Does it take more energy to be shallow than it does to be introspective?

Maybe it’s your personality, Everyone is different. Perhaps you are just an intuitive person?

It takes more energy to hide your true self.

And besides, shallow people are boring. Boredom wears you out!

Subterfuge is exhausting. I ask myself, “What was that last lie I told”?

It takes more energy long term, but less short term.

It’s easy to think other people are less deep than you because you only see their surface behaviors. You, on the other hand, have access to all your hidden inner thoughts, many of which are profound and insightful. Couldn’t other people have just as rich a mental life as you? And couldn’t people look at you under some situations and think there isn’t much going on in your head? If someone just saw you going about your weekly routine from a distance, how much would they really know about you?

Some forms of supposed shallowness is part of that fun, silly side of being with people. It isn’t better or worse than being reflective and serious, just different.

I feel the same way where some people can “suck” it right out of you. I can’t stand emotionally vacant people and avoid them at all costs. If I have to deal with them at work, I just charge them more!

It is all about energy and emotions are the current of life.

Intuitive people engage my mind and stimulate me much more than shallow people. When my mind is engaged, I come away energized. The shallow people make me want to hit myself in the head with a hammer, so I come away comatose with no energy.

It takes energy to raise drama. i’m the same way.
I love the relaxed mind. true and clear

It would for me but then I’m told I “think too much.”

I know plenty of people who feel exhausted after hanging around intuitive people.

I would not say one way of living requires more energy than the other. I think it is more an issue of how comfortable and easy it is to share one’s energy with another.

I am intuitive and feel rejuvenated after being around intuitive people because we have a shared way of expending energy and I don’t have to work hard to connect. On the other hand, when I am around someone who expresses and finds their energy, in ways different from me, I may find myself drained after the exchange. Not because of how they are, but because of how I am and how I have had to work hard to connect.

Yet, if I am needing rejuvenation, being around someone that makes me work hard probably isn’t the best idea. That is when it is probably best for me to track down someone like @janbb for a bit of tea.

Pretending not to care is so much work!

Haven’t you ever seen Mean Girls? :)

@liminal I’ll put up a pot right now.

People can only drain you of energy if you let them ;)

I don’t know about shallow or introspective. Just semantics.

But tiresome passionless chatter. That will burn me out fast.

@Silhouette The people I am referring to as “shallow” in my question are individuals that I have known for over half my life. I know them, almost as well as I know myself, and I believe the term shallow is the proper description of their personalities because they do not allow themselves to connect on a deeper level to others. (Of course, I know their are reasons behind this inability to connect, and I take that into consideration when I am with them)

I did not mean for that description to sound insulting, it just is, as you said, a different way of being. That certainly adds variety and spice to this world because if everybody was this same, this world would get really boring really quickly. A bunch of emotional clones of me would drive me crazy. lol.

I agree with @liminal. The similarities in ones ability to connect emotionally, makes being in the company of like minded people, effortless and even rejuvenating in some cases. I would also conclude that it is more about my own ability to be open and emotionally transitory when in the company of others that have a different way of connecting than I do.

I guess I should have looked a little more precisely at the {metaphorical} three fingers pointing back at myself before deciding to post a question about the differences in others’ personality traits.

Thank you to all that answered.

@MrsDufresne You know them better than I do. I will say this, I knew a man for 24 years and he pretty much always kept his connections to others close to the surface. One day he opened up and I got a glimpse of how deep his water really runs. For 24 years I would have sworn he was the most shallow individual ever. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He is probably the deepest person I have ever or will ever know. Sometimes still waters do in fact run deep.

I know lots about introspection but nothing about shallowness. ~
I don’t suppose anyone will actually admit to being shallow, will they?

I can be both with a minimum of energy

Seems like its a matter of your interaction with people. If you take a lot from the emotional cues than you are missing the information you usually use, so its harder to deal with those types of people.

For people who are more literal (maybe thats the wrong word) than I think the opposite would happen. They would be required to focus on the emotional cues and have to think more to figure out whats happening.

Being an ‘emotional robot’ does not make you shallow. Some people just internalize their feelings rather than splaying them out for all the world to see.

@lilikoi Yes, this is true.
At the moment when I phrased the question, I neglected to properly elaborate on what I meant.

@MrsDufresne I think most of us got what you meant. I can generally read the internalizers pretty well. Still waters run deep comes to mind