A few weeks before the pandemic, a friend of mine invited me to her place to have dinner on a Friday night. I was tired, but happily accepted the invite, as I assumed it was going to be a quiet evening, just the two of us.
When I arrived at her place, there were already eleven people there. I wasn’t expecting that, and I immediately felt overwhelmed. It’s not that I don’t like to be around people, but that night I felt exhausted and didn’t have the mental energy to interact with people I didn’t even know.
I spent the evening looking forward to going back home. I was craving some alone time. After two hours I decided to leave, saying that I had had a very busy week and was really tired — which was the truth.
The next Friday afternoon I felt the need to spend some time with other people, so I invited a few friends to my place for dinner. It was a similar situation: I had had a long week, and again I was mentally exhausted. The only difference was that I had been working from home and had spent almost the entire week alone. This time I felt the need to be around people. And I realized something important:
Sometimes, to recharge my batteries, I need some “me time,” while at other times spending time with people is what actually gives me energy.
According to Sarah Regan, this is something ambiverts tend to have in common. They can get energized both by being around others, like extroverts, and by spending recharging time alone like introverts. Sometimes they enjoy alone time and social time equally, or the one they enjoy the most fluctuates depending on what’s going on in their life.
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