the bandwidth and in annoyance they all left for the library. Best eight hours of silence ever.
If someone is browsing a section of a shelf at a grocery where I need something from, I pretend to look at other stuff until they go away.
I swear though today I think I was waiting for someone to leave the canned soup section while they were waiting for me to leave the salsa section diagonally behind them.
I just took a new job where I basically interact with dogs all day instead of people. It is bliss.
A few summers ago, we had to replace the air vents in my house so my parents hired a few guys from an air conditioning company. To change all the air vents, the men had to go room to room so naturally, I thought I could avoid them by literally camping out in the closet which had no air vent so why would they even need to check? The closet in question was actually a teeny walk-in closet in my parent's room with a door that opens inward like a bedroom door. So I grabbed my pillow, 3DS, and a snack, and was ready to brave the long day in there.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think far enough about what to do if they did happen to come upon my hiding spot. I think I was in there for about an hour when I suddenly heard footsteps nearby and yep, they were opening the door. I never panicked so hard in my life because how do you even explain this to someone? “Hello, I didn’t want you to know I was here so I decided to make this closet my home."
So what did my panicked dumbass do to make it even more awkward? I started PUSHING back on the door to shut it and I can just imagine what this poor guy must have been thinking. He finally stopped pushing, knocked politely on a freaking closet door, and asked if there were any air vents in there. I could only squeak out a mortified no.
I do have social anxiety which makes me do some pretty stupid things, but I definitely learned my lesson that time to not avoid people. Or better yet, not be an idiot!
My grandfather has died like 15 times to get me out of social engagements. What a champ.
It's Saturday and my phone is on flight mode to avoid calls and text messages, the curtains are all drawn so it looks like I'm not home, and I'm going to watch movies all day. Sounds like my ideal day, really.
I had this office job for about 6 months where I didn't really like anyone I worked with, so every day for lunch I would go out to my car to pretend I was going out to get lunch, and instead drive to a nearby mall parking garage, park, and eat the lunch I'd packed for myself. I could've saved gas and time by just sitting by myself at one of the tables at work. But then someone might've tried to talk to me.
i sit in my car for lunch to avoid work people, im not the only one though
I remember one time, we had a door sales man at our front door me and my wife hide underneed the window we laid down on the floor. The man looked inside and saw us hiding there. He slowly walked away....
I volunteered for a position in another country where I don't speak the language so I could avoid conversations with my coworkers.
I didn't get up to use the restroom on a 12 hour flight because I didn't want to bother the guy next to me. Also didn't refuse the drinks they kept offering in fear of being rude. Some of the worst pain I've experienced..
Once I had two meetings scheduled at the same time. I called both, said I had to go to the other, and went to neither.
My roommate is very talkative. She'll talk at me for hours on end if I let her. Sometimes when I'm not in the mood for it, I'll hop in the car and drive until she goes to bed.
At least you can drive away. I live in NYC where this isnot an option
One time someone tried to small talk with me and I literally just said "I dont talk to people" and walked away
I was having a "bad day" with being a introvert, so I used one of those Grocery Delivery services, and texted the driver saying wasn't home at the moment and to just leave the stuff on the porch.
When I heard her drive up I literally stood in my hallway where I couldn't be seen from any windows and listened carefully.
I heard her come up to the door, knock, knock again, drop the bags and drive off. She sent a text that she had dropped the stuff off and I should hurry because some of it is perishable.
I opened the door and got my groceries.
That might be one of the lowest moments in my life. I still get pangs of shame whenever I think of it.
I call it "anti-stalking"; I'll make a note of a person's routine, times, dates, locations, and use this information to intentionally avoid them, lest I have to have... shudders small talk, or something.
At my favourite local cafe the barista greeted me by name and remembered my order. I stopped going there.
I moved to Japan because you don’t have to make small talk with strangers ever.
I went down the elevator with a colleague. We use the same subway line to get home, and I knew if we walked down together we'd also have to sit on the train together and make small talk for the next 45 minutes.
So at the building exit I said I had an errand to run, walked the opposite direction, and used a different subway line that added another 20 minutes to my commute. Worth it.
Picked up a girl at the bar once... I was 19 (didn't get carded) she was 26. Around 3AM I decided I want her gone. So I go around the house and set all the clocks forward to 630AM. I even went out to my truck and changed that clock. I woke her up and told her I had shit to do, it was morning. She was very confused, prob only slept about 30 mins.
I passed a f*cking bank on the way to her house... Big ass bright clock at 3am.
She was not happy.. never spoke again.
Leave the office through the back door to avoid saying bye to people
this is perfectly justifiable to me. it isn't so much the actual saying "bye" -- it's the ensuing interrogation about plans and weather and traffic and how's work going and blah blah blah. if one could literally only say "goodbye" and have that be the end of it, it would be so much better.
