My name is Nandini Krishnan, and I'm an introvert

Nandini Krishnan is a writer, actor and stand-up comedian but still identifies as an introvert.

Story highlights

  • Nandini Krishnan says she's an introvert though she does not fit the profile of one
  • Krishnan is a writer, a stage actor and a stand-up comedian
  • "I'm hoping to reach out to other people who are as introverted as I am," she told CNN
  • Have something to share? Submit your personal essay at CNN iReport

"What?! You do theater, you've been a television anchor, you dance like you're possessed at nightclubs, you emcee events, you interview celebrities, and you call yourself an introvert? Get out!"

Nobody believes me when I say I'm shy. Sure, I thought I'd conquered it. I'd forced myself to get out of my shell, and speak to people -- I'd even chosen a career in journalism that involved interacting with strangers.

But nine years into that career, I found myself willing to brave helmet hair and the blistering summer heat of Madras (officially called Chennai now) to ride a scooter to a meeting, just so I wouldn't have to ask our tenant to move the car that was blocking mine. And then it hit me -- you can get over shyness but the crippling tightness that paralyzes introverts is not conquerable.

I'm not sure how to explain the "tightness." Perhaps it's unwillingness, not so much as inability, to communicate. It's almost a mood, but with physical manifestations that clever folks may term "psychosomatic." One shrinks from contact. It's not the inability to interact, just a preference not to.

As I analyzed this particular incident, I could recall several others. There are times I pretend I haven't seen someone I know, so I can avoid talking to him or her. These are not people I dislike; I'm even fond of many of the people I've evaded. I don't know why it happens.

When I give myself a pep talk and push myself to go say hi, I can feel my heart beat faster, my nerves on edge, my throat dry up. Yes, it's pretty much how you might feel before asking someone out; only, in this case, it was before asking someone to move a car.

So, we all have our complexes.

Nandini Krishnan

I got over "fat-girl" by losing weight and "unpretty-girl" by getting my face on TV, but how does one get rid of "shy-girl"? Especially when the only people who understand are the ones who suffer from it, and are hence unlikely to bump into you?

My teachers in school were baffled when I clammed up at extempore and elocution contests and was squeamish about debates. People assume good writers are good speakers. They assume stage fright is the fear of appearing on stage and hearing the sound of one's own voice.

But here's the thing: stage fright isn't so much the fear of the limelight as the consciousness of the presence of other people.

Introverts are not always the kids with thick glasses, ugly braces and narrow shoulders, who spend all their time in the library or science lab. They could be popular in school, take part in extracurricular activities and have perfectly normal relationships (just as long as they don't have to do the asking out!). But, there are things they feel they simply can't do, things that seem to induce a stifling sense of lethargy in them.

I suppose I had forced myself out of this lethargy every now and again, but I hadn't thought about how I got here, or how I learned to deal with the onset of introvert tendencies, until the incident with the car.

My "therapy" may have begun with theater.

I loved the idea of bringing characters alive, and I knew how each line should be spoken. But I was terribly inhibited during play readings and hated "trust" exercises. I can't say I'm particularly fond of them now, either. It wasn't the corniness of it all, it was the constant contact, the idea of giving away personal thought and space. Why did people have to know me when I was playing somebody else?

The problem was solved when I had one of those epiphanies that appear so "duh!" in retrospect: that "somebody else" I conjured up in acting class was simply living her life, not acting it. I only had to be her. The corollary was that I could have a persona, one that would allow me to say out loud the wisecracks in my head, one that could hug people, one that could snuff out the sudden bouts of shyness that hampered my self-assurance. All it took was stepping out of myself.

Gradually, the two may have gotten integrated, because the persona was not different from me; the persona just did what I wanted to do. And breaking out of my introverted inclinations to do those things gave me the confidence to do more of them.

My second big step was moving abroad, and that leads me to wonder whether introverted behavior is cultural. Oh, we Indians make a garrulous nation, but we rarely communicate.

Our natural instinct is to walk past strangers and look away quickly if our eyes happen to meet. We don't make conversation with people who have a functional role, such as billing our purchases or filling our fuel tanks. They give us numbers, we hand them cash.

On my second day in London, a cheerful cashier at Sainsbury's spoke to me about his girlfriend's parents, my course of study at the university, why Chelsea FC stinks and how my appearance was too indeterminate to reveal my ethnicity. Strangers smiled and nodded in greeting.

It seemed rather bizarre at first not to avert my eyes and pretend it hadn't happened when I reached for the same can as someone else. But I grew comfortable with it over time. My big moment was sharing a laugh with a woman on the South Bank, as her toddler screamed when one of the statue people moved.

"Trauma when he's under 5. His brain's warped now, you know," I grinned, and she sighed, "Yeah, I know!"

I moved on to a smile-and-wave mute-and-mutual flirtation with a tall fellow-jogger on Harrow Hill, which lasted several months -- till I spotted him in a blazer and realized he was a schoolboy.

When I moved back to India, the list of "things I'd rather not approach people about" was far shorter. But this isn't a finite list.

You never know when the need will arise to pull your socks up and take a deep breath before asking someone if he can, say, move a car.

The good news, though, is you can learn to deal with those few moments well enough to make people roll their eyes when you say you're an introvert.

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