On extraverts, introverts, and erecting walls I hear a lot of people talk about putting on a mask in social situations.  I don't.  With me, what you see is what you get, and if you don't like it, that's a pity, because you're missing out on getting to know a really nice person. I have a different way of coping with particularly difficult social situations.  I thought I'd try to put into words how it works.  I think what I do is put up a wall. In general, I have two kinds of walls. Situation #1: I feel attacked by someone whose opinion I don't care about. In this case, I put a wall between myself and them.  I turn off my ability to feel their emotions.  By default, I have very high empathy, but it's a switch I can toggle.  On/off.  There's no real in-between.  But I have complete control over it, so I can turn it on/off whenever I want to. This is how I tend to handle being bullied: I become completely nonresponsive, staring at the person straight in the eyes and showing no emotional or verbal response.  This tends to work well as a defensive shield.  It makes them uncomfortable, because they can't penetrate my wall.  It also de-escalates the situation, because I'm neither getting angry nor crying.  So they tend to get bored and/or uncomfortable and just leave. That was how I handled most of my interactions with fellow students in elementary school and junior high school.  (I got bullied a lot.  In retrospect, I'm pretty sure I have ADHD and am also autistic.)  I dropped the wall whenever I was interacting with someone who was nice to me, such as a teacher or a few rare students. Generally, I'm happy to drop that wall at any slight invitation, but I do need some invitation.  Any invitation at all is fine.  Without any invitation at all, I will usually assume I'm unwanted and leave as soon as humanly possible, and not return. I suspect this is a common human experience, which is why I am careful to extend little friendly invitations to everyone I meet -- a smile, a wave, saying "hi," etc.  This is particularly true with anyone I see at church.  I think most people tend to appreciate feeling like somebody notices them, and is glad they're present. I keep this wall down by default.  I think for a lot of people, it is up by default, so it's particularly important that they receive those little bitty invitations to let it drop. Situation #2: I feel attacked by someone whose opinion I do care about. This is a much harder situation, because it tends to come up mainly with people I am closest to. The wall I erect in this situation is, in some ways, the opposite.  When I raise this wall, I keep my empathy turned on, and turn off my ability to feel my own emotions.  Then I focus on listening and understanding the person who is expressing something negative, especially something negative aimed at me. This state can be extremely helpful.  It can also be extremely dangerous, because my boundaries are gone.  Over the years, I have eventually learned that it's important for me to never agree to anything while in that state. One of the most valuable things about being in that state is that I'm incapable of taking offense.  This gives the other person a safe space to vent however they're feeling, which is something everyone needs at times. As long as the person eventually expresses a desire to have not caused offense (for instance, an apology, a retraction, a clarification, or just a simple statement that they care about my feelings), when I turn my emotions back on, things tend to be fine.  If I turn my emotions on later and notice nothing like that happened, that's when I tend to get upset.  If this is a pattern of behavior that happens multiple times in a row, I start to erect the other kind of barrier and stop caring about their opinions at all. I suspect this is a common human experience.  It's a pattern of behavior I see in other people a lot. For me, both types of walls are emotionally exhausting, and require me to recharge for a long time afterwards.  I have a suspicion this is true for other people, too. I wonder if perhaps most extraverts keep both walls down by default, and most introverts keep one or more walls up by default.  If so, that may be the mechanism by which extraverts tend to find social situations energizing, and introverts tend to find social situations exhausting. It's hard to say, but it's interesting.  So I thought I would share those thoughts with you!