I was invited to a low key dinner thing at the local Chili’s with a group of people I tangentially knew. Like 20ish people I guess. Ended up sitting at a booth by myself across the way from the main table because I didn’t know anyone enough to really put up the effort into sit next to them. That, and searing social anxiety. So I ended up being the odd man out (very self fulfilling in retrospect). I ordered an iced tea, got super anxious and self-hating about the situation and worked myself up pretty good. Had a bit of an agoraphobic, world-closing-in-on-me moment. Made the split second and irreversible decision to bail out and I left the only bill I had in my wallet on the table because I didn’t want to have to wait another f*cking second for the waitress to show up and pay for my ~$1.50 drink. That waitress got a $99.50 tip.
Friends husband pulled a 'Homer disappearing backwards into the hedge gif' move when he was trimming the hedge and people came to visit. Doubly awkward cause they saw him do it and he just stayed in the hedge.
This was back in high school.
I woke up at 7AM on the day we had poetry recitation for Literature. I used to have extreme stage fright and didn't know how to act accordingly in front of an audience. So I came up with a game plan.
After getting showered and dressed for school, I purposefully threw myself down the flight of stairs, and pretended to get badly hurt, in order to avoid having to go to class. Ended up stayed in the hospital for a day.
3.5/10 would not recommend
All last fall, I took camping trips with my dog only. Just wanted to enjoy the quiet, meditate, hike, and read. If you've never done it, I really recommend it.
Ok, now camping with a dog is great fun. Not necessarily an introverted thing to do, just a really relaxing vacation style thing to do! Good thinking! My dog would love uninterrupted one on one time with me! lol
Put duct tape around the top and bottom of my dorm room door and taped over the peephole so no one could tell if my lights were on from inside the dorm
I was about fourteen, at my most awkward and gangly and antisocial.
It was fairly early in the morning, and I was in my room getting dressed. Suddenly I hear voices down the hallway. My dad had organized some guys to come in and install an air con system, and was showing them round before he left for work.
I was half dressed, in my underwear, and panicked.
A normal person would have, I don't know, called out that I was getting changed and asked them to wait?
I jumped, half naked, into my closet.
You can guess what happened next.
It happened to be that they needed to run pipes above the closet. My dad opened up the door and there they were, him and the three middle aged install guys all peering in at me cowering in horror in the corner.
I'm not sure if it was more mortifying for dad or me, though. He apologized and shut the door and just carried on like nothing had happened, as if his daughter usually hung out half-naked in closets.
The worst part was they were working in the house for about another three days. I literally climbed out my window each day after that to avoid seeing them.
Learned german. Don't wanna talk to that random stranger who trying to sell you something? Say a few lines of german and they'll go away.
Shit, I've dumped my half full basket on the floor and left for another store after seeing people I knew. It's one thing going through the initial small talk, but to keep bumping into them every aisle, that's too f*cking much.
That is one of life's awkward moments. See someone in you know if one aisle, say "Hi". See them in the next aisle..... what do you say this time? I just skip a couple of aisles, get ahead of them, then go back to those aisles at the end.
Pretended to have a second job in the evenings so I could avoid parties to stay home and play World of Warcraft.
Well you do earn a lot of gold if you spend at least enough time for a part time job, soooo.
We had a lot of cats in one of the houses I lived in when I was a kid. I think I was around 10. This was out in the country, with a single narrow road dividing a row of houses and a vast cornfield. We would get the very occasional solicitor. One particular time I do recall is when a couple modestly dressed older ladies with pamphlets were making their way down the row of houses, knocking on each door. Our door was an old wooden one with a rectangular window cut out at the top. I had seen them waddling across our yard, so I prepared myself. I grabbed the nearest cat and lifted it up to where its head was poking out the window. knock knock knock Held that cat up in the window as steadily as I could. Cat became wiggly, looking down at me and meowing while putting paws up on the glass and protesting whatever confusing thing was happening. knock knock knock Put cat 1 down and reloaded with cat 2. More wiggles, sniffs, confused paws, and meows. Knocking stopped. My reasoning was to make the ladies think we had some mutant cats with super long necks but regular sized cat heads and paws. Maybe they would picture a tiny cat head attached to a serpentine body with pairs of paws all down their neck. Maybe they thought it was a large octopus or squid-like creature whose great body filled the entire house and on the end of each tentacle was a cat head and a couple paws. Perhaps the creature was created by a mad scientist whose lab was in the crawlspace, and the only thing the creature could eat was old ladies and then used their pamphlets to pick their teeth afterward. So, instead of just avoiding the door, I guess I was weird enough to think I could scare them off so they wouldn’t come back. I have no idea what happened on the other side of the door. I wonder what their perspective looked like. How convincing it was.
My friend once texted she was on her way over with her boyfriend to pick up something they had asked to borrow. I panicked because her boyfriend is sweet but gregarious and intense and I wasn't feeling it. So naturally I moved my car from my driveway to the next street over and then hid in the spare rooms bed under a pile of blankets after texting her I wasn't home but to grab it anyways.
why didn't you just stay in the car on the other street? It just seems like it would be a lot easier.
