I had this thought last week. There seems to be an extrovert bias in much of our culture. Let me explain.
Last week, I attended a seminar for our local Human Resources group. It was a good seminar but there were some things I thought about on this subject. We did one of those typical icebreakers; write your name down and give an adjective for each letter. The goal, the speaker said, was that this was a way to help those who are more shy brag on themselves. Similarly, I was prepping with a speaker at my work and he had some icebreaker type questions he was going to use with the group. I did say out loud to him, “I would not want to share that information if I was there.” I see this when I was in Purchasing too. Sales people were always trying to establish a personal connection by looking for or assuming my interests.
There seems to be a bias towards sharing information. Which is weird when cyber security is telling us over and over to NOT share information. There are many reasons a person may not be willing to share information and I think I found mine.
I was bullied a lot as a child. I moved around a lot so I was always an outsider. I had “weird” hobbies by the “normal” standards. I don’t share information because it is not safe to do so. Anything that made me more “weird’ was just fodder to be bullied some more. Add overreaction from parents or authority figures, and I kept even more information to myself. I think this reason holds for many of my friends. Sharing information leads to trouble or abuse. How will someone use that information against me?
Another example was a coworker asked me “doing anything exciting this weekend?” I think an extrovert thinks this is an innocent question. They want to establish a connection or learn something they don’t know. I spent a while trying to think, “what would this person think is exciting?” I was also thinking, “let’s say I am into something fringe. Perhaps consensual non-monogamy or BDSM. Does this person really want to know that? Do I really want to tell them that?” (for the record, I am not into either of those things; pretty vanilla in my weirdness.)
There is an argument that “perhaps you will form a connection with this person if you share.” For most of my hobbies and interests, if we have those in common, we likely already know. Things like TTRPGs, SCA, and various subcultures are small groups. We likely already have met in those environments and know if we have that in common.
Since part of my reluctance to share is a trauma response, I am a good chameleon. My accent shifted as we moved so I fit in better. I am a middle aged, cis, white dude. People think I am conservative or at least politically similar to them. I am not. I am pretty liberal, further than most would think. Shortly after the 2016 election, a coworker said to me in the hall, “I bet you voted for Trump.” It was asked in a way that the expected answer was an enthuastic yes! “Why would you think that?” I said with disgust.
I will wrap this up with the thought: a space is safe only if the people it is supposed to protect think it is safe. Saying “this is a safe space” doesn’t make it so. This applies to any and all groups. It is better to say those words and mean them than to not say them but still, the person being protected has to decide it is safe. It is a bit like a rescue animal. Until they are ready, they will stay in their kennel or whatever. They will try small things to see if it is “safe”. Only after several attempts and trial and error, will they decide it is safe to come out and explore something else. You can’t rush safety. Same with people. Safety may be offered but it is not safe until the other party says you earned it.
