#77: Talking to Strangers

On being an introverted journalist.

Lately I’ve spent time marvelling at the fact that I do the job I do, with the personality I have.

i) We live above a store, and my packages are often sent there by mistake. I know the staff don’t appreciate it, and had to fully hype myself before heading down to ask apologetically if they had any of my missing boxes lying around. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I fully dreaded doing this thing that took me all of ten minutes to make the one minute trip.

ii) The other day I went to a restaurant to speak to its owner for a story: having arrived somewhat flustered, with a small tree’s worth of pollen in my eyes, to find it empty, I walked past the person I guessed was its proprietor on my way out, and loitered outside as I was hit with a schoolgirl dose of shyness.

I ended up collecting myself and interviewing her, but these brief hesitations left me amazed that much of my work involves talking to and networking with strangers—something that doesn’t at all come naturally to me.

Loin 79 by Katrien De Blauwer.

This isn’t a unique experience. It’s estimated that around 30 percent of humans are introverted (introversion ≠ shyness, I know); and most people adopt different personas at work. But for the same reason we think of our jobs as extensions of ourselves, occupations have personality tropes: thespians are exuberant and soak up attention; lawyers methodological and argumentative. Journalists are intrepid, over-caffeinated, fast-walking and talking New Yorkers spewing Sorkinisms (though in my head, all of these three caricatures are Manhattanites—blame TV).

As much as I can be verbose around my nearest and dearest, your classically dauntless, loquacious newsman I most certainly am not. As I write you, I’m not pacing a newsroom with my shirtsleeves rolled up; I sit at my dining table in my socks, and write about wedding dress designers and noodle joints in Shanghai, in relative zen. My favourite interviews are often with people I’ve never met, but they’re also the one-on-one conversations where we get time to meander from the lighthearted to the cutting and emotional. In these circumstances I’m best at what I do. (I know this entire email could read as a very severe case of imposter syndrome, but I know I’m good at my job.)