Changed positions at work to a position where i make less money over all to avoid talking to guests
I gave birth to my baby at home, alone, with my toddler watching. I unexpectedly went into labor and even when I could feel the baby’s head, I just thought to call my husband and tell him to “please hurry!” The thought of having to call an ambulance and deal with people was too much.
EDIT: My first labor was induced and I felt no contractions. So with my second, when the pains came on, I swore it felt like I just had to go to the bathroom. I started timing the pain and the first 3 contractions went from 7 min, to 4 min, to 2 min apart. I thought there was no way I could be in active labor. Once I realized I was in labor, I did call my husband and ask him to come home from work, but I thought “Wow this is intense, but people labor like this for hours so I’m okay.” At no point was I ever in crippling pain. I just happened to be sitting on the toilet (again thinking I had to use the bathroom) when my water broke. I called my husband again to tell him he really needed to hurry now. I reached down to wipe my leg and that’s when I felt the baby’s head. I put the phone down, pushed twice, and my son was born. So yeah, I called my husband instead of an ambulance. Even after he was born I told my husband to just “hurry home!” My husband did call and ambulance for me and at that point we were transported to the hospital. The time from my water breaking to my son being born was 5 minutes.
I did not deliberately hurt my child. I would have much preferred to be at a hospital. I am introverted, but it has nothing to do with my ability to effectively parent my children. However, my family does tease me now that it is so like me to not call an ambulance for myself. I completely acknowledge that I should have called for help! But as another person stated, yes I as in pain and irrational.
Erased peoples names from my phone so that when they call all I see is an unknown number and since it's an unknown number I don't have to answer it.
Yeah, but people don't know about this, and their perception of your avoidance is the same as it was before you erased the names. In the end, the only one you're deceiving is yourself.
In college, I lived in a single on an all girls floor. The second and third floor were all boys. One morning, our maintenance man was cleaning the first floor girls only bathroom and I really had to poop. I’m an extremely shy pooper and never interacted with boys so there was no way I was going upstairs to either of the boys bathrooms.
I emptied out my garbage can, lined it with two plastic garbage bags and took a shit into the garbage can in the corner of my room.
I’ve scaled wet, steep and slippery rocks when hiking just to avoid small talk with the people on the actual path
* I take all of my breaks at work in my locked car
* I leave work Friday, go to the store for the next week shopping, go home, and stay in my room until Monday (bathroom is attached, will get food from kitchen but only if my roommate is gone)
* sometimes I shop out of town to prevent me from running into anyone I know
* Amazon is amazing
* occasionally uses headphones without music just so people won't talk to me
I'm sure there's more things I've done.. But those are basically daily things.
When I was in my early teens, I was just hanging out with my family in the garden/backyard as it was a nice sunny day. The doorbell rang and my parents went inside to go and answer it, from where we were you could faintly hear the voices of the people at the door. I didn't recognise the voices, so I went and stood in the shed at the back of our garden, out of view. The people at the door who I hadn't met before were friends of my parents. Anyway they all came into the garden and sat down, chatting. Meanwhile I'm still stood in the shed, just waiting for them to leave. I considered coming out of the shed, but the longer I stood there the more I realised how strange it would be if I just appeared randomly from the shed. So I just waited for them to leave. This was before smartphones, which I easily could have killed time on. So instead I just stared at the walls and read the back of paint tins. I think they were there for about an hour and a half, and I didn't leave the shed until they were gone.
I've done stuff like that. The internal conflict becomes unbearable!
I have been driving a mile to other gas stations for about a year now to avoid going to the 7/11 3 minutes away from my house walking distance because I don't want to make small talk with the cashier who works there.
I’ve left parties/hangouts where drugs or alcohol are involved (I mention it because it plays a key role in my excuse) and just say I went home to pass out or throw up. Really I just wanted to go spend alone time on the internet or playing league.
I like seeing people, but I can’t socialize with a big group for hours on end, exhausted after 30 minutes or so.
I once was walking through Hot Topic and I thought I saw an employee walking out of the back. Not want to have them ask me "how are you doing today?" or "can I help you find anything?" I ducked behind some clothes. Upon further investigation, I realized there was no door to the back. It was a mirror. I had seen my reflection out of the corner of my eye and ran away to avoid social interaction.
Yup, I’ve totally had that sinking feeling of another human approaching, just to realize it was a mirror.
Started cutting my own hair. Got real sick of making small talk, and paying the "you have a vagina" tax for my hair (it's shorter than most of the modern men's fashion cuts)
I would get grounded intentionally as a teenager so I would have a solid excuse and reason for not being able to hang out for a couple weeks while I recharged my batteries.
In school when I was having a “I don’t want to be in public anymore but I don’t want to ditch because I’ll get into trouble” Day I would find my favourite science teacher and ask if he could make arrangements for me to hide in one of the empty classrooms and study by myself rather than go to actual class.
