The Introvert Who Learned to Read the Room

So, I am an introvert. What a boring way to start a blog. Well, the starting hook may be off, but the story’s got the thing to it.

So, the thing about being an introvert that I have experienced is that I am really nervous around people, and the time I spend alone in my room is when I recharge my batteries. All of my introverted fellas would relate to this, I believe. Just to tell you how big of an introvert I am, here’s an embarrassing story from less than a week ago at the time of writing this.

So, I went to my cousin sister’s home for Bhai Dooj. She was married off last year, so yeah, it was the first time I paid her a visit after that. And of course, it was a new place for me. Except for my cousin and my brother-in-law, everybody was new to me. Such a setting, a new place with new people in an unfamiliar circle, is basically a nightmare for me. On top of that, the circle seemed complicated to me and had an air that I hadn’t been a part of before. So for the two hours that I spent there, while my other cousins chit-chatted, I was sitting right there but was so quiet that if you didn’t see me, you wouldn’t know whether I was there or not. And even more embarrassing was asking my cousin if I could shake hands with my brother-in-law after seeing my other cousin do so. In fact, the only word I spoke during those two hours was “Hnji” when my brother-in-law(who is an introvert himself) asked me if my studies were going well or not. Yup! My average speaking speed was 0.5 words per hour. Even my brother-in-law spoke than I could have.

Crazy, isn’t it? Imagine me being this guy the whole time. If you had met me a year ago, that’s exactly who you would have found me to be all the time. In fact, you wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to congratulate me with an award for being the biggest introvert that the world has ever witnessed. I remember my elementary school teachers saying to my parents during PTMs:

“Sir, he is a good kid, well-behaved and bright. But he doesn’t seem to talk a lot, sometimes not at all. During activities, he is with his friends, and still, he is the one who talks the least. Even those with almost no friends talk more than he does. I fear if he is all fine or not.”

And my parents, they used to agree with them and would tell them a thing extra on top of that:

“We also sometimes can’t get him, ma’am. He is doing fine. It’s his nature. Even at home, he may be a little mischievous, but mostly, he is in his room doing something or the other. In fact, it’s very normal for us to sometimes wonder whether he is even there or not.”

A cousin of mine, the one I am closest to, named Harsh, understood me well. Whenever we went somewhere and a question was raised about why I was so quiet, he would say:

“He is very shy by nature and doesn’t talk a lot at home also. He’s the youngest one among us.” So yeah, I am a well-established shy guy, a big introvert.

[Pst! Pst! I have translated the actual lines that I remember into English. They didn’t talk all this in English, of course.]

But there have been some changes. I am still the same guy, nervous around people. But not all the time. If I have to be clear, I went from being the biggest introvert the world has ever witnessed to a somewhat tolerable introvert who can appear to be somewhat confident and a little loud in specific situations. The journey has been long. I had to learn many things and get my brain to process things quickly in real time to do so. One thing I would like to clarify here is that I didn’t change myself at all. The scenario I described is an open testament to the fact that I am still that guy I was a year back. The thing that changed is that now, I ain’t always nervous or quiet.

What did I exactly do? Well, I just learned how to switch off my introverted side for a moment in specific rooms and ignore my fear and nervousness for a while.

Okay, I won’t complicate it further. What I do is quite simple. I try to read the room. Every room, every circle, has its own vibe, its own tone. And in many cases, the air is easy to catch. And that’s what I have to do. I catch the air the circle has got, try to understand the flow, and then just pick up a part in the conversation, and I am already someone keeping points and making interactions. And honestly, the more I do it, the better I get at doing so. In certain circles that I am a part of and have to go to regularly, they have a specific set of tones and vibes. Since they are a part of my daily life, I already have a grasp of the kind of air that is present in these circles. And once I have the flow understood and the air caught, I can easily switch off my introverted brain and start interacting with people.

In addition to this, I am well aware of the charisma that guides my personality. In simple words, I know that a light-hearted, funny tone, along with light jokes, is what makes me look like me and not someone who is trying hard to be a confident person in the room. That also helps me channelise my nervousness into excitement and curiosity, which further helps me initiate conversations.

Of course, I haven’t changed myself. Not one bit. I am still the biggest introvert the world has ever witnessed. But using simple room-reading techniques, I just don’t have to let people know that someday, my name would be in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the biggest introvert. What I did was learn to understand myself, what type of charisma guides my personality and my communication style, and learn to read the room in order to understand what the setting is about.

And finally, after all this brain exhaustion, one thing that I could easily understand is that interacting with people was never about what type of guy I am. It was never about being an introvert or an extrovert. It was never about being nervous or being confident. It was about being curious to understand people. It was about understanding the air of the room, the kind of people who are present, and talking accordingly.

And after going from someone who was scared to talk to people to someone who is still nervous and shy but whose curiosity about people often overshadows that nervousness, I’ve realised something.

Being good at conversations isn’t necessarily about being an extrovert. It isn’t even about being naturally confident. Sometimes, it’s simply about being curious enough to understand the people around you.

So, if you’re an introvert like me, don’t force yourself to become the loudest person in the room. Just learn to read the room. Listen, observe, find something that interests you, and let your curiosity do the talking.

You don’t have to change who you are to connect with people. You just have to start understanding them and the vibes around them.