Don't be insulted if Cathy Hoag leaves your party early, or doesn't attend.
The 50-year-old Olathe, Kansas, woman is not rude or antisocial. She just doesn't like small talk - or loud talk. It intimidates her and saps her strength. She needs solitude to rest and recharge.
Many people don't understand introverts like her, she says. They ridicule and underestimate them.
But a chorus of voices is out to change that view, extolling the virtues of introverts.
The most visible: the new movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a coming-of-age drama about an introverted, misfit high school freshman who surprises a new group of friends with his sensitivity and capacity to listen. It's based on Stephen Chbosky's best-selling novel, which has struck a chord with introverts - and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.
Several advice books also champion the introvert, including Marti Olsen Laney's The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World and Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. And a popular Face-book post provides instructions on How to Care for Introverts.
The experts point to famous introverts, many of whom have used their introverted nature to change the world: Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Mohandas Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa.
Hoag feels the benefits to her introversion too.
She's smart and sensitive, a deep thinker and persistent in solving problems. She, too, is a good listener.
And she can talk. "I'd like extroverted people to know that we're not stupid or unintelligent because we don't talk all the time," she said. "I'll talk when I have something to say."
In her youth, she longed to be an extrovert, thinking that was the "normal" way to be.
Finally, she learned, she was not broken - just different.
"To say I am less of a person because I am an introvert is to devalue myself, and that is wrong," she said.
Amen, says Quiet author Cain, whose star rose after a video of her Power of Introverts speech at a TED conference this year went viral.
"When psychologists look at who has been the most spectacularly creative over time, they almost always find people with serious streaks of introversion," she said. "Like Albert Einstein or Steve Wozniak of Apple. Solitude is a crucial ingredient of creativity, and introverts crave solitude, and also tend to be very persistent. Einstein said, 'It's not that I am so smart, it's that I stay with problems longer.' "
Laney of The Introvert Advantage said introverts derive their energy from an internal world of ideas, feelings and impressions. If allowed to balance their energy with enough "down time," they can use that perseverance to focus deeply, think independently and unleash their creativity.
Other benefits the authors tout:
? Intelligence: Studies show a connection between introversion and giftedness.
? Conscientiousness: "If you give [introverted children] the chance to cheat on a game or a test, even if they think they can get away with it, they are more likely not to cheat," Cain said. "If you tend to be more fearful when your parents are reprimanding you, you internalize it more and seem to develop a strong conscience. And we actually know that extroverted adults lie more than introverted adults do."
? Sensitivity: "There is a classic experiment in psychology," Cain said. "If you place a drop of lemon juice on the tongue of an introvert and an extrovert, the introvert will salivate more because introverts are more sensitive to stimulations of all kinds."
? Trustworthiness: "I know a lot of parents who are panicked that their son is a teenage introvert," said Laney. "Introverts are late bloomers, but they also are much more rewarding in the end. They tend to stay in relationships with their families, and they tend not to act out. They grow up being people who contribute a lot to society."
? Expert specialization: While extroverts tend to know a little about a lot of things, Laney said, introverts concentrate deeply on only a few areas that interest them.
? Leadership: "In my book, I profiled some of the great transformative leaders of the 20th century, including Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and Gandhi, all three of whom are described as quiet and shy," Cain said.
"The psychologist Adam Grant at the Wharton School of Business did a study and found that introverted leaders often delivered better outcomes than extroverts do."
Sure, some introverts are who you'd expect them to be - bookkeepers, accountants, engineers, computer experts.
Others are not so obvious. Cain says President Barack Obama is an introvert. So was Johnny Carson.
Wouldn't they be too shy? Remember, Cain said, there's a difference between shyness and introversion.
"Shyness is about the fear of social judgment," Cain said. "Introverts might not have that fear at all."0