I had people extremely concerned about how ill my daughter was. To the point of getting regular texts checking up on her.
She was my go to excuse to bail out on plans. I'd always say she was throwing up or something but I guess I did it too many times. That plan back fired sooo badly.
My old roommate was talkative and would fill empty air with endless chatter just to continue a conversation no one else was clearly interested in and actively not contributing to. He also talked only either about anime or inflate his own ego.
I started wearing headphones with music loud enough for people around to hear just so he physically could not speak with me.
Hide in my room for house and only left once the other people had left. Gone to the grocery store at 1am so that I didn't have to talk to anyone. Now these are me in extreme states. Although I'm introverted I'm also pretty social. Sometimes I just go through fazes where I just want to hide from the world.
Grocery shopping can be so torturous, sometimes I end up not getting half my list because too many times people are standing in front of what I want. I can only bother to ask so many strangers to move until I'm over it.
I sat in my car for a half-hour in ninety-something degree weather because I was too nervous to spend lunch in the work breakroom or sitting in a fast-food joint. My car didn't have air conditioning.
This is why I want a car.. I can't drive so have to eat around people
In my company almost everybody says hi! and good morning etc. everytime you pass someone down the hall, even though there are more than 300 people working here. I just smile and pass...
But I say hiiii!!! good morning, good evening and all those small niceties to all cats and dogs I see on the street. And with a genuine smile this time.
I like animals way more than people too, but you could still be having a good morning and a genuine smile to people without saying anything to them.
My husband host UFC nights at our house and unfortunately our bathroom is downstairs. I was dying for a wee so texted him to tell him he needed to get everyone outside so I could run down have a wee and get back upstairs without anyone seeing me.
He made everyone go out to the car to see if they could tell him what the strange sound was that was coming from my car. Strangely enough when they checked the car was silent.
Allow me to start this by telling you I am a healthy 70 yr old, but given to bouts of vertigo and when I fall, I break. My neighbors know this. I am not always a recluse, but oftentimes I prefer to be alone...some times for days. I was going through one of these times, when a neighbor knocked on my door. I didn't have time to turn off the tv or the lights, or think to turn on my phone. I just didn't answer the door. She knocked several times before I heard the sirens blaring. Yes, she called 911 and then I had to explain why I didn't answer the door for the 10 minutes the neighbor was knocking or answer my phone. Embarrassing. After that, I put a note on the door..."In a mood, leave a note."....with a notepad and pen in a baggie on the door handle. Works!!
I was at a party. Sitting in a corner, reading. This person comes up to me and starts trying to make small talk and make me dance. A polite “no” doesn’t work. So, I look them dead in the eye and start meowing until they get so weirded out that they back away slowly and leave. Nobody comes near me the rest of the party.
This isn't that much of a story of how I went to great length to avoid someone, but it's quite a funny avoidance story. So a few months ago, I wanted to get a job (I'm 16 so some money of my own would be nice) so I walked about 2 miles to my local visitor centre (I live in the middle of nowhere) to see if they had any jobs going. I went in, got too scared to talk to the person at reception, then walked the whole 2 miles back home.
I do this practically every time I have to talk to someone new. Usually, I circle the block, come back and do it right. Usually.
I pretended to have gone to a different town for a whole week, just so I could skip school and have no one looking for me.
I use the Amazon drop point opposite my house so I don't have to answer the door. Ever.
I avoid social interactions by litarally acting as weird and as annoying as possible because people scare me
I kinda do the same thing. My natural instinct is to push away people so they can’t betray me later on. I try to scare them away so I won’t have to deal with them again.
So I'm the type of person that can't say no to an invitation. This got me into quite a few pickles growing up. And for some reason, I always had one friend who was insanely clingy. I got sick of these people and having to say yes to all their invites to have sleepovers, so my mom got really good at coming up with reasons for me to come home early from things. She would always call a few hours after I had gotten there and we had a code for when I wanted to leave. This ended up causing quite a few tears coming from my friends growing up. All my friends always thought my mom was super strict and mean, when in reality, she is the most chill, kind, easy-going mother there is. To this day I still sometimes use my mom as an excuse to get out of things. I'm now 25 and she lives 3 states away :D
Never missed a day in English because I was to afraid/shy to ask notes/updates from classmates if I ever did miss. Was sick as hell coming to class one day and kept coughing, had tears pouring out of my eyes because my throat was raw and I lost my voice trying to explain why I even bother coming.
I am a high school teacher and use public transport. I intentionally take the earlier and later bus just to avoid meeting my students.
I've cancelled appointments with my therapist, because I didn't feel like interacting with people.
My therapy is for social anxiety.
Eighth grade I continued to go to detention for weeks rather than turn in a school project. It kept me from having to wander the hallways alone at lunch.
When I walk in the hallways alone before school, I would turn down a different hall if I saw a teacher coming towards me. It's not because I don't like them. I'm awkward when I'm only saying hello in passing!
