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Thinking of Siderea's post in the INTJ comm when I was working on Saturday, I suddenly realized what, exactly, makes this particular little ENTP so annoyed at work and its crowds and lots of people and wanting to be alone and unstressed and "like a cat with its fur on end and its ears back against its skull," to use a beautiful simile:
Say it with me: Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
There's one thing I hate! All the NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!
Or more precisely, as I've been noticing in recent years, I am very much auditory-oriented. Quizzes in school made me assume I was a visual learner, but that is incorrect; synaesthetically, I partially convert sound input to visual images in my mind, and I do visualize a lot. But I remember a list or pattern best when I say it out loud; my ability to recall conversation I had just heard was considered uncanny back when it was keeping me in perfume and jewelry; I live and breathe music, poetry and song; and I get seriously disoriented when a person's voice is not how I remember it. And heck, I'm a linguist. And good at it; don't forget to add and good at it.
And I already knew that having two people try talking to me at the same time (usually my parents; most other people have more tact) makes me absolutely furious. I can fully understand how autistics feel when they, to borrow an image from that lovely book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, curl up on the floor, cover their ears and do groaning. I have enough self-control and social awareness to know that this is not an appropriate response, but, denied groaning, I have been known to start yelling myself, not even out of anger so much as to drown them out or make them stop, because the sensation of those two discordant auditory streams, and me expected to pay attention to and process both of them, was just so unpleasant.
And then on Saturday it clicked together: all of those people, all of them talking, and me expected to be at least partially tuned to them in case part of their talking would be to request me to perform a service that they will indirectly pay me for. And fridges humming, radio playing, and all of those people talking, talking, talking, talking!
I think that working in a place where I would see an equally large number of people but it would be considered very rude for them to talk, such as ushering in a theatre, would be a lot less stressful (hey, being before an audience doesn't bother me at all, but you are the audience, I outrank you, so shut up and listen to me). Or being on crowded subway cars where just about everyone sits in silence, pretending that no one around them exists.
And then it clicked as to why I have that very unusual habit of singing, "whenever I don't have to concentrate" I had said, but that is not strictly true. Singing made me feel better because it gave me one sound-stream I could concentrate on, and enjoyed, and narrowed down the sounds I needed to pay attention to (I feel like the proverbial spruce grouse now, that listens to nothing but itself when it sings; I do hear other people, but I feel more relaxed and secure when singing myself, and people sense, I think, that I will need to be interrupted and don't do it as readily). When I was all alone in the house, and liked it that way, I rarely sang; I had other things to do. I sing along with noisy machines like the vacuum cleaner or the food processor, though. I guess it may be a variation on the autistic's groaning. I sing and people assume I am happy; the idiots! It's my line of defense against them to keep myself sane!
That made me wonder how real extroverts do it; whether I was born an extrovert (because hanging out with small groups of friends or before an audience doesn't bother me at all and energizes me) but was also born with extra-sensitive hearing/auditory processing, which is what truly makes me stressed and acting and feeling like an introvert.
Say it with me: Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
There's one thing I hate! All the NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!
Or more precisely, as I've been noticing in recent years, I am very much auditory-oriented. Quizzes in school made me assume I was a visual learner, but that is incorrect; synaesthetically, I partially convert sound input to visual images in my mind, and I do visualize a lot. But I remember a list or pattern best when I say it out loud; my ability to recall conversation I had just heard was considered uncanny back when it was keeping me in perfume and jewelry; I live and breathe music, poetry and song; and I get seriously disoriented when a person's voice is not how I remember it. And heck, I'm a linguist. And good at it; don't forget to add and good at it.
And I already knew that having two people try talking to me at the same time (usually my parents; most other people have more tact) makes me absolutely furious. I can fully understand how autistics feel when they, to borrow an image from that lovely book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, curl up on the floor, cover their ears and do groaning. I have enough self-control and social awareness to know that this is not an appropriate response, but, denied groaning, I have been known to start yelling myself, not even out of anger so much as to drown them out or make them stop, because the sensation of those two discordant auditory streams, and me expected to pay attention to and process both of them, was just so unpleasant.
And then on Saturday it clicked together: all of those people, all of them talking, and me expected to be at least partially tuned to them in case part of their talking would be to request me to perform a service that they will indirectly pay me for. And fridges humming, radio playing, and all of those people talking, talking, talking, talking!
I think that working in a place where I would see an equally large number of people but it would be considered very rude for them to talk, such as ushering in a theatre, would be a lot less stressful (hey, being before an audience doesn't bother me at all, but you are the audience, I outrank you, so shut up and listen to me). Or being on crowded subway cars where just about everyone sits in silence, pretending that no one around them exists.
And then it clicked as to why I have that very unusual habit of singing, "whenever I don't have to concentrate" I had said, but that is not strictly true. Singing made me feel better because it gave me one sound-stream I could concentrate on, and enjoyed, and narrowed down the sounds I needed to pay attention to (I feel like the proverbial spruce grouse now, that listens to nothing but itself when it sings; I do hear other people, but I feel more relaxed and secure when singing myself, and people sense, I think, that I will need to be interrupted and don't do it as readily). When I was all alone in the house, and liked it that way, I rarely sang; I had other things to do. I sing along with noisy machines like the vacuum cleaner or the food processor, though. I guess it may be a variation on the autistic's groaning. I sing and people assume I am happy; the idiots! It's my line of defense against them to keep myself sane!
That made me wonder how real extroverts do it; whether I was born an extrovert (because hanging out with small groups of friends or before an audience doesn't bother me at all and energizes me) but was also born with extra-sensitive hearing/auditory processing, which is what truly makes me stressed and acting and feeling like an introvert.