#273: Introvert Cactus (How a Good Metaphor Helps People *Get* You)

August 12, 2020 — If you’ve ever struggled to explain your personal brand of weirdness to the extraverts in your life, then a clever metaphor is the perfect way to be charmingly antisocial.

In college, I never knew how to explain my introversion to people, so I mostly lied about it.

Whenever friends popped The Question (aka “What did you do last night?”), I’d respond with tales of alcoholic heroism: blacking out, picking up girls, evading cops…

Pretty much anything was better than the truth — which was that I spent a lot of nights holed up in my dorm room like a hipster monk, reading, writing, and making music.

The older I got, though, the more lying began to split my identity in half. I was Van Damme, suspended between two diverging trucks — except there was no one to yell “cut” on the commercial of my life.

Just the awkward sound of pants ripping.

I am embarrassed of my solo. I don’t want people to know how much time I spend alone.
— Cherry Glazer, Self-Explained

Dreaming of Cacti

The other night, I had a dream where my friend and I were in the desert…