Told my family I was going out shopping. Went out the back door, snuck back into my room. I stayed hidden in my bedroom for quite some time. Thankfully I had snacks because I didn’t fully think it thru. When I was ready to be social, I took some old shopping bags, filled them up a bit. Then I snuck back out the back door, walked around the front, and come in the front door with my bags of stuff. It was a good day.
Would they not respect it if you said you wanted to be alone in your room for some hours? If not, genious. :)
I made a fake Fb page of one of my family members, updated a post that stated someone in our family seriously injured in an accident and sent it to someone that was asking for me to hang out with them. Told them I was very upset and needed time to myself.
Faked a seizure (I'm epileptic so it's not TOTALLY weird..)
No it's still weird. I had two people in my class do this every time they had to sit down and write a hard exam, they annoyed the shit out of everyone
The last time I went to a play by myself, I bought 3 seats - my own, and the two on either side of me so that no one would sit next to me.
If there were plenty of seats left, then why not? But it's selfish if the show was sold out because two people would have missed out
Once I was at my bf's place and his friend dropped by unannounced. I didn't want to meet a new person that day so I hid in the closet 'till he left.
Back when I was 16 and I moved with my dad's new gf and she had 2 other kids , I didn't really have a problem with them but it felt like hell to make small talk, especially at the dinner table, so to avoid eating together I would come with an excuse like , I'm not hungry , I have eaten something bad earlier.
But the thing is , I was starving , an I endured it until everyone was asleep , and then I would've eaten what happend to be in fridge.
Super Introverted and get REAL awkward around people a majority of the time. An old friend I hadn’t seen in over a year came over, but also brought along her best friend (whom I’m assuming is as socially awkward as me). Both of them brought along their kids. After about a half hour of painful “conversation” it became deafening quiet. After a few minutes of the silence, my panic mode was at an all time high and I blurted out “HAVE ANY OF YOU GUYS GONE TO A PARK!?”... they both just stared at me and then said “..yes?”. I couldn’t wait until they left and I could lock my door and go crawl into my blanket fort and overthink that situation for the rest of the month. Even had to send an apology text later that night 😂 A fucking park? Ugh.
Please excuse the grammar- I have no clue how to edit my post.
In the 6th grade, I had a science presentation to give but being my social fetus self I pretended to have laryngitis for a week instead of giving it. My mom only found out when she came home early one day and I was singing along to my CD player. She wasn't mad though because she also has social anxiety. When I actually have the presentation I almost fainted and had to cling onto a desk to keep from falling. Flash forward four years and I had a lead role in my school play. Yes, I'm introvert who likes the spotlight. We do exist.
Hitting the drive thru and eating in the parking lot
Going to a gym at 2am, seeing that there's one person inside, and waiting in the parking lot until he leaves.
Sometimes when I'm walking around where there are a lot of people, I will put the phone on my ear and make believe I'm having a full conversation with someone.
Recently, I sat in my car outside a restaurant where some of my friends were meeting. After about 20 minutes of this, I decided it was "too much" for me and just drove home.
I once visited a friend and her flatmates came home and sat down with us to chat. I'm really bad at saying goodbye when in a larger group. If possible I just slink away. Unfortunately I was boxed in on a sofa at the end facing a room corner. Instead of asking my neighbours to get up and wanting to avoid exchanging a round of goodbyes, I tried to worm my way through between their backs and the sofa backrest, almost pushing them off the sofa. I still can't believe I actually thought it would work, but I was desperate to finally leave and depressurize. I never contacted that friend again.
I ate only a box of Nutrigrain bars in my dorm room over the course of a week because I was too uncomfortable to go to the cafeteria when I first went to college.
gosh i took me a year to go to cafeterania in my collage
I was on vacation in Kazakhstan.
Saw a tourist information booth.
Started walking towards it until I saw it was manned and quickly turned away before they could help me
I started working at a new company a little over a year ago and became good friends with one of my coworkers. He invited me to his new years party and I said I would come and asked how many people there would be. He answered, "I dont know maybe 40?"
I was so worried about going that I ended up yelling my lungs out into a bundle of shirts in my car to tear my throat up so I could tell him I was to sick to go. I couldn't talk right for like 4 or 5 days after that.
At wedding receptions, I often hide in my car throughout the night, and will go inside to talk to people for 5-10 minute intervals throughout the night so that people will remember me as being there.
When I was a kid and I was over at a friends house playing, if they asked me to sleep over I would call my mum and ask permission, when she said yes I responses "oh no, why not? Please mum!" And she knew that was my signal I wanted to come home!
I got married so I have someone else to go into stores and make food orders over the phone.
Use the kids as my excuse.
"Aw, she's getting tired, it's almost her bedtime, we should probably go now"
"Oh, the baby just fell asleep. I guess I can't come over now. Darn!"
I love them.
