How Being Less Naturally Social Can Affect Your Interpersonal Success

In other articles on this site I talk about how there's nothing wrong with being less naturally social. I also discuss some false negative stereotypes about them. That, and I go over some ways less sociable people can get away with doing their own thing.

This article is coming from a different perspective. It's written from the view of someone who is less naturally social, but they want to get out there with people more, and they see their more solitary nature as sometimes getting in the way of that goal. The points below will cover some ways being less sociable can impact how they do with others.

Having a relatively low drive to socialize

This is pretty much the core feature of being less social by nature. In the long term this affects your success by influencing how much social experience and practice you get. A more solitary person is going to grow up putting in a lot less hours talking to friends or getting along in groups. His or her social skills will lag behind. They may struggle with things that other people don't even have to think about any more. In time a vicious circle can start where the less you socialize, the less rewarding, and more discouraging it becomes, which can cause you to devote an even lower amount of time to it.

More short term, your lower social requirements may not be enough to grow or sustain relationships. A new friendship may not get off the ground because you don't see or talk to the person enough. Your established relationships may slip away due to your unintentional neglect.

Another problem is that when you recognize that you need more friends or that you need to improve your social skills, your motivation won't be as strong. Part of you feels lonely or awkward and wants to solve those problems. But another part doesn't really care, and wants to stay home and read a book. Or you'll take steps to improve your interpersonal abilities, but in a drawn-out, inconsistent, half-hearted way.

I also think you can sometimes see socializing as something to do when everything else is in order; when you're in the right mood, when you feel like it, when you have enough energy, when you have enough free time, when you have something fun enough planned, when you're not too stressed or preoccupied about other things. In contrast, I think most people are always ready to socialize and are much less likely to put conditions on it. It can help to try and see being around people as something you can always do, not just when the stars are aligned.

Having a low tolerance for socializing

The biggest cliche about less social people is that they get worn out really quickly when they have to be around people. I think this is due to a combination of inborn and learned factors. You may have a naturally less social personality, but you may also just not be as used to socializing, and therefore get more drained and irked by it. Whatever the cause, it adds up to that well-known sensation of feeling tired and wanting to go home after a few hours.

Sometimes we can just take enough alone time for ourselves and work around this tendency, but it can get in the way as well. There are times when we want to be able to stick around somewhere longer, and don't want to give into the voice in our head that's telling us it's time to go home. I give some thoughts on dealing with this common issue in this article:

When You Easily Get Drained And Tired In Social Situations

Spending too much time alone

This is a natural consequence of being less sociable. This isn't inherently bad in any way, but depending on what your social goals are, it may work against them. Like I've mentioned above, the more time you spend solo, the less used you are to people. And if you're alone, by definition you're not out there improving your people skills. If you care about improving in this area, that's where you need to be.

It doesn't always happen, but spending too much time alone can also make you become a bit odd and out of touch with everyone else in a hundred tiny, subtle ways. It's nothing dramatic, but you're that half a beat behind the rest of the world, and your social interactions can suffer as a result.

I find the rest of humanity as a whole serves as a check for people's odder traits. Everyone develops their own strange little habits and opinions. I don't mean legitimately unique, fun differences, more quirks anyone would automatically dismiss as weird and useless. When you spend too much time alone these little idiosyncrasies grow and multiply unimpeded. When you're around other people, they get regularly pruned back. You make an inappropriate joke and your friends look at you funny. You state a dumb opinion and they immediately give you a reason why it's stupid. You start acting strange and they tell you to cut it out. Everyone acts as everyone else's social "polisher."

Not liking the things most people like

This whole article has a pragmatic slant to it, but this point especially. Less social people often have interests that differ from what most people seem to be into. You're into esoteric, solitary, cerebral pursuits. Everyone else seems to like noisy, physical, group activities. When you find yourself in a group, more often than not they're doing something you aren't that good at, and which you don't particularly enjoy. Socializing with many types of people obviously becomes less fun.

One thing that can help is to make an effort to get into some of the things most people enjoy. I don't mean totally changing, that's not possible or something you'd want to do, but just doing little things here and there: giving that video game all your friends play a shot, getting familiar with certain topics, learning to dance, etc.

Being too picky about the people they hang around

Less social people are often more selective about who they choose to spend their time with. This is understandable because they may have somewhat unique personalities which won't gel with just anyone's. Also, they often have a "quality over quantity" mindset. They don't need to socialize for as many hours each week, and they often have a lower tolerance for the little hassles of socializing, so they'd prefer to have a few really compatible friends than a ton of so-so ones.

The problem is when they want to make more friends, but their pickiness kicks into too strongly and they up turning away people who would have become good friends or acquaintances if given a chance. If they turn away too many potential friends then they'll end up with no social life. Especially when you're first forming a social circle, you're not totally sure what you like and want in other people, so you have to give them some time to prove themselves.

Coming across as anti-social or that they don't like people

Even though someone may just be reserved, keep to themselves, or enjoy solitary pursuits, if they give the impression that they don't like other people, and that they don't want to spend time with them, they can be viewed quite negatively. People don't like the idea that someone dislikes them. It's not accurate, but to many people, someone just wanting to do their own thing translates into a personal rejection. Not everyone has an easy time wrapping their heads around the fact that some of us just don't want to be sociable all the time due to their basic nature.

If someone is naturally like this, but wants to do better with people, they may have to consciously adopt some behaviors that send more of an "I like everyone" message.