5 Signs An Ambivert Likes You
A lot of our viewers on our Psych2Go YouTube have been requesting that we publish an article on Ambiversion. Well we finally delivered! It’s often very difficult to figure out what ambiverts are really feeling inside. If you haven’t heard about Ambiverts before, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
It turns out Ambiverts are very common. In fact, most people are ambiverted. People who are ambiverts consider themselves a mix of both introverted and extroverted traits. Sometimes, they prefer their own company and alone times while other times, they need to hang out with a lot of people. Sometimes, they enjoy solitary activities like reading books and other times out partying it up.
Some people say they are social introverts or extroverted introverts or introverted extroverts, but in truth, they are just degrees of the umbrella term ambiverts.
Research suggests that two thirds of the population are ambiverts, meaning you might know more about these types of people than you think. Whether ambiverts display introverted or extroverted behavior is sometimes due to their mood at that particular time. Think of these people as fluid, shifting personalities. Carl Jung, the psychologist who coined the terms “introvert” and “extrovert,” argued that there was also a third group – but he never gave this group a name. It was only much later, in the 1940’s, that the term “ambivert” started to be used.
Introverts typically loathe being in large groups, and find it mentally and emotionally draining. They “recharge” by spending time alone or with just one or two people. Extroverts love being in groups, and relish being the center of attention. They’re often uncomfortable when left alone.
If you’ve just read these brief definitions and you feel like you don’t quite fit in to either of these groups, don’t worry – you’re not alone. You’re probably an ambivert. This means, for example, that you might value alone time, but you also enjoy going to parties with lots of people.
On the other hand, maybe you’re not an ambivert, but you know someone who is. And maybe, just maybe, you have a crush on that special someone. So, how do you tell if they like you?
1. They Single You Out At Large Parties Or Gatherings
A great way to gain insight into the mind of an ambivert is by watching how they act at parties. It’s already been established that ambiverts enjoy parties, but they might not be trying to draw to much attention to themselves, as an extrovert would. On the other hand, they’re not going to act introverted and hide in a corner either. Their behavior is an interesting mix of both of these behaviors. You can really tell when an ambivert is interested in someone at a party because they’ll single them out. They might approach that person and have a one-on-one conversation that spirals into a long, tangential discourse. If you ever get caught up in one of these conversations, it can feel like the party and everyone around the person speaking to you just becomes a meaningless blur.
Why do Ambiverts do this? While they do enjoy hanging out with a bunch of people, they are most comfortable dealing with small groups, or just one other person. That’s why they try to isolate the people they might have a crush on at a large gathering. It’s to put themselves in a more comfortable situation so they can better enjoy that person’s company. It’s not that they were uncomfortable before they approached their crush – indeed, they might have been laughing and joking with the crowd before they set eyes on that special person. But when it comes to someone who they consider romantically important, they’ll probably prefer to interact alone, rather than in a group conversation where they have to share floor with numerous other people.
Hey, just so y’all know, ambiverts aren’t a thing. Every single person has both extraverted and introverted parts to their personalities; it’s called the “cognitive functions”. Go look them up sometime. It’s actually a really deep and insightful analysis into how we think and function. Every person uses every letter, but the four-letter Myers-Briggs types (or, more loosely, just the E vs. I distinction) indicates your preference. Literally no one is 100% internally focused or 100% externally focused. We all go back and forth, and the people you want to call “ambiverts” are just more in the center of the sliding scale than some others are. (This isn’t even a psychology article, by the way, it’s a dating article disguised as a psychology article, and things like being shy have nothing to do with whether you’re introverted or extraverted.) For more information on cognitive functions, check out: http://www.typeinmind.com/type-theory/
If you understood how personality psychology worked this whole ambivert thing would not exist. We use our judging/perceiving, sensing/intuition, and feeling/thinking pairs in different proportions and those can be oriented either outwardly or inwardly. You wouldn’t say that someone is all logic or all feeling, would you? Because no one is 100% any particulat personality trait. And can we see a link to this research suggesting that 66% of the population are ambiverts?
This should provide some info:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-gen-y-guide/201701/the-introvertextravert-myth
I really enjoyed this article! The content that is in the article is very intriguing, relatable, and well written. I myself am I ambivert so I can definitely relate to pretty much all of the five things you mentioned. The only form of criticism that for this sentence
– “Research suggests that two thirds of the population are ambiverts, meaning you might know more about these types of people than you think.” I would use a hyper link to the article to let readers go to the website and read that specific information themselves. Also, instead of writing “research suggests” write the actual person that said that ‘two-thirds of the population are ambiverts’. Having that information gives the reader proof that you know what your talking about.
There are some sentences that I feel could have been written just a bit better. For example:
– “Sometimes, they prefer their own company and alone times while other times, they need to hang out with a lot of people.”
To me when I read this it was kind of confusing, here is an example of how I re-wrote that sentence:
– “Ambiverts need to find a balance to be around people and also have quality time with themselves to recharge. ”
My advice would be to always read what you have written out-loud. Often times when I’m writing papers and think that it’s good. It’s often not because when I read my papers out-loud, I find many mistakes like grammatical errors, sentence fragments, etc.
Another thing that I would focus on is double checking the grammar. For example:
– “Some people say they are social introverts or extroverted introverts or introverted extroverts, but truth ARE, they are just degrees of the umbrella term ambiverts.” Change ARE to is.
– “It’s not like they changed their minds about liking you, it’s just their introverted side *is* telling them that they’re getting themselves into a dangerous social situation.” (I added is)
Other than those things that I have mentioned, the article is very good, and well thought out!
– Kat
Another facet of ambiverts that we could exam would be how their language usage changes. (For more info, read this https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-are-what-you-say/ ) So, thinking on how language usage change, is it possible we could mark out someone as an ambivert just by the speech patterns that they use?
As a person who would be classified as an ambivert according to this article and the supporting research, I can attest to how my language patterns change depending on who I am around. If I am more familiar with a person, or group of people, I’m more likely to be lax in my language usage, use more slang, etc.
However, in a professional setting, or a setting where I am not exactly comfortable with who I’m dealing with, the articulation tends to be a more….profound type of articulation, such as to keep calm and make a point.
Before reading this article, I’d never heard of the term “ambivert”. But, now that I have, I’m interested to see if anyone I know is one. I know that I’m definitely not, but I feel like some of my friends could definitely be one. Where did all the research on ambiverts come from? Do you consider yourself to be an ambivert, and extrovert, or an introvert?