Science, Travel

Extraterrestrial Extrovert Exclusion Expected

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I’m not against extroverts – quite the contrary.

Yes, of course I’m an introvert and naturally I’m prone to long stretches of uncomfortable silence. That’s why I rely on the extroverts of the world – they keep the conversation going.

It’s the extroverts out of this world that may become the real problem. It seems the ebulliently sociable are on the verge of being excluded from any mission to Mars.

The tiresome effect of introverts and extroverts being in close confines for an extended period of time is a topic we have already explored here. And all indicators suggest the charm of upbeat, chatty people will wear thin during more than a half-year with nothing to comment on but the same black-and-star-speckled scenery.

When desperate to end a conversation, my fall-back is the generic “Well, I gotta go now.” But locked inside a Mars-bound capsule, there’s really nowhere else to “gotta go” to.

Even short trips can seem endless if there’s someone in the car who needs to manufacture conversation. And anyone who has tried to make small talk can recognize the peril here – in the vacuum of space there’s not much to say about the weather after you agree that you shouldn’t open a window because it sucks outside.

Rather than immediately rule out the extroverted for a Mars launch, I wonder if NASA will consider forming an all-extrovert crew. Yes it would be a talkative seven month journey, but perhaps a TV channel could arrange to broadcast the whole thing live. Some outlets don’t have exceptionally high standards – a group of people saying anything energetically is good enough for basic cable.

But here’s the other problem – what happens after arriving on Mars? Introverts will gain back their strength while quietly pondering the alien landscape, but the likelihood is high that extroverts will feel absolutely lost because there’s no one new to meet.

I’m not one to make iron-clad rules and I certainly don’t want to rob people of opportunity based on personal characteristics over which they have no control, but I wonder if space exploration will ever be a good place for extroverts. Yes, they have many positive and endearing qualities and no one can deny that extroverts are wonderful for loosening things up at a party, but as we’ve seen in countless Hollywood movies, aliens may not be open to the kind of congenial welcome we seek.

So dispatching a landing party that’s skilled in glad-handing and back-slapping could backfire in a cataclysmic way. And after all, there’s no guarantee the extraterrestrials will have backs to slap or hands to receive the gladness.

But even if alien forms of life do have these things, why would they accept our overtures? If they are extroverts they would have already come here and introduced themselves.

And if they are introverts, beware! Nothing is more unpredictable than a moody alien, and everybody knows we can come on a little strong.

What sort of road trip companion are you?

62 thoughts on “Extraterrestrial Extrovert Exclusion Expected”

  1. Turns out that I’m an engaging, lively travel partner – something I never knew before my very long trip with Steve. Also, and not to my surprise,
    I have enough to talk about to fill 26 hours on the road and three whole days following!

    About Steve – he spent a whole week in the hospital. Molly had to call an ambulance and was later told that his health was in grave danger a week ago. He’s now stabilized and getting better and probably coming home. A positive thing to come from this is that he now has a resource-gathering social worker and medical follow through with doctors rather than having to scout for each specialty he needs.

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    2. Thanks for the update, Cb. Glad he’s getting better and able to see the silver lining to his predicament.

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    5. Thanks for the update-glad he is getting tapped into the resources he needs (and with Molly right there), but how scary!

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  2. Depends who I’m traveling with and to where and if I want to sleep with her.

    Leaving out the latter situation, I’ve driven from Illinois to Philly for the Three Stooges convention (see my comment on the prior post about unorthodoxy) with a guy who wouldn’t shut up. When I told him I needed some quiet to nap, he later told me he had to remind himself not to talk about three times per minute. Jesus!

    On the other hand, I’ve driven long distances with someone who talked only when asked a direct questions .

    So I’ve had both ends of the spectrum, and will guess I’m a pretty good road trip companion. I’m adaptable, I can drive a stick, and I always pay my fair share of the gas.

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    2. True, tim. Joe’s relationship with the Stooges is in a different category than what we usually think of as “like” or even “love”.

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  3. Good morning. You might need to do a survey of people who have traveled with me to find out if I make a good road trip companion. My tendency is to either talk too much or not say anything. I think I am an introvert. I am told I am not an introvert. Which one am I, introvert or extrovert? I am aware of my problem of either saying too much or not saying enough. Maybe some of the people who have traveled with me recently would think I make a fairly good travel companion.

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  4. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Interesting perspective, Dale. Who else would think about extros, intros, and space travel.

