  So, what are you - Extroverted or Introverted? I’ve been doing some research into my personality type lately. Why, you might ask. Well, because … that’s what kind of person I am. Anyways, I had always thought that an Extrovert was someone who was gregarious. You know the type, always talking to everyone at parties, seems to know the whole world. I was quite shy as a young adult, so I envied people that were like that. Introverted, on the other hand, was the shy type. I likened the Introvert to a recluse. This was the type of person who’d end up living alone in a house full of cats. Gee, I wonder why people like to be considered Extroverted and don’t typically like to be called Introverted. In reality, however, how gregarious you are, or how shy you are does not really define whether you are Introverted or Extroverted. Although Extroverts do tend to be more outgoing, it doesn’t mean you have to be Mr. or Mrs. Popular to be an Extrovert.
The difference has to do with how you get your energy. If you are the type of person who needs to interact with the world to get things resolved, then you’re most likely an Extrovert. If you need to sit down, on you own, and just work through the problem in your head, then you may be an Introvert.
Your interaction with the outside world, whether it is internal or external, will define what type of personality you are. Do you need to get it all off your chest or do you need to just be left alone so that you can work it all out? What charges your batteries? I guess the best way to explain this would be to give you an example. I woke up this morning at about 7:00 am and started thinking about the whole Extrovert/Introvert thing. I thought it would be a good idea to share this on the web so I immediately started to ponder what I would write. I mentally wrote the article as I brushed my teeth. My thoughts danced from idea to idea and drifted off into tangents as I made my morning coffee. WHAT I would say would swirl around in my mind, but the full dialogue would never come together. I needed to write it out. It’s not until I sat down at the computer and started typing this piece that I felt like I was dealing with this need to get my thoughts out. I write as if I am talking. I work through my post as if I am having a conversation with all of you.
Editing is just a matter of revising an argument I made because, if we were talking, you’d probably counter it, so I need to expand or take a different course. If I didn’t write this out, I would be thinking about it all day. It would slowly start to eat away at me until I found another outlet. Generally, this would be my poor wife, Claire - she has to put up with all my crazy ideas and interests.
The fact that I needed to share this with others, to express it out to the world, is an example of my extroverted-ness. It’s not enough to just get this straight in my own head, I need an audience. Now that I finally got this down on paper, I feel somewhat lighter. It’s as if a weight has been lifted from me. I would never get this kind of feeling from just thinking it through. I have to wonder. How many of the people here consider themselves Extroverts? 
