8 Spot-On Reasons Introverts Win At Turning 30

Because in the grand race to the La-Z-Boy store, you are winning in more ways than one. Eight, actually.

1. Being crafty

You know those people you meet who are unnaturally good at something really dramatic, like archery or taxidermy? Oh wait, that’s you. Without cumbersome distractions like needing to leave your house and contact other humans, you Howard Hughes your hobbies into mastery. You might also be able to just stare them into submission. Try it.

2. Staying in on weekends

While others are just now driving their puny flags into the sweet earth of I Feel No Compulsion to Leave the Couch Tonight Country, you are the illustrious leader of the land. If Saturday night were the Starship Enterprise, you’d be Jean-Luc Picard laughing all the way to the captain’s chair, sipping earl grey tea and knitting scarves out of squirrel tail hair you repurposed into yarn to give to people next Christmas. If you’re a magnanimous leader, you might teach these glib newbies who say they’re “getting boring” because they choose to stay in the secrets of internet rubbernecking, obscure crafts, Skyrim, and window peeping.

3. Leaving parties early

30-year-olds turn into pumpkins at a certain party hour; you turn into an apparition. Unlike those who say, “If I had a superpower it would be __,” you are an actual hero of going home whenever the hell you want to and your superpower is becoming invisible/flattening yourself like roadkill so you can escape through small cracks in windows and doorways while everyone else has to make 45 minute rounds saying goodbye to everyone. Huzzah, weenies.

4. Ignoring phone calls

Why aren’t you answering the phone? Just kidding, nobody you know expects you to answer the phone anymore. You are living the dream.

5. Reading

Many 30-year-olds decide to rediscover literature because, well frankly, what’s left in this world once you’ve realized you’ll never eat Mexican food again without certain fiery consequences? Sucka emcees unwittingly read young adult and grocery store romance novels. You? You know what genres speak to your hermit soul because you’ve been reading like books were your only friends your whole life. So pass on the written works of your favorite 19th century Russian nihilist and open a budding bookworm’s innocent eyes to a delightful world of psychological masochism.

6. Comfort attire

You don’t just dress to impress. You dress to undress at lightning speed in your seductive stripper-snap-button union suit. One swift motion of the hand and you bust that thing wide open like Magic Mike. And that’s just your casualwear – it’s not amateur hour here. You could even sexify the snuggy if you wanted to. People want you and 30-year-olds want to be you. You let your body do the talking, not some painted-on jeans that give you heat rash in your butt crack.

7. Saving money

It’s not that we’re misers, but rather that we just don’t really participate in the consumerism-driven activities extroverts do with any regularity. We don’t really bar-hop, and instead of shopping for fleeting fashion trends, we tend to splurge on houseplants at Home Depot. I even accidentally save tens of thousands of gold in Skyrim because, well, they won’t let me buy any fucking houseplants, so what’s the point (refer back to “Staying in on weekends”)?

8. Conversational pauses

Whenever something crashes and bangs, I think of Brick Tamland exclaiming, “Loud noises!” and nearly shit my pants. That’s because, as an introvert, I really get into silence. Some may call it awkward silence, but it’s really an introvert’s source of power, and it can be funneled into verbal exchanges to provide certain leverage. When we slam-dunk a joke, for instance, we like to preserve the victory with a nice bout of silence between friends, lovers, strangers – whomever. This lets our opponents know that we have won this little game of wits. We can then have them fetch us a burrito and a soft blanket.

If you’re an introvert, congratulations! Someday when you figure out how to build a time machine, you can travel back to your youth and tell yourself that competitive caterpillar grooming is as much a sport as soccer and then give yourself a burrito and a soft blanket. If you’re not an introvert and you read all of this anyway, hopefully these insights will help guide you through your transformation, because turning 30 is sort of like menopause for everyone.