If you've ever read or seen Pride and Prejudice, than you know just how relatable Elizabeth Bennet can be to introverts everywhere.
1. She has no tolerance to idiocy.
When it comes to ignorant people, Ms. Elizabeth really has little tolerance. Like, really? Get your life together, people!
2. She knows that awkward eye-contact is real.
For most introverts, making eye-contact with someone unknown or just someone you don’t want to make eye-contact with, can be a terrifying experience. Some of us introverts can easily fake confidence and blow it off but many have a million over-dramatic thought run through their heads. “Do they think I’m a freak?!” “Why are they looking at me?” “I wonder if they are secretly in love with me.” “OMG.” “I’m so awkward.” “What have I done to deserve this fate?!”
3. She understands the need for alone time.
The other part of the population, extroverts, will never understand the need for alone time but it is a necessity for introverts in order for them to live a sane life. I’m not even being dramatic. We, introverts, must have time to recuperate from our interactions with other human beings. It’s not that we don’t love people, we do. In fact we couldn’t live without them. But we just need a little time to be with our thoughts to better understand things.
4. She doesn’t fall in love easily, but when she does, it’s real.
Lizzy isn’t against falling in love but is looking for something that is real. And in order to find that it often takes more time. She doesn’t settle. But obviously, if you’ve read the book/seen the movie, she finds love that is real, deep, and rich.
5. She always has her nose in a book.
This one is pretty straight forward. We need an escape from the world, whether that is in a book, writing, art, music, dance, or whatever your passion is.
6. She needs time to think to herself.
Thoughts are many and for an introvert they are hard to comprehend if you don’t have time to actually assess them on your own. This goes back to the alone time. We need to evaluate our feelings, deep thought, and ideas on our own.
7. She hates shallow, small talk but knows the joy of a good, real conversation.
Small talk is not adequate for introverts. We have to have some sort of substance to our conversations or they are worthless to us. When conversations have depth, they can go on indefinitely!
8. She finds the obligation of being social all the time a drag.
Every now and then we enjoy a good party, concert, or festival, but if we haven’t had a quiet evening at home alone in a while then we can’t stand to be running to one social event after the other. And the Bennet’s always seem to have social engagements, so you can imagine what that must be like.
9. She finds meaning in the littlest of things.
This is both a blessing and a curse. Elizabeth can find meaning in everything, negative or positive. Overthinking leads mainly towards negative effects of freaking out about things.
10. She laughs off her awkwardness, although it happens quite often.
Elizabeth is often laughing at inappropriate times, speaking her mind a little too jarringly, or just plain being herself. With this comes awkward moments that she just laughs off naturally.
11. Her lack of interest in snobby people is rather a large sum.
There is nothing charming about stuck up, arrogant people, even when their salary is larger than the worth of your whole house. Again, not even being dramatic. She finds nothing worth exquisite in these rather shallow people.
12. But her quiet disposition (mostly) hides her intolerance for loud, obnoxious, and boisterous people.
Luckily, being introverted, she has much self-control because of her nature to keep to herself. Although, sometimes she can explode with emotions and opinions. But overall, she keeps her unpleasant thoughts to herself.
While Ms. Elizabeth Bennet is a fictitious character, she is as real as real can be. Her introverted nature speaks to me on so many different levels and that’s probably why it’s my favorite Jane Austen novel! Lizzy doesn’t tolerate much and neither do I. Just kidding. But really.