The Confessions of An Extrovert Part 1

They asked me what self-care was and I didn’t say night out with friends.

I wrote this article in early 2023. I am sharing it without editing or rewriting because 2023 me needs to exist. I owe it to her to preserve her existence whatever way I can. So this is her, and this is me.

These past few days when my university has been on a break due to national elections, have been nothing but bliss for me. I’ve truly been in the best mental spaces and places during this time. I’ve felt my soul flourish and I’ve asked myself why? What’s the change?

I realized that it is because the added pressure of attending classes and dealing with humans has been taken off. That is quite scandalous knowing the fact that I’m supposed to be an extrovert; a people’s person. Truthfully, I do love people. I do enjoy being in the company of others however, I love my company more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not exactly awkward in front of others. If I were to hand myself some flowers, I’d score myself a decent 65% when it comes to socializing with others. I’m not afraid to meet new people. I’m that girl who speaks to strangers first; who says hi, shakes hands and exchanges name and contact with others. See, I’m an extrovert through and through.

Yet, I find that my number 1 idea of self-care is not necessarily a night out or day out with friends. It’d be a day filled with quiet, peace, reading and me spending time with my company; yes, I love being alone. I enjoy my company. I love days when I get to hear the thoughts in my head without any interruption. I can read fiction to my heart’s content and then take a pause to ruminate on the content of the book and its relation to my philosophy of life. That for me is self-care, renewal and pure bliss.

Therefore, during the last few days, where I was able to do this to my heart’s content, joy reverberated in my soul. Yes, I was transported to the land of ecstasy. Just trying to write down these experiences makes me beam with so much elation.

Still, it puzzles me somewhat how despite the fact that I’m supposed to be an extrovert, I am such a big fan of ‘my company’. Aren’t extroverts like people persons who don’t enjoy being alone at all? I don’t know any more at this point and all I can do is to concretely examine myself and my actions like a specimen in the laboratory.

What’s my issue with being with people?

We’ve established that it’s not because I’m socially awkward or particularly shy. Sure, I get my shy moments but ‘shy’ is certainly not the first word I’d use to describe myself. So then, what’s the issue exactly?

I think despite the fact that I find people interesting and enjoy being in their company, I also find it tiring. Yes, I find it draining. It takes a lot of energy being the social butterfly or the life of the party so to say and this is why I always need time to recharge after having a particularly social day or week or month. In other words, after those long hours of interacting with my coursemates in the lecture halls or on the school grounds or with my church members, I always need time to sit with myself and to just think. Yes, moments of silence where the only thing I can hear are my thoughts.

This is slowly spilling over and I realize that more often than not, I’d avoid certain events as much as I can. Like I said earlier, I just really want to hear my thoughts most times.

I have a particularly active imagination and a busy thought-world. So, it’s massively important to me that I get to interact with them. Then, I just had to be a writer such that I get to coin these thoughts into contents such as these and other times, curate those imaginations into fiction. This means, I value my moments of silence greatly. It empowers me to do the one thing I love more than anything else in the world; write and it also refreshes me for my next round of socializing.

At this point, I’m confused; am I an extrovert or an introvert? My MBTI calls me an ENFP yet I read somewhere that ENFPs are the introverts of the extroverted world. I don’t know how backed my research and science this is. However, I do know it explains why I do what I do. So, I hold on to that explanation. Until I find another concrete explanation with solid facts, I’m holding on to this.

Bottom-line is; there’s no bottomline. There’s no take home lesson, no moral of the story. It’s the confession of an extrovert and I’m not sure there’s supposed to be any of that. I think you are to deduce your deductions; draw out your conclusions and hopefully, those conclusions would be hugely helpful to this writer. So please, share them in the comments. I would really like to know what you think.

Allow me share a funny story with you though; a few weeks back, someone asked me the places I’d been to in my university and truthfully, I can’t say I’ve been to any of those places. The person then went on to lecture me a little on self-care, the importance and all. I listened attentively but how do I explain that my idea of self-care is not exactly going out with friends. I only think that’s cool because I get to create memories with friends and take good pictures that I can use for content later on instagram. However, my idea of self-care is burying my face in a work of fiction then having moments of solitude where I can hear my thoughts and be in tune with them. This made me begin to wonder, am I truly the extrovert that I think I am? Why would my idea of self-care be different from the average extrovert? Or is it? All of these musings gave birth to what I’ve decided to call; The Confessions Of An Extrovert.

Originally published at https://aroomwithtemi.substack.com on July 26, 2026.