If it Involves Fake Smiling I Probably Won't Go: A Zine About Being An Introvert by Whitney Romberg read by me Whitney Romberg.

Introvert Time:
It's a Sunday morning and I'm sitting in a café drinking a medium roast coffee the table I'm sitting at is a large table as I spread out my belongings including two journals when my primary journal and when my travel journal, my planner, my warmest scarf, my current special beanie, 42 varieties of art pens, a bagel, the plate that the bagel was on, two napkins, my phone, a pair of headphones in case somebody tries to talk to me and my portable archaeology site also known as my purse which is estimated to be about 10 pounds. Sometimes I will people watch for hours as I casually listen in on the conversations or make up a story about who they are for my own amusement. When I'm not people watching I will be drawing or writing as the calm that is seemingly so rare plants the seeds for new ideas giving them a chance of becoming a tangible piece

When I'm doing neither of these things I might be dicking around on my phone or thinking about something that I did when I was a child that I now see as my social awkwardness beginning to manifest itself.

These special mornings are what I have coined my introvert time. For me my introvert time is when I relinquish all obligations to my everyday life. I am always alone during these times and I use the time as I see fit. Many of my introvert hours are spent alone in my home studio in the wee hours of the night. A night owl from childhood, I love being awake when everyone else is asleep as I create and run away with my inner world.

If it were up to me I would be up at all hours of the night but I have come to appreciate mornings as well as the night spent in solitude.

Growing Up Introverted:The Library As a Sanctuary:
There are many ways I could talk about why my childhood wasn't like most. Aside from being one of two Asian kids in my entire hometown, growing up queer but not knowing it at the time, and having a speech impediment, I was very quiet child this affected my relationships with other children and the adults around me. I never really cared to have a large group of friends but instead wanted to have one or two close friends so I could spend my lunches with teachers would after calling me even if I didn't raise my hand or tell me how I didn't participate enough and if I did choose to participate I would be met with passive aggressive comments along the lines of “oh so you finally decided to join us” or “I didn't know that you could talk!”

There are a few things that are more discouraging than when you do something that is hard for you and find that all actions you take are punished……..I would be encouraged to seek out a larger group of friends and whenever I did I thought that I genuinely wanted to connect with that most 2 people and the rest could just go home. A number of phone calls were made to my parents expressing their concerns about why I was so quiet all the time. They thought it was because I could be depressed or special-needs or I didn't speak english well enough. Despite being more or less able to do well in school especially loving art science and creative writing my quiet nature caused me to be alone a lot.

I begin to develop my imagination through drawing, music, and books. I love love love love love love books and I especially love libraries. For a lot of children, the library seems like the last place you want to be but for me, the library was my safe space at the library. My inner world was supplemented with characters and different roles that I can only dream about visiting.

When I read these books I was no longer at school but on an epic adventure of self actualization! I was no longer a quiet child but someone who is brave or had companions that they share their adventures with or was a cat owner.

These books became my friends and they gave my mini self hope for the future.
When you are a quiet young bibliophile who prefers stories to peers, you become mysterious to children and adults.At first it was hard for me and I was often bullied for it. Over time I begin to embrace what a mystery I was. Some of the stories that have been made up about me I found highly amusing. In adulthood I found that in some ways, elementary school never ends. Books are still amazing, I grew up to be an artist, and I still have weird funny shit made up about the mysterious me.

Introversion in Adolescence: Very Early Adulthood

When I Got to Middle School I started forcing myself to talk to people. I would never give this advice to others, but forcing myself to talk to people has got me some of my closest friends who I still talk to today. I begin to go to dances and parties at peoples houses. I started sneaking out of my parents house to meet my friends which is such a foreign concept to me as I spent the majority of my first decade with basically no friends.
When I began to have friends I wanted all of my friends to be close friends. This became an impossible task little did I know one of the problems of having so many friends was that it began to drain my energy even when I was with people I enjoyed hanging out with I felt an overwhelming sense of wanting to be alone after a few hours the one exception to this was when I was around one or two friends who I love the most. I could spend days with them and I would feel completely recharged. This was a unique sensation for me. I began to resent the fact that my energy would deplete around others and I would help it by powering through events and trying harder to connect with my friend’s friends. Needless to say this was unsuccessful. My senior year of high school was when I first took the Myers-Briggs test I scored the ENFP. extroversion. I scored the E by one percentage point when I was still struggling with the fact that I could be an introvert. This test that made me believe I was indeed an extrovert.

College My Early 20s and Relationships. Accepting My Introvert Heart Who Just Wanted Some Damn Time to Think:
When we graduated a lot of my friends went up to UC Santa Cruz including my two closest friends. I opted to go to community college with the promise of transferring. This left me heartbroken and the first few weeks at MPC were some of the loneliest weeks since my times in elementary school.
I briefly tried to form friendships with a couple of my friend’s friends but quickly said fuck that after one of them asked me how I was going to make any money as a "starving artist” in the other one I didn't really give a damn about anyway. This topic is definitely another zine or friendship level but my first years in college for my baby steps and navigating my clear identity along with suddenly not having anyone around to support that journey.

I desperately wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere, so I did what any shy, friendless, kinda artsy but haven’t established my style yet, baby queer, bibliophile would do: I did hours of research about ender and sexuality at MPC’s then newly rebuilt, updated, natural lit, library and rented a private study room *swoon*

Along with the library, I Started taking Feminist Studies courses and spending my lunches in the MPC Women’t Center. I immersed myself in all social science resources that incidentally influenced my art. Though I had a lot of fellow budding activist acquaintances, I still craved what I saw as a true friend. My masquerade as an extrovert reached it’s peak when I started MPC’s first LGBTQ group, I loved being a leader of a group, but it became draining when I tried to take on a variety of tasks without taking care of myself to recharge. I was told that college students didn;t need to recharge, being made to feel like I always had to burn a candle at all ends. It was hard to manage different types of people. Some were more assertive, some were more quiet, and some wanted to take part but were too busy to follow through with commitments. When it was time to transfer to UCSC, my close friends who I made through my group were also moving, I looked at articles written by students who were transferring colleges and looking back, many of them rewarded extroverted behavior. “Leave your dorm door open so people can come in” “Go to ice breaker events and parties”. I did both of those things and as a result got exhausted. My pattern of having 2 close friends continued but as usual they had other friends as well. I was rarely alone in the dorms so I would retreat into the studios and work there all night. Little did I know that was the thing I needed to recharge.

Many years later, my current therapist and I talk about embracing introversion a lot. An introvert herself, we talk about honoring ourselves and our time to recharge. It’s taken forever to embrace introversion as a part of me because it’s too often that extroverted behavior is rewarded. IN a world where extroversion is rewarded, I try to remember these things:

I have the right to stay home if I need to, I can’t make it out to every single event.
I have the right to tell others about my need to be alone for a bit.
If they don’t understand, that’s on them
I have a lot of friends, but few close friends. That’s ok. It’s ok to invest your energy into people you truly connect with.
We as introverts are extremely aware of what’s around us. We may be quiet, but we are never blind.
Introverts have some of the world’s most thoughtful, intellectual minds and hearts
If It involves fake smiling, I don’t have to go.
Thank you for listening! @whitneykittyart