My mom and dad have two friends that used to work in the steel mills of Hamilton by day and attend the symphony or opera by night. Now both of these fine men are retired and they have more time to enjoy the performances.

Getting dressed up and going to the downtown concert hall for a recital is part of their Eastern European upbringing and is a perfectly natural thing for them. When you see these elegantly coiffed gentlemen in their fine threads, it would never occur to you that they once toiled in the steel mills. The two parts of their lives are in direct contrast to each other.

I often think of my life in somewhat the same way. I’m an extroverted writer and sometimes I spend all day with my head buried in my computer, typing feverishly. At times like this, I’m contemplating the deeper truths of humanity and that sort of nonsense. Either that, or I’m trying hard to think of something silly and fun to say that will catch the attention of my Facebook friends. My thoughts run both ways: ardently serious and extremely silly.

Hours can pass and I don’t realize the time, but then I lift my head and become aware of a light throbbing, the direct result of too much focused concentration. I desperately need an outlet. Sometimes fifteen minutes of social media time can break the tension. A bit of TV watching helps too. Getting up to stretch and move around is always necessary. But none of that is true extroversion.

When I get together with my writer friends (a rare occasion) we could talk about the mechanics and artistry of our craft. (Seriously, we don’t do this because it’s boring.) We spend most of the time laughing and trying to meet interesting new people. Without thinking too much about it, we’re gaining experiences for our writing. And, we’re aiming to have a good time. Some of us don’t get out much, and that’s hard for extroverts.

When I’m really busy with my writing for days on end, I find I still have to make time to go outside and experience the world around me. I can’t work ceaselessly all day. Even if I just walk my dog – Sydney, my 15-pound Maltese poodle – it’s still an outing and I might get to have a short conversation with one of my many dog-walking neighbours.

The winters are tough, and it has nothing to do with weather. Since I work from home right now, it’s hard to simply exit the front door and meet people in a limited amount of time. I’m out there regardless of the snow or ice but they’re not. They were especially absent this winter, with daily high temperatures routinely in the -20 Celsius range and plenty of ice covering the sidewalks. Me … I’m crazy and need my walks so I go out regardless.

In the summers I get a lot of extroverted activity. In addition to walking and talking, and increased socializing, I play baseball … or what passes for baseball. Our old-timers softball league here in Burlington is half about the game and half about socializing. There’s plenty of razzing each other about our shrinking abilities, and that’s a great part of our game. As for the quality of play, a lot of the guys can still hit and field well. We just don’t run as fast as we used to. And we require a fair bit of stretching to get going.

I don’t know many introverted writers. I know they’re out there and I’ve worked with several of them. I admit that I don’t have much patience for the ones that are highly introverted, unless they have a good sense of humour and make the occasional attempt to interact.

Most of my close friends are definitely on the extroverted side and that’s become an increasing trend as I’ve gotten older. The majority of them aren’t writers or even creative people. That’s not important to me. It’s better that they’re nothing like me. That makes for more interesting writing.

And, the extroverts don’t worry that I’m writing about them. They even enjoy the attention.