50 Introverts Reveal The Incredible Lengths They've Gone To Avoid People

Once I had to get drunk to get a job interview. Otherwise, I'm very shy and no one is hiring me to work

Walking the wrong way down the street
Too scared of attracting attention to myself by turning round suddenly so walk around the block

I was 19 yr old and was a very shy person. Our relatives came to my house and one of them was a beautiful girl. To avoid them I pretended that I was going to take shower. I was sitting there for 1 hour waiting for them to leave. My parents were so embarrassed because of me.

I was diagnosed with acute shyness.. Cute? What’s so cute about it?
I would check out the shops before going in them.. If there was more than 2 people I ran home.. When I worked I panicked until lunch then ran to find solitude for a few minutes.
I once had a job at a funeral parlour showing bodies.. In them days it was the Greeks and Italians who liked to have their loved ones out on show... For some reason it was always at night, and the Greeks and Italians came by the truck loads.. WITH FOOD..
After getting the loved one all ready and everything perfect, I would hide behind a curtain.. The families would stampede into the room and the quietness would turn into a central station at peak hour!!!
One night I moved and knocked a silver tray off a table.. It echoed as it spun to a loud, fading stop.. Everyone became quiet.. I peeked through the curtain to find everyone, ashen, was looking my way.. When someone started walking towards me, I panicked and turned the lights off....................... The next thing I heard was running feet as the place emptied.. Funny how quick people can run..... They were jumping over the chairs I had set up, elderly ladies were grabbing people out of their way...... And I was panicked stricken.. There was no way I could go out and bring them all back in...
I shut the coffin, packed the food up and put it in the ‘fridge’ locked up and left... Cursing myself for being so cowardly..

I walk my dog every day and live a pretty friendly neighborhood. Once people started stopping to actually talk to me I decided the best approach was to hold the phone to my ear and pretend I was in the middle of a conversation. This worked well until as I was speaking to nobody the phone began to ring extremely loudly in my ear. Sometimes being a complete jerk is hard.

I'm not that introverted but sometimes I panic. One time in the dorms on the first day someone invited me over to their room and I had no excuse so said yes. Being awkward and a musician, I brought my trumpet along and managed not talking much but just playing music. And then more people came. At some point I decided there was enough and jumped into the giant closet which we all had (one each). I carried on practising in there where no one knew. And then i realise I'd left my sheet music outside.... It seemed quiet enough so I leant in the doors to open but it seemed someone was sitting against them or something. But I keep pushing and suddenly the doors give way and I tumble out. A lot of girls are staring and just at that moment 3 girls were coming in. I grab my music and jump back in shutting the door as I'm completely terrified and practically all the girls on my floor saw me fall out a closet. Luckily the girl whos room it was was just like oh yeah she's in there don't worry about her which sorta made it better....? I never lived that down.....

This seems to be an article about social anxiety, not introversion. With introversion you recharge during alonetime, while extraverts gain energy from crowds. Social anxiety is when you fear people and are affraid of what they think of you.

That being said i have plenty examples of both.

Pretending not to be home when door to door salesmen come around.
Pretending you didnt see the other one walking in your direction untill the last 10 meters, (otherwise it is 500m of awkwardness cause you cant hear eachother yet). Bathroombreaks, just to get a moment for yourself.

When im somewhere on my own, like a bar or a festival i sometimes pretend im looking/waiting for someone, cause i feel like im being judged for being there on my own.

Many people say they can stand small talk. I rather have scientific/philosophical discussions, but im fine talking about about nature, weather, pets. I often go "ooo did you see that bird! And aww look at my cat" and you cant really call that high quality subjects either haha. But i cant stand when it is about reality tv, gossip, stuff to do with appearance etc i guess. Basicly 90% of what most people talk about. Everything connected with modern day life, consumerism and popularity.

I have some extreme examples for social anxiety, but i dont feel comfortable sharing them, since they are connected with some very bad stuff people have put me through.

