Journalist and reformed sociophobe Jenny Valentish aims to help you extend your social battery life, tackle fear of judgement, form more meaningful connections, create an online presence that feels comfortable, express more of your body’s own bonding chemicals, hit a party like a SWAT team, nail phone conversations, handle conflict, become a more confident manager and team player, hack public speaking, turn small talk into profound connections, reframe limiting self-beliefs, and navigate the overlap between social anxiety and neurodiversity.

Do we Wary Marys need curing? Of course not. But sometimes we can do with a few aces up our sleeves to navigate social interactions.

In her introduction to The Introvert’s Guide to Leaving the House: Solid advice for introverts, awkwards, sociophobes and stand-offishes Jenny Valentish gives us a sneak peek at what’s to come.

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome. Don’t worry – it’s just us in here. To establish whether you’ve picked up the right book, let’s play a quick game. Answer yes or no to:

• Should people be allowed to talk to you when you’re eating?
• Does one person trying to sleep outweigh the needs of two or more people wanting to party?
• People clapping on planes when the plane lands – heartwarming?
• Does seeing two Beatles singing into one mic make your stomach tauten?

If you answered no, yes, no, yes, you’re in the right place. If you’re still not sure, let’s see if any of the following rings true. If it does, there’s definitely lots in this book for you.

Maybe you have social anxiety

Your leg goes like the clappers under the table when you’re forced to sit with people for more than ten seconds. You stab the lemon in your drink with your straw at social soirees. You try to second-guess what everyone in a group is thinking (about you). You tend to either fall quiet with the exhaustion of it all and let others do the work or be unable to stop yourself galloping into a non-stop nonsensical conversation, trampling down the fences and alarming the punters.

Maybe you’re self-sufficient

When I was a toddler, my mother would set aside quality time to play with me, but was often rejected in favour of whatever project I was already engrossed in. ‘We had to book an appointment!’ she told my boyfriend Frank, a few times, when they first met. It was just a baby story, but it seemed loaded with warning.

Maybe you’re naturally irritable around noise

You can’t help taking the sound of a chair scraping across the floor very personally.

Maybe you’re not really a verbal communicator

As a kid at the breakfast table you’d be reading the back of the Cornflakes packet. These days, you automatically lean over to read someone’s phone when a message pops up. You wish all communication could be written. Your conflict style is: overlong, grammatically immaculate emails.

Maybe you’re a little bit stuck-up

If you wore your fringe at least two inches below your eyebrows in high school, this is you. If you are prone to leaving a big pause before answering an inane question in an unsolicited conversation, this is also you. There’s been quite a wave of introvert pride recently, hasn’t there? Hashtags, shy- people social groups. You are not a member of those.

Maybe you don’t mind being social but you need a lot of time to recharge your batteries

In which case, don’t FORGET your batteries. Or your headphones. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve forgotten my headphones and, rather than walk through the city without a buffer, have bought some more. Headphones are my biggest tax expense.

Maybe you’re a nerd

Some industries are populated almost entirely by awkward nerds. Have you ever walked into a gathering of authors? Few will not be clutching their plastic glass of wine to their chest with whitened knuckles, rolling their eyes in their heads like frightened horses. See also: academics, scientists and whatever your field is.

Maybe you’re a hip HIP

Last time I was on a dating app, I saw many people signal – alongside their smoking and drinking preferences – that they were an ‘empath’, a ‘HIP’ (highly intuitive person) or an ‘HSP’ (highly sensitive person). I am unsure as to whether this self-identification could lead to romantic interest, but anyway.

Maybe you’re more of an animal person

We both know that’s code for ‘hate humans’.

Maybe you’re just unfriendly

That’s cool. There’s a whole chapter on wariness and how to tell when it’s warranted.

Maybe someone bought you this book

What the hell? How passive-aggressive. Maybe you need to send it back to them and bookmark Chapter 20, at which point they might realise they are to blame.

The Introvert’s Guide to Leaving the House is a practical book for introverts, sociophobes, aloofs, loners and awkwards. Do we Wary Marys need curing? Of course not. But sometimes we can do with a few aces up our sleeves to navigate the interactions of life. Here, you’ll find game plans for every excruciating social scenario – including making small talk, going to parties, public speaking, being a team player at work, dealing with judgement, gaining social media followers without feeling completely compromised and handling conflict.

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At this point, I’ll step forward from the fog and stop narrating your life. My name’s Jenny Valentish and I’m a mostly reformed sociophobe. As a journalist, magazine editor and author, I always came up with excuses to not speak in the media. I slouched and doodled in meetings, thinking I had no right to be there. I’d have a few sneaky wines before events. Eventually, I decided I had to stop holding myself back – professionally, socially and psychologically. These days I’m a keynote speaker, a panel facilitator, a podcaster and a regular on radio shows, as well as a far more engaged friend and partner. This has required a lot of reframing of how I view myself and the world, and much interrogating of my poor self-esteem and reluctance to be open with people. I spent years creating exercises for myself in confidence, empathy and sociability, which I’ve passed on in this book with the help of some interesting characters, both introvert and extrovert, who instinctively understood the quest.

Over time I’ve amassed enough game plans to be able to tackle most social scenarios, plus the fuck-it-ability to decline an invite if I think I won’t contribute particularly well.

To describe my particular brand of introversion in a nutshell:

• I’m not shy. These days
• I can be reasonably outgoing in a social scenario, but there’s a window of tolerance and, beyond that, my interest and energy abruptly run out
• I express myself far better through the written word
• I need to be in my own head and I feel irritated if I’m interrupted
• I’m avoidant of conflict and always planning my exit
• I sometimes worry I come across as as cold
• I don’t remember to miss people when they’re not around
• Like a bad live TV crossover, my empathetic response has always had a slight The significance of what you’re saying will transmit to me eventually, but by that point you may have got fed up and changed the channel.

You won’t find any ‘fake it till you make it’ guff in this book, because I don’t think that’s a good fit for introverts. I mean, it’s fine if you’re trying to convince people your new crypto coin is a dead cert, or that people should sign up to your life-coaching program for $444 a month, but I don’t believe reserved folks can just paste on a huge smile and ramp up the volume.

I also want to acknowledge how individual you are, so you can feel assured that I’m not going to view you as part of some homogenous introv-massive. Not every introvert is socially anxious, but this book is aimed at those who are. By the same token, plenty of extroverts have social anxiety. Your main commonality with other people reading this book will be that you find some social scenarios taxing. So consider me your creative and sympathetic accountant, set on minimising your tax as much as is legally possible.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Visit Jenny Valentish’s website