Lockdown has laid bare our differences, but hermits and gadabouts can be perfect for each other.
On paper it looks like a relationship deal breaker: one person's idea of heaven is sofa-surfing with cocoa and Newsnight, the other's is a fancy-dress party that ends with a tequila-fuelled conga at dawn. So it's surprising how often a hardcore introvert find themselves inextricably drawn to a determined extrovert – doomed to spend the course of their relationship arguing about the true meaning of quality time. Often the tension proves too much, as some suggest has been the case with This Country writer and actress Daisy May Cooper and her landscape gardener husband Will Weston. According to reports, the stresses of lockdown may have proved too much for the couple, who have been said to split after barely two years of marriage – though his mother disputes this.
Lockdown has been dreadful for exuberant characters like Daisy May Cooper – and me, me, me. Without other people to spark off, it's almost as if you cease to exist. You can't crack a joke or do the can-can in a void. This year's overall Costa prize-winner, Monique Roffey, even set up an extrovert's support group on Facebook so people like her and me (judged "a bit much" by retiring types) can exchange isolation sob stories and wistful memories of the time we – OK, I – were told not to try and upstage a sibling at their own wedding. But solitary types are living their best life with 18 months' (and still climbing) worth of state-given excuses to live like a Siberian anchorite.
I feel huge sympathy for both Cooper and Weston, as a social animal wed for 26 years now to a die-hard hermit. In my husband's ideal life, he'd be living on the Outer Hebrides for nine months a year, with only curlews for company. Whereas I wilt if I can't make a weekly pilgrimage to one of my three London clubs (yes, three, because I am a unapologetic social whore) to see friends, carouse and surf the energy of London's party people. I've long had a framed cartoon on my wall that shows two Indians perched above a canyon looking down on a masked cowboy leading hordes of revellers. One says to the other: "Look! It's the highly gregarious ranger!" Let's just say that gag speaks to me.
As you'd guess, it's tough to reconcile conflicting needs when two people have such fiercely opposed dispositions. And they really are needs, not preferences. A true introvert doesn't just yearn for solitude – having time on their own is critical for refuelling their batteries. Forcing them to socialise can be as cruel as putting a polar bear in a small pen at a zoo to be gawped at by crowds. Equally, a born extrovert wilts if deprived of meaningful human interaction. When we walk into a crowded room, it's like being plugged into the mains: electricity surges through our veins and equilibrium is restored. The only downside is when we climb on a table at 3am to sing a tone-deaf My Way.
