Re: A Private person in cohousing
From: seniorcohousing (seniorcohousingcox.net)
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 09:50:40 -0800 (PST)
Ouch.  I feel the same way.  I'm in the middle of forming a group, but I hate 
hanging out in groups!

In other situations where I was what felt like the only introvert in a group of 
gregarious extroverts, I've had the same problem.

Here's how I mitigated the overstimulation.

I emailed everyone I knew (you could quote from the email you sent to us) but 
concluded with this:

"When I'm wearing my privacy hat, please don't take offense, but I don't want 
you to greet me.  My privacy hat is a cartwheel straw hat with a veil."

OK, so I'm a drama queen.  Maybe a hat with sunglasses would be more, um, 
discreet.

You'll still have people approach you.  But if you laugh and point at your 
privacy hat, they'll soon get the message.  Some Not Very Amusing People still 
insisted on making a big deal of meeting me and pantomiming that they didn't 
see me.  Sigh.  But after a while of my not responding to this, they stopped 
and I was able to move about the community without molestation.

And by the way, extroverts, that's what it feels like: molestation.

Nina, putting on her privacy hat.

---- Charlene McNamara <charlenem [at] gmail.com> wrote: 
. It is simply exhausting to me to say hello to each and every
> person I ever walk by. Yet there seems to be an expectation that I do
> that. I literally have a few neighbors who go out of their way to get
> my attention just to wave to me from across the property. I know they
> are just being friendly, but there doesn't seem to be an understanding
> that some of us simply don't always want to be social.


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