Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Introverts in cohousing?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 7/09/2003 10:51 AM, "Fred H Olson" <fholson [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> Is it possible for an introvert to be happy in a Cohousing Community?  I
> enjoy people, but I need some time alone and quiet to restore myself.

I'm an extreme introvert and I need at least 9 hours a day alone. I will
even stay up late at night just to be alone if it has been a full of people
day. I love cohousing.

Cohousing makes it possible for an introvert to both be alone and have a
social context. I can go to parties for a few minutes or half an hour and
leave, come back, sit in the corner and watch, whatever. People get to know
when to say hello and when to leave you alone so that isn't a problem.

I have far more people in and out of my apartment than I have every had
before I moved into cohousing but it is more informal -- they just drop in
for one reason or another and drop out again. It's up to me whether I say,
let's watch a movie or whatever. I get to see people much more often for
shorter periods which is better for me.

The only thing that gets to me is having to sit in meetings for the sake of
meetings. Some people need meetings to structure their lives. Nothing gets
done unless a meeting is scheduled (a deadline) and they don't think about
anything until they get to the meeting. If it didn¹t happen in a meeting, it
didn't happen. A team that works via email or in person to person
conversations is not, by definition, a team.

But I'm not sure the meeting thing is an extrovert/introvert characteristic.

Some have said most people in cohousing are introverts -- not sure of this
but there are a lot!

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org

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