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Often
when they ask what my personality type is, my response is candid, “I am an Ambivert”.
The biggest surprise for me is to know most of them muddle ambivertness with
dual personality disorder and curiously ask me, “So you mean you have a dual
personality disorder?”
After
coming across this response several times, I started wondering, is it absolute
to be only on one end of personality continuum (extroversion or introversion).
The
distinction between extroversion and introversion always leave me detested
because I believe people can never be on their single mood extreme all the
times and a middle ground does exist which directs our behavior. For instance, on filling the personality type questionnaire,
I am always unsure how to answer, “will you prefer reading a book or going to a
party? All I think is “well depends on my mood, or the book of interest, or the
group of people who threw that party”. A lot of you can relate with this I
believe. Hearing
and reading about the term “ambiversion” provided me clarity and a sigh of
relief too on this disconcert. There is a little written about ambiversion, but
as far as I have read, Ambiverts are those individuals who posses traits of
introverts and extroverts at varying degrees.
However, dual personality disorder is characterized by more than one distinct
personalities taking control of an individual. The unity of consciousness by which
people identify themselves does not exist in dual personality disorder.
On
the spectrum of social relationships, Ambiverts enjoy conversations with people,
but at one point, they get tired of being gregarious. They try to have a balance between their
social and personal time smartly. In contrast to extroverts, the Ambiverts seek
time and space to make sense of information instead of fully relying on people.
When observed in the perspective of job and person fit, Ambiverts can be ideal
choice for the recruiters. The HR personnel have always been in search of the
right personality types who are thoughtful, pleasant and gregarious yet self
understanding, and all of it together lies under ambiversion.
People
who know me well are aware I am the very definition of Ambivert. I enjoy all
the hubbub and partying as long as it does not make my head pound and if it
does, all I want is to be left alone to hum, read or to create imaginary characters
in my head (yes I do). I feel
comfortable talking to strangers but at the caution of not giving away too much
of myself. I had been both sporty and a loner during play time at school, and sometimes
what excited me most about play times was a chance to sit back and write short stories. All of this does not make me a dual personality freak. Does it?
And
now some common sense?
There is no such thing
as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum-Carl
G Jung. After all Carl Jung was not a lunatic to say so!
