By Armchair Mayor

It’s time for introverts to throw off our shackles

Sep 29, 2018 | 5:00 AM

ACCORDING TO A NEW STUDY, there are only four types of personalities. This flies in the face of previous wisdom that there are eight, or even 16.

I can narrow it down even more — there are actually only two. But more on that in a minute. The study was done by researchers at Northwestern University in the U.S. based on 1.5 million questionnaires, concluding there are four clusters of personalities: Average (that’s most people), Reserved, Self-centered and Role Models.

The researchers are even pondering the question of whether entire countries might trend toward certain personality types. I’m guessing Canada would fit into Reserved. You can take the survey online to see which one you are if you want. I did; it told me what I already know — like Canada, I am “probably more reserved and quiet than most others.”

The four-personality model actually goes back a few thousand years. Around 400 BC, when Hippocrates was giving names to personalities, I would have been called “Melancholic,” as opposed to Sanguine, Choleric or Phlegmatic.

The traits of Melancholic people were said to be analytical, detail oriented, self-reliant, and whatever the term for introverted was back then.

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In 2018, similar traits have been assigned to each personality, but one trait in particular threads through them all: we’re either extroverts or introverts.

That’s why I say we can really boil everything down to two distinct groups. As I was reading about the new study I considered a column about introversion but temporarily chickened out. It’s too personal. Better to stick to politics.

Then, a couple of days ago, I happened upon a Facebook post by a former colleague wondering whether he hates people. Discussing it with friends, though, he now thinks he might just be an introvert who “needs to shut down once his work day is done.” On the same day, there was a story about actor Will Smith jumping out of a helicopter on a bungee cord over the Grand Canyon in celebration of his 50th birthday. The reason, Smith said, was to conquer his fear.

WATCH: Will Smith bungee jumps out of a helicopter (Video Credit: YouTube / Will Smith)

“I’ve had a whole lifetime of feeling squashed and squelched and controlled by fear,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than walking around scared.”

When you’re afraid, he said, you miss the beauty of life.

Introverts go through their days being afraid and missing the beauty of life unless they challenge themselves. Let me tell you about introverts.

Until very recently, I didn’t like to admit my shyness. There’s a stigma to it. I tried to hide it, generally not very well.

Introversion is something you’re born with and it stays with you. It’s in our DNA. Trying to turn me into an extrovert would be like trying to change the colour of my skin.

Each introvert deals with it differently. Technically, shyness is only the greatest part of introversion, not the whole part. The rest has to do with introspection.

So I write this for introverts — the nerds, the wall flowers, the deep thinkers, the self-conscious, the analytical, the ones who are afraid, who stand in corners looking at their shoes. It’s OK to be an introvert. It may be a life sentence but it’s not a crime.

Yet, in so many ways, shyness is regarded as a deficiency. The world seems made for extroverts, who are in the majority, and in tribal fashion they band together. Introverts are loners but not necessarily lonely. They enjoy alone time.

Introverts don’t go around smiling but that doesn’t mean they’re unhappy. To my former colleague, it also doesn’t mean they hate people, they’re just not comfortable with people they don’t know. They aren’t big on small talk but once they get to know you they love a good conversation and some laughs as much as extroverts do.

An introvert, however, won’t break into somebody else’s conversation. They assume others aren’t particularly interested in hearing what they have to say. They feel unworthy. They’ve been taught there’s something wrong with being who they are. So they wait to be approached rather than doing the approaching.

This can result in mistaken impressions. As my survey results told me, being a loner, or shy, “can sometimes be mistaken by others as unfriendliness or aloofness.” In other words, snobbishness.

Tell me about it. I have a terrible habit of walking by people on the sidewalk without noticing them.

Introverts are just fine in front of a microphone, but put us in a crowded hall with drinks and appies and we’re lost sheep, wandering between the veggie plates and wine bar, pretending we’re part of the action. A surprising number of journalists are introverts.

But the secret to being shy is not to let it keep us from the beauty of life. Conquering fear doesn’t mean getting rid of it; it means dealing with it. So to the extroverts, those who joke and laugh easily, who were popular in high school, who are self-confident, who move easily through life — spare a kind thought for shy people.

Don’t tell an introvert, “Smile, it can’t be that bad,” because to an introvert that’s a putdown.

An introvert doesn’t expect to be part of your social circle, and may not make the first move in a conversation but he or she would like to be respected and not judged as being of less value.

And to introverts, don’t feel as though you’ve got anything to prove to anyone but yourself. Embrace your introversion. Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Gandhi, Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Mother Theresa, J.K. Rowling, Barack Obama — all introverts. Trump is an extrovert. Just saying.

So if you want to be alone, well and good. If you don’t, challenge yourself.

As Will Smith said after jumping out of the helicopter, “Life is hard but you gotta commit.”