One time when i was 11 I told my family that my dad had bought me some headphones on his weekend (my parents were divorced and we switched weekends with each parent) and that they were noise proof just so i can get out of listening to any thing they say. :))

When I was 10 years old I freaked out due to a science presentation I had to present (I have major stage fright). There were some settings that parents could make for their children's Microsoft accounts to make sure that they only spent a limited amount of hours on the computer. I woke up 6 in the morning and watched Youtube for 2 hours because our school doesn't have community laptops yet (and I purposely didn't put the presentation on a flash drive so I could use my teacher's laptop which is what all the students did) and I didn't have to present until a week later.

When out clubbing or at a bar with my extroverted friends, they always laugh at me because I get "very social" when I drink and disappear for close to an hour sometimes. I tell them I met new people, started chatting and lose track of time, which is true like 25% of the time. What they don't know is that the other 75% of the times I "disappear", I'm alone in a bathroom stall taking a breather and sometimes, a quick power nap.

When out clubbing or at a bar with my extroverted friends, they always laugh at me because I get "very social" when I drink and disappear for close to an hour sometimes. I tell them I met new people, started chatting and lose track of time, which is true like 25% of the time. What they don't know is that the other 75% of the times I "disappear", I'm alone in a bathroom stall taking a breather and sometimes, a quick power nap.

Anyone who stays at my house for more than 4 days receives death wishes from me (okay not really)...I'm not sure why, but I can't handle even hearing people BREATHE in the same house as me....which sucks because I'm still a teen. I'm never home without earbuds in my ears.

I will put my phone on airplane mode so no calls come thru. I'll run to my room when people I don't come over and stay there till they leave. Honestly I have become a master at ignoring people. But my favorite is to just lead people on with an "I'll see" when it comes to any sort of social plans.

I received a $35 refund check from the bank, but they failed to sign it. I ignored it because I didn't want to call them. I also neglected getting my son eyeglasses for a year because I was terrified to call the eye doctor. I can handle most social interactions, but using the phone gives me panic attacks.

Everytime we have guests, I would turn on the vaccum and come out with my laundry and act busy cleaning my room, so my mom won't call me down to say hi to the guests.

Every so often, I will pretend that I am mute or deaf. This is often not far from the truth on either account, since my vocal cords are scarred and I have a hearing problem. It's interesting to see how people react to me, but it's even better to just have them turn around and walk away from me.

At other times, will pretend to have a phone call and talk in German or Chinese in order to avoid interacting. This works great in elevators. Favorite topic: my cats.

In my junior year of high school I was given an oral assignment, reporting on current American vs. English arms. I never did any of the research for the report, because back then you had to go to the public library to do the research. I wasn't going to go where there were crowds of people I didn't know, so the research never got done. The day my report was due, I went to my high school counselor and transferred out of the class, only to be put in a class that assigned me another oral report. Karma.

I like to keep my personal life and social life completely separate. I don't mind talking to co-workers if it's about work, but hate telling them personal things. The research lab I worked at would do a monthly outting to a bar down the street, usually around 3 in the afternoon. To avoid this I would always have something that the boss needed done ASAP, our boss never went. To avoid suspicion I would stay at my desk until everyone come back to grab their stuff and leave for the day, 6-7pm. I would spend the time watching Netflix on my phone with an important looking data sheet open on my computer. Everyone thought our boss was just an ass to me.

A long time ago, while a student living in an area heavily-populated by other students (where furniture gets left quarterly at the curb for whomever wants it,) I saw a great shelf on the curb. I got my roomie to help me drag it into our apartment. Both still holding the shelf and almost to the door, the guy moving in - who'd apparently only sat the shelf there temporarily - came outrunning yelling at us to bring back his shelf. I was closest to the door and ran in...leaving my roomie, literally holding the evidence, to deal with him. The guy was cool with it, thankfully. One minute later, it would've just been a mystery what had happened.

When I was in school I used to use the bathroom right after eating lunch because I was too shy to pee with a bunch of people in there during breaks.
Well this one girl who was more of an aquatance than a friend thought it was funny to follow me in there and talk on her phone and do her hair. Then she would go back to lunch and tell everyone I just sat in the stall doing nothing. God I hated her sometimes. Another thing that would happen is that during gym I was really scared to get changed in front of people so I would go to the shower stall and pull the curtain. But the other girls would whip it back or try and guilt me to come out and "be normal" and this one jerk who would mess with me would loudly tell everyone what my bra and underwear looked like.
I'm so glad school is over and I don't have to deal with that b.s. anymore!