Over a decade ago (when it was very unpopular) I grew a big beard, got myself big glasses which tend to slay down my nose and kept practicing both - long stare without blinking and expressionless face. Oh, and here and there I've mentioned few "accidents" with unpleasant people which try to assault me and what happened to them. Since I'm 6ft. 2in, with a body build of walrus, now all I do to avoid small talk, is look at annoyers with irritated glance over my glasses and so-called "Poles face". People tend to keep away from me, either from fear or just in case. Best part? In reality, when I'm with few trusted and loved people, I'm cheerful and talkative as hell. Go figure...
Cannot count the amount of times I have hidden in my bed, literally not moving and barely breathing, to avoid the attention of a parent or housemate.
I'm also at expert level of faking being asleep 😭
Me too, every night, at 11, my parents check on me and I'm "asleep", then I go back on my computer until 3 am.
I hate answering the phone if it's someone I don't know. One day, I was busy, and I forgot myself, and picked up the phone. I immediately realized what I had done, and in this case, it was some credit company, or a salesman...I don't know. They asked if I was the homeowner. I said "No". They asked if the homeowner was there. Again, "No."
"Well, are you the wife of the homeowner?"
"No. I'm the babysitter."
They asked for my name for their records, to show that they had actually made the call, and not wanting to give my own name, I panicked and started to give my sister's name (Janice). After the "Ja"...I paused, drawing the syllable out, and ...quick thinking on MY part, changed the pronunciation of the second syllable, so the name came out as... "Jaaaah...NYCE" with a long I . I knew right away that it didn't sound like a real name, but maybe something foreign...so I 'covered' myself by continuing the conversation with a heavy accent from some unknown country that I made up to keep up the ruse. I just kept talking as this random person of no known origin until the person just quietly hung up on me. I just put my head down on the desk and sat there for a very long time...
:) sometimes I surprise myself with successful improvisation. Sometimes not so much.
I have a 300 minute cell phone plan, 7 days to renew and 256 minutes left... most of the minutes used are text messages. I hate phones. Disconnecting my house phone brought me so much peace. I love to type talk, but rarely speak. I babysit my niece and nephews (talking to kids doesn't bother me). If the kids get to chatty, I turn on cartoons and they get mesmerized :P. My entire family are extroverts. If I had something to say, I wouldn't be heard anyway. My husband was very social, he never shut up, so I didn't have to talk in social situations. Unfortunately, he died. His family lives with me and I do talk with them occasionally. Mostly with my brother in law. In the mornings, I lay in bed, waiting for everyone to leave the house before I get up. I am a morning person, I just can't stand the morning nonsensical chatter. Yet I'll discuss life and theory all through the night. I love an intelligent conversation. When people I don't feel comfortable with attempt to talk to me, I look them straight in the eye and say "If you spent 5 minutes in my brain, you would have to be committed." The odd thing is, that with the right people you can't shut me up. Life is strange, antidepressants let me go shopping.
It's typical for introverts to enjoy deep conversations. We just don't like the insincere fluff type of talking.
I recently went on holiday to Bali, and quite a few people I knew were going over at the same time, staying not far from me. The usual promises of ''we'll catch up when we get over there''. I knew that catching up with them would involve drinking silly amounts of alcohol and just talking shit, so I faked that I had gone to another region of the island instead on a whim, and just had to be careful if I ventured out that I didn't go to places they were likely to be.
I've pretended to be hard of hearing so people keep it short with me at least.
Use studying as literally every excuse ever...
I was in a train and a lady constantly wanted to start a conversation with me , so I just pretended that I was talking on the phone for 1 whole hour .
I was just making up my own sentences , and it probably didn't make any sense , but it saved me from small talk .
I once spent my recess at school in the toilet cubicle because I was being bullied and I have extreme social anxiety.
I was driving up to the store, saw someone I knew walk in, I didn’t even stop. I just kept driving to another store. I didn’t want to do small talk with them. And I knew it’d be a lot of small talk because something new just happened in their life that they’d bring up and want to talk about.
My first instinct, if I spot a neighbour in a shop I'm in, is to avoid them. Always has been.
I spent a lot of time in the bathroom as a kid just because I knew it was a place where I could read and no one would bother me.
In college I would keep my dorm room locked and if someone knocked on my door and I just did not want to deal with it right then I'd pretend not to be there. I usually would be sitting at my desk with headphones on, so it's not like they would hear anything. I'd stay perfectly still and wait for them to go away. The best part of this is that I found out later that I wasn't being as sneaky as I thought I was and at least one of my friends knew I did this. Oh god the embarrassment.
Now that I'm an Adult or whatever I work in an office and I always take my lunch breaks in my locked car. I consider lunch to be my break from talking to people bc my coworkers are very chatty. I also wait until I know the office kitchen is empty to retrieve my food from the fridge. Sometimes I have to wait until like 2pm. Idk what I'm gonna do when it gets too cold for me to hide in my car... Probably just stop taking lunch breaks.
I wear my headset in the office all day though I hardly ever need to use it. And if know someone's in the kitchen or the men's room, I'll wait till they leave and the room is empty.
