How does introverts feel around their extroverts parents?

[Rania05]

In a weird situation today.

My parents took me out to beach with an old friend of mom with her daughter.

Apparently, not all introverts hit it off, and it gets more awkward when one of us talk and the other don't know what to say next and then we go silence in sharp difference with our passionately chatting mothers.

She sounds like a sweet girl bit now I find my throat burning again with my words stuck, I didn't feelmy anxiety flaring up like today for a long time.

[BullShark]

As an introvert myself, it's really frustrating and annoying really when my parents don't understand what I go through. For the longest time ever since I was a kid, neither of my parents understood the fact that I'm an introvert and just boiled it down to me not "trying hard enough" to make friends, or the reason I was a target for bullies was because I was a "shy kid".

It was neither of those things, and the thing with boomer Generation X parents is that they have this mind boggling belief that just because they're older and they've seen more of the world than I have, they know everything there is to know, and if I speak up, I'm being a disrespectful little brat.

Anyways, they've come to accept me as I am now, as an adult. They don't push me to become as socially active as they are, and they know I have only a few people in my life whom I consider my true friends and with whom I like spending time with.

[Rania05]

Good for you 👍

[The_Shadow_Dweller]

Sometimes it feels embarrassing, other times you just want your parents to just keep quiet.

But since they are parents, you cannot be bad to them, so you yourself go out of the house for a walk with earphones on, and return after some time.

Your parents also tell you that you just do not participate in activities and that you are boring. Mainly because we don't like participating in their activities only. The activities we participate in, they just do not care.

Hence, we just grow up at the same time becoming indifferent to them and their activities. At least I am. What about you?

[Rania05]

Well... My way to cope is to give myself a delusion of enjoying it since there's strangers around but when they ask I honestly tells them about what I liked and disliked in their activities, my dad accept everything, my monlm become disappointed and gasp at some things I didn't like showing balant disagreement with almost everything I felt then indifferently stop nagging afterwards. I often hear her complaining to her friends that I had always been this way.

It used to hurt, not anymore though.

It's my personality to be withdrawn from the crowd it's hers to show her love this way.

[NathanDavis]

my little could be a little hell many times, when I was a young child... going out with mother was sheer panic, anxiety and stress lmao

there always someone, anywhere, everywhere... friends, family, relatives, friends of friends, childhood friends, coworkers, someone that knows someone.. associates, clients and that was just her side, she also knows a shitton of people that know my father, and other family of hers... she even knew parents of my classmates that I would not even know they existed lmfao

I had to hide behind her all the time or literally step back a few steps out of sight and stay there, not move, frozen... most people were used to that as well, so most of them would not bother me just say "hey" and then not to engage with me lmao

but that was me as a young child, my painfully shyness and aversion to interacting with people I don't know faded away gradually as I grew up, and ever since I turned 14~16 and I forced myself to just interact with people and face all those anxieties and thoughts, sensations, it just went away... I'm just not that person anymore

[Rania05]

That sounds painful, my mom, dad, sister, aunt, grandma, uncles everyone is so damn social that I feel scared and out of place when they take me out and they wave hi at least a dozen times
Congratulations on graduation from shyness

[NathanDavis]

thank you, and yes... I understand, and for me it was a long gradual process of about 10 years or so, definitely not an easy or quick path to go through

[SaraSmith24]

Ask her about her favorite things, her inclinations, what she does usually, or about her blood type something like that🦦🤷🏻‍♀️.

[Rania05]

If only it's this simple, we killed our conversations with nervousness for 5 times

[Rania05]

It's like you're in a landmine field of bombs and one wrong step can threaten your life

[UniquelyBasic]

I think you might just be socially awkward.

[Bklynbadboy12]

Damn I feel sorry for you it has to be hard for you being like that almost like your afraid to talk or you can't express yourself

[Rania05]

I can express myself but suppressing the anxiety when talking to new people or whom I don't know well is just so hard, it's like thrown into a tornado of overwhelming nervousness and I want to cling to a branch of a tree (stability) that is still rooted to ground.

[Bklynbadboy12]

Wow! That's deep. Is there anything that they can do to make it easier on you