I think that using easily recognizable metaphors may be an integral part of my ability to make friends. At the end of this 2022, I was completely burnt out. I had used all my positivity and friendliness and energy that I had and was just grumpy and tired and unable to hold a conversation.
Somewhere along the line, I came up with the term “introvert hermit cave” and it was so perfect that it stuck. It was usually in this context…”I’m sorry, I’m out of things to say. I’m going to go hide in my introvert hermit cave.”
And people would immediately recognize and respect it. They wouldn’t mistake my cave-hiding for something they did.
And I didn’t have to explain all the backstory of WHY I was in cave-hiding mode.
The power of metaphor
Because I strung easily recognizable words together, this term has internal logic that can be sussed out by most people without having to explain things. People don’t need a pop culture reference to understand it, they don’t need to remember a name that I have for it. And, if they know me, someone who is already highly introverted, then they will immediately understand that I am going fully incommunicado for a decent amount of time.
It also gave me something easy to tell people, that was a little clever and felt less dramatic than saying “I’m so sorry, I just have all these things and I’m so tired and I’m not responding for a while because I’m watching early aughts CW dramas from a bygone era because I simply can’t take in new information and it’s not you, it’s me and blah, blah blah, tooMUCHinfo.”
I would also experiment with coming out of my cave and then realize I was still halfway catatonic, and just go back in.
Easy as pie.
In a hermit cave.
All by my lonesome.
No, you can’t come over for pie.
The Friend Manual: How to make friends when you're bad at it 