So I was supposed to go to a female friend's house for the first time (who's actually very close to me) but since my parents are very conservative I told them I'm going for a movie with my friends and the tickets are already booked so they can't say no. Next day when I'm supposed to go, I get super anxious thinking it'd be awkward, cancel on her, but still had to go out because of the 'movie. Now I'm out with no one to go to or no where to go with very minimal cash for around 4 hours. That day sucked.
My sophomore lockers in high school were down a set of stairs, which were pretty awful and a general death zone. I had gone down to get something from my locker, and when I went back, I heard voices and I paused. I turned the other way and walked up the massive, steep hill on the side of the school to avoid anyone seeing me. It was winter and snowing too.
I don't like to talk while I'm in any public transport, but when I was in college some girl that lived near my place insisted on siting with me and talk about some really weird fanfiction that she wrote. I would stay in college 15 extra minutes to avoid her, and if that didn't work and she still happened to catch the same bus, then I would get off the bus lying about forgeting something or going somewhere else.
I went to a conference for two days, at which I knew no one. So, instead of joining a random table of other conference-goers ton eat the delicious food the conference provided, I walked about 20 minutes away to a cafe and bought my own lunch.
My parents once had their friends over and I was trying to hide because I knew they would want me to play with their kid who was really spoiled. I ran to my parents room and tucked myself into a ball on the dog bed my mom has behind her laundry bin for our dogs and buried myself in a pile of dresses. Emerged two hours later after reading all the tags in the clothes hiding me.
Once I worked at a retail job where we printed custom T-shirts. This job had a little program going with a school where if the child read so many books they could bring a certificate to get a free T-shirt. Well, Saturdays were usually a super busy/annoying day because customers would come into the store, spend forever having me explain things, then leave without buying anything. (I hate pointlessly talking) We closed early on Saturday at 1pm. Now I had just about had it with customers for the day and it was closing time. No customers were in the store so I shut everything down. At 12:59 I was locking the front door when I see it. A little girl and her mom walking to the door with her certificate in hand. They were getting very close to the front of the store which happened to be one giant window. The lights were out but it's possible they could have seen inside. I RAN as fast as I could to the back of the store and dove in the back. Didn't even have a chance to turn the back light off when I heard them pull on the door. They knocked a few times then left. I really hope they didn't see my mad dash away from them. I just didn't want to talk anymore.
To be fair, what did they expect? I used to work in a shop, too, and the amount of people who show up a minute before closing is ridiculous, and just plain annoying. As a team (after pointing out the opening times), we made up an excuse about our till systems shutting off at midnight for a reboot and that we could not serve people (:
I go to the grocery store as soon as it opens at 7am...no one else is shopping and I have the store pretty much to myself...
use my bf like 50 times already as an excuse to not go out with people. I try to explain that I'm introverted and have social anxiety and don't want to go out. After a while people do not understand it and I'm tired of explaining. Instead of having to tell them a whole big lie about why I don't want to go out at 11 o clock at night or really ever because I'm introverted and on very few days social and extroverted I use my boyfriend as an excuse and say ... oh his family is coming over or oh I have to be home at this time were having dinner to friends kinda works I guess. I have a very small group of friends but for the most part my boyfriend and I love doing everything together and since I love him it doesn't matter to me it just makes me happy which again people do not understand how I could do everything with one person and not get board. In addition, I hate initiating conversations and parties are the worst. When people ask me to go I always make up excuses because I will end up being the girl in the corner who desperately wants to leave.
I dont know how or where people meet/make friends. Iam 25y female living at my parents sometimes going to the supermarkt is exhausting enough. I just wish i had a friend. Not everything is googlable. Even if i talk (read text and chat) with people they stop after a bit. I just dont know what iam doing wrong and why people dont like me. I always try to make everybody happy.
People are mean, and sometimes no matter what we do, they'll make us feel bad about ourselves. That's why I have my chickens to talk to! :D
hid in my wardrobe for two hours with my duvet and laptop to avoid my housemates asking me if I want to go out to a bar with them.
I have a bad food allergy but I'm not entirely sure what causes it even after testing. If I'm at a dinner or my girlfriend has people over I don't feel like talking to or anything I can fake the reaction and get out of it.
I work in a grocery store and every time I go to lunch, there is always customers sitting in the lunchroom(we don't have a break room). So instead of just sitting inside on a chair, I instead walk out and sit in the cold in 40 degree weather in late fall to eat some salad and a chocolate bar.
Under those circumstances I'd do the same. No matter what weather, being away from people is worth it.
At school 15 min before school ends I excuse myself to "go to the washroom" in reality I just pack up early because I hate talking to people. My last period teacher sent me to the nurse because she is worried about the amount of time it takes me to pee...
Any time I go to church fellowship parties and do not want to be there, I spend just long enough time there to say hello to people and to eat...hey, free food is free food.
