NDUMISO NGCOBO | Pea-brained introverts of the world, do not unite!

In an episode of The Diary of a CEO, the popular podcast hosted by British entrepreneur Steven Bartlett, he is in conversation with neuroscientists Dr Wendy Suzuki and Dr Daniel Amen. Responding to the question, “Is it true that if we have less friends … less strong relationships … we are lonely, then our brains will shrink?" Dr Suzuki responds with an emphatic “Yes. We are a social species …“ before delving into a more nuanced explanation, citing what she characterises as “powerful research” that supports this assertion.

Of course, that is not nearly an adequate summary of the 90-minute episode, but I am so committed to the entertainment and titillation of my readers that I do not allow facts to get in the way of a great story. So I’m going with the deliberate oversimplification of Dr Suzuki’s bold claim: that social hermits such as myself walk around with shrunken brains.

I know what you’re thinking because it was also my knee-jerk reaction. Isn’t it ironic that the smartest people most of us know are incorrigible loners? In fact, I’m willing to wager the -R186.45 balance left in my bank account after the debit-order carnage of the first of the month. I bet that the scientists who conducted the UK Biobank studies that found social isolation causes brain shrinkage probably have one-and-a-quarter friends each and spend, on average, just six hours a month in the company of other people.

To live, I require oxygen, water, solitude, food and shelter ... in that order

Using the unreliable sniff test, it is very tempting to call BS on the findings of these studies. However, experience has taught me that it’s probably delusional to contradict peer-reviewed science armed only with ignorance and obstinacy.

The major reason I experienced discomfort at this revelation is that whenever I have taken the tests, I have always scored towards the extreme introverted end of the introvert-extrovert spectrum. So I take it personally that my brain is probably smaller than Fikile Mbalula’s. He’s a man of the people, for sure. Consistent with most natural phenomena, most people tend to cluster around the middle of a normal distribution curve, I would imagine.

I have an insane appetite for solitude. To quote my even worse hermit of a wife: “To live, I require oxygen, water, solitude, food and shelter … in that order."

Our approach to solitude is one of the major glues that have kept us happily together for 25 years. When she books a chalet in Clarens or a weekend alone in Cape Town, all I see is an opportunity to wander around the house in my T-shirt and boxers, having awesome conversations with the many voices inside my head.

Life after the last of the children buggered off to university has been blissful.

Just 10 years ago, whenever I felt I was low on “peopling bundles”, I would flee in the general direction of the crapper. Many parents know that this is often a signal for children to follow you in there so they can have what they believe is your undivided attention while browbeating you into letting them go to a sleepover at Koketso’s house on a school night.

It has worked on occasion, because we all know from doctors’ consulting rooms that whoever is fully clothed always seems to make more sense than the poor sap seated on a cold porcelain chair with his pants around his knees.

Speaking of my lastborn, I recently had a fascinating conversation with him about this during his vacation from university. Of all my children, he is by a long mile the most introverted. The gist of the chat we had was about how society has pathologised loners who prefer their own company.

But I digress.

Brains the size of a meerkat’s aside, according to neuroscience we’re okay people who deserve to be left alone. Even if we are on the extreme end of the spectrum, like a former high-school classmate of mine. His introversion was so bad that singles tennis was not few enough people for him. He’d spend his afternoons playing two sets of tennis against a wall. Far less yakety-yak from a wall. Even when another classmate would mockingly ask him who was winning, he would simply smile politely and continue wiping the floor with the wall.

This is all to say that no neuroscience formed against my tribe shall prosper.

In my best Mr Keating from Dead Poets Society voice: “Be gone, Dr Suzuki and Dr Amen, PhDs! Amen!”

Fellow introverts of the world, do not unite!

They will never take us alive!