Introvert Dictionary: 21 Key Terms Every Introvert Should Know

How good is your introvert vocabulary? Have you mastered the language of introvert-speak?

Check your knowledge with these 21 important terms from the introvert lexicon – terms that every introvert should know…

1. Plans

Engagements future-you commits to for dates in a vague, hypothetical future that present-you hopes will never come.

2. Cancelling

What you have to do when it turns out the future is imminent and present-you lacks the psychological resources to see through the plans that future-you made.

3. Party

Social event that is too loud, with too many people, and too little opportunity for genuine conversation.

4. Friends

Very small number of people with whom you like to spend quality time talking about things that matter.

5. Doorbell

Sound to strike terror into the heart unless you are expecting someone. Preferably someone who’s delivering a package of books or bringing pizza. Ideally both.

6. TV Show

Wondrous world where you can be with people without having to be with actual people.

7. Book

Wondrous world where you can be inside someone else’s head. Especially pleasurable when it’s raining outside. Sometimes made into a film by someone who optioned it because it was a bestseller but didn’t actually get what made it a great book.

8. Home

Awesome place of wi-fi and books and TV shows and snacks.

9. Fantastrophize

Launch into elaborate daydream in which horrific events unfold, out of all proportion to probability and unsupported by immediate facts.

10. Solitude

Introvert battery charger. Works for all introvert models.

11. Extrovert

Person who is comfortable with a much higher level of stimulation than an introvert, whether from noise, lights, people, plans, tasks, or other sources.

12. Shell

The extremely pleasurable thing people keep telling you to come out of.

13. Overthinking

Loop of mental processing, re-processing, double-processing, back-processing, and re-processing again, often about something minor, and frequently continued until you have worked yourself into a state of complete distress.

14. Phone

Together with the stocks app, the least-used app on your phone.

15. Voicemail Message

Recorded outgoing request that people text you instead.

16. Strangers

People who stand waaaaay too close.

17. Earbuds

Magical devices that communicate: Please don’t speak to me. Occasionally the magic malfunctions and said earbuds become invisible to certain people, who then attempt to speak to you, usually loudly so you can hear them over the earbuds they supposedly can’t see, and often without saying excuse me.

18. Group Projects

Circle 4 in The Introvert’s 9 Circles of Hell, where introvert souls are condemned to complete tasks with other people, despite being willing to do all the work themselves in exchange for being allowed to work alone.

19. Nerd

Term used by some people to denigrate introverts, but taken as a compliment by introverts who celebrate their own interests, hobbies, and creativity.

20. Small Talk

Topics of conversation in which neither party has genuine interest. Can cause the introvert’s pores to secrete out portions of their soul.

21. Happiness

The contentment found in different places for different people. Which for the introvert is usually at home, surrounded by books and the remote and plenty of excellent snacks.