"I always said I'm a social loner, but I'm actually an ambivert." He is the witness of psychologist Sergi Rufi, author of the book The Beauty of Rarity. He, who is a doctor in psychology with more than 25 years of experience, did not know this term until relatively recently: "I did not know that this is studied and that it has a word," he admits to RAC1.cat.
As Rufi explains, an ambiverted person is someone who has both sides, introverted and extroverted: "We need people and solitude. When we are too alone, people. And when we are with too many people, loneliness."
The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Medicine (DEMCAT) defines ambivert as someone "who has characteristics intermediate to the introvert and the extravert." That is, in some way it is in the middle and combines or alternates the two personality types.
To find out if you are introverted, extroverted or ambiverted, Sergi Rufi recommends a test created by the American writer Susan Cain, and which can be done online. There are 20 questions in which you have to answer true or false, choosing the answer that you think corresponds best or most often to your way of being.
The more times you answer 'true', the more introverted you are, probably. On the other hand, if you answer 'false' a lot, they suggest that you are extroverted. And if you get a roughly equal number of true and false answers, you might be an ambivert.
"Introversion and extroversion are at the heart of human nature," says Susan Cain, who warns: "When you spend too much time fighting your own nature you burn out." "I've met too many people who live lives they don't like: introverts with hectic social schedules, extroverts with jobs that require them to sit at the computer for hours. We all have to do things that come naturally to us sometimes. But It wouldn't have to be always or even most of the time," Cain writes.
"This is especially important for introverts, who have often spent much of their lives conforming to extroverted norms," the writer believes. Sergi Rufi agrees, saying that there are many more introverted people than it seems: "We have been educated to be extraverted and always be with people, which is why we also suffer a lot."