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Once I have had enough of it all and want to pull my hair out, I just tell people I have to go because I have lots of homework to do. I am in a PhD program right now so no one questions me and I can leave whenever I want. Not sure what I will do once I hopefully finish it in 2 years. Better keep taking classes until I die I guess...
I didn't order pizza, even though I was hungry. I would rather go without eating than to talk to someone about a medium sausage pizza
I'm doing a PhD, so its basically a readymade excuse anytime I need it - I just tell people that I can't go out to [insert social event] because my supervisor is on my back (she never really is), and so I have to stay in all weekend and write.
I try to use my work gym at a time when I know no one else will be there. One day, I get there and it's totally empty (bliss). So I joyfully get changed in the locker room, come out and start exercising. 20 minutes into my treadmill routine, somebody knocks at the gym door. It was obviously another employee who had lost or forgot their key card. I heard them knocking but pretended I couldn't hear them with my headphones on. I know they could see I was in there because there is a peep-hole in the door. They knocked for a couple minutes and finally went away. No one else showed up. It was a perfect day.
One time a car pulled up at my work 2-5 min after closing. With a mix of being done acting like someone who doesn’t have social anxiety, and the annoyance of having to open the store and dig out change from the money bag locked up already, and turning all the machines on etc. I decided to hide from the customer. They decide to use the drop box, and I kid you not, they took 5 minutes to get their drop box bag in, and it was just a bunch of hangers, no clothes! Then I had to strategically walk around the store to avoid them seeing me as they left, since there were full windows on the front and right side of the store. By the time this was all over, I was leaving very late.
With social anxiety, I overall found college traumatic and stressful. I couldn’t even walk to class without thinking everyone was judging me, and that everyone could just see my struggles with my mental health from being alone in the city. I spent the entire first semester trying desperately to make friends, and being rejected 100%. I spent the second semester never leaving my room except for work, or after midnight for food. I was actually happy when the college kicked me out, because I no longer had to try and explain to my very extroverted family how miserable I was. It no longer was an option.
I know EXACTLY when I became an introvert. When I was 14, I started to spread my wings by going out with the guys. It was a lot of fun and I looked forward to doing it more. But the next morning, I found out that my beloved cocker spaniel had passed away during the night. After that, I never went out again and was introverted for life. I'm elderly now and still haven't gotten over the loss of my Taffy (heart...sobbing).
Sorry for your loss. My service dog was attacked by a fake s.d. at a grocery store and that ended me ever going out period. Well i do try to keep therapy appts,but it takes all my strength.
Bluetooth earphone's are an Introverts best friend. When someone approaches start mumbling to your self and point at your phone then walk off. No one gets offended and you avoid the small talk
When I'm walking down the street I purposefully look far ahead of me and if I see someone I know but don't really want to talk to, I pretend to be looking at other things and appear not to see them, so that when I come close to them I can just smile and keep walking, instead of having that awkward period of walking towards someone you don't intend to talk to and having awkward eye contact.
I have cameras aimed at both of our doors that play pre recorded messages. My favorites are "can I help you" and "we're not interested". Any time a neighbor or someone with a clipboard shows up I can reject them from the couch.
When someone sat next to me and try to open up a conversation I immediately stand up and walk away or try to avoid them. It's rude, yeah... but I don't want to talk to them. I just want to be alone cause I feel better and more comfortable. I'm a loner but I love who am I today. I'm a loner cause I'm hard to trust anyone around me
While walking through the halls in public buildings, I often stop and look at something on the wall to avoid saying hi to people.
When I am with new people and I am feeling tired of being near other humans I send a message that says "Pet Rock" to my best friend, who'll call me near crying telling me he made his gf pregnant and giving me a safe excuse to go back home.
We used to lock the door at my Work office so that solicitors couldn’t get in. I also would shut the blinds so they couldn’t see in (we never had clients come in and employees had keys). Well one day I saw a solicitor walking across the parking lot. The blinds weren’t closed so I quickly dived under my desk. Then he opened the door and I realized no one had locked the door. I debated staying under my desk but realized there was a chance he’d seen me so I slowly crawled out and made some excuse that I was fixing my computer. I don’t know if he believed me or not.
When I was in 6th grade I was one of the top students at my school. Coming up was an award ceremony. The day before the ceremony, all of my teachers kept telling me things like "Oh tomorrows the award ceremony! Make sure you come! *thumbs up*" Right away I was suspicious. First of all, I didn't hardly speak to my teachers. Secondly, I already suspected I would get some kind of award, but I could feel something else was going on. The next morning I told my mom that I couldn't go to school because I didn't want to participate in the award ceremony. Unfortunately I couldn't stay home all day, so my mom took me to school late. When I got to school, all the students were harassing me asking me for money and I was so confused. Plus I didn't want to talk to them anyway. Then my best friend told me that at the ceremony I won some kind of special award, a trophy, and like $60. And that the teachers kept calling my name to go accept it. I was so embarrassed. The entire day everyone kept talking to me and asking where I was. I figured later that if I would have just went, no one would have tried talking to me at all.