Extrovert / Introvert?

This past week has been miserable, truly miserable. I was always convinced that I was a loner, a thinker, one of those anti-heroes from the movies who are grumpily saving the world while refusing to be civil or friendly. But I'm not.

I'm in Jerez de la Frontera, in the south of Spain, for a week by myself - just a week - and I'm already lonely. A trip funded by my own self-importance and desire for adventure, I've found that it's been the opposite of everything I imagined. I'm not a loner, just lonely; I'm a thinker, but I really want a break from my own company; and I'm certainly not someone who lives off shunning people.

Some of you will quite rightly point out that I'm 27 and that I should have grown out of trying to be like a character from the movies, like Indiana Jones or Wolverine, but I guess it's been ingrained since my youth. The truth is that I admire them for their ability to be independent, to walk through life with only their thoughts for company.

You see, I'm an extrovert. I love being with people, huge groups of people, for as long as possible. It sounds like attention-seeking, but it's not. Or maybe it is. But somehow, as a human being, I depend on social interaction to sustain me. Without it, I feel like I'm going mad. I'm sat in my hotel room now, writing this blog whilst my extroverted self is frantically trying to pull down the walls inside of me.

So I have my heroes because I want to be able to be independent from people, like they are, but I can't. I want to not have to rely on people, but it's not possible. Without people, I would go crazy.

The irony is that I came here to write a story set in Cadiz and, although the trip has been invaluable for setting and plot, I have had no inspiration for my writing, nor even any desire to write. How shocking. How disappointing. But I have no doubt that, after I've returned home and spent a few nights with good friends, the juices will flow again and I'll want to lock those same friends out and write for a while. Then I'll need to see them again. People give me energy, passion, desire. I want to be self-reliant, but I can't.

Some of you, of course, will think completely contrary to me. You will admire the people who are the centre of everyone's attention, who draw laughter or engage an audience without even trying, while you curse your inability to socialise. You long to be the extrovert, despising the fact that you draw your energy from being alone. You cannot stop yourself being introverted, but you damn well fight it.

Sadly, you are, and always will be, the introvert. And I will be trapped in my own head until I can escape Jerez.