Are we having fun yet? (None of your damned business.)

There are, it seems, two kinds of people in the world: those who insist that having a good time is a group activity, and those on whom the first group try to impose their will.

You've seen it (you may have even lived it - I know I have): at a sporting event, or concert, or even at a company party.  Some of the people are screaming their heads off, laughing, jumping around, and very obviously "having a good time".  Another group (the one I'm in) is smiling, talking, perhaps watching and listening to what's going around them, or maybe just staring at the loud people.  Thing is, I'm probably having as good a time as the screamers - I just don't show it.

The Extroverts (as I have chosen to call the screaming group) believe that you can't be having a good time if you're not showing the world that you're having a good time.  This is, for the Introverts, nonsense.  And annoying nonsense, for we keep getting asked, "Are you having fun?", or advised, "You should loosen up."  We're plenty loose already, thank you, we just don't understand why "fun" has to be broadcast.

Which brings us to those inevitable corporate, community, or even family events where someone (and they're usually an Extrovert) organizes a "fun" activity, where everyone has to participate.  Has it ever occurred to any of these people, well-intentioned as they may be, that this "compulsory fun" is, for many folks, no fun at all?  That is seems forced, and unnatural?  Fun should just happen, it can't be planned.  I mean, no one sits down and says, "I will have fun now."  You can't put it on your calendar - 1 pm to 3 pm: 'FUN!' - and you certainly can't put it on someone else's.

More to the point, if you make us do this supposedly fun stuff, that you enjoy - we don't enjoy it.  We stop having a good time, right there and then.  Screaming your head off might give you an adrenalin rush, but us - not so much.  We enjoy things internally.  Don't get me wrong, both are valid.  But let's respect our differences.

So, next time you're at a concert, banging your head and yelling, and you turn to the quiet, smiling person sitting next you and say, "You should try to enjoy yourself!", remember that we were - right up until you asked.