    It turns out that there are a few people who love to travel with me. Thanks goodness, my husband is one of the group. They like my style–walkable areas with apartments or condos to rent (found on VRBO or Airbnb). Apartments have kitchensin which to cook, and separate bedrooms have doors that close when we are tired of one another. This travel style is a lot like the Minnesota “family cabin at the lake.”

    These strategies keep costs down, calories down, and over-exposure to another party’s opinions, political or otherwise, at a minimum.

    And this reminds me, I am due to write a travelblog about Edinburgh, Scotland.

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  5. I do my best to be an introvert-sensitive extrovert. I am perfectly okay with a companionable silence for a stretch of time. If we are driving (either with me at the wheel or my companion), I am just as content to watch the scenery go by as engage in conversation.

    I wonder, though about introverts-in-space: Darling Husband is very introverted. He works with a group of folks who make annual trips to McMurdo Station in Antarctica and it has come up a couple of times that he should make the trip some year. The minimum stay at McMurdo is something like a month – and there is precious little space for the very introverted to retreat to by oneself (as reported by another introvert at his lab). He’s not sure he would survive a month of essentially having to be around people all of the time, even if a good chunk of the others are introverted…maybe it would be different if he knew that everyone at McMurdo were also introverts…

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    1. Being sensitive to your travel companion’s need for space and quiet time, goes a long way toward harmony.

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      1. When planning our two-day trip to Portland, my brother actually said to me; “We can do three things with the hours: listen to books on tape or music; talk; be silent”. This amused me. Thankfully, he couldn’t find any good books on tape as this would’ve cut way into our ongoing dialogue! He’s such a kind, considerate man that he graciously tolerated my need for talking the entire way.

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    2. Introverts at McMurdo who are stuck for a small talk topic will not find much to say about the weather. Maybe chatting about penguins will fill the conversational void!

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      1. He helps people who count penguins and measure ice. 😀 He works at the Polar Geospatial Center (http://www.pgc.umn.edu/) – he does computer-y and geographic information system-y things for the scientists so they have data to analyze about the poles and their environs. And, yeah, some of the staff goes to McMurdo for part of “the season” (provided there is appropriate funding and that Congress hasn’t done something foolish, like last fall with the budget showdown that rippled out to a lot of government agencies not being able to do things…which lead to flights not going to McMurdo for a bit…).

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  6. We drive long distances out here, and I am a fast traveller who makes as few stops a possible. Daughter and I travel well together, sometimes talking, sometimes in companionable silence, depending on her mood. I will talk your ear off or leave you be, depending on what you want. Husband and i talk all the time while we travel. He is an annoying traveller, though, as he always has to make frequent pit stops for food and drinks. I have a hard time not joining daughter in eye rolls when we all travel together and he insists we stop somewhere.

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        1. It must be our “writerly training,” Dale. Avoid cliches like “she rolled her eyes” because of their ridiculous literal interpretations. Glad sticky buns isn’t a writerly cliche yet. Gonna try and use that somehow in a story. 😉

          Chris

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    3. Due to a medical condition, I need more bathroom breaks than husband. He uses them to stock up on the snacks that only he wants. Work pretty slick most of the time.

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  7. I could drive coast-to-coast and not say ten words, so long silences only bother me when I know my traveling companion wants to chat but is trying to be polite and not bother me. It’s the knowing that they’d talk nonstop if they could that makes a silence uncomfortable.

    My solution to sending a successful group to Mars: send only long-term married couples who still like each other enough NOT to commit murder, but have said pretty much all there is to say during their marriage and therefore are quite comfortable talking or not talking as the mood suits them.

    Chris in Owatonna

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      2. Probably a reality TV series with many marriages, but adding the one-way space voyage slides it into the realm of space odyssey/steampunk/new age/sci-fi/New Adult (gotta have some R-rated scenes, for such a long trip)/vampire (why not? Vampires are ubiquitous nowadays, aren’t they?).

        And upon further reflection, the obvious choice for best couple to go to Mars would be Ralph and Alice Cramden, since Ralph constantly promised Alice: “One o’ these days… One o’ these days. Bang! Zoom! *shakes fist* To the moon, Alice!”

        Chris in O-town

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  8. Husband and I like to make compilation CDs of our favorite music to play on longer road trips. He’s careful to not include too many selections with John Denver; I in turn go easy on Joni Mitchell. We can drive for hours with minimal talk, sometimes with music, sometimes not.

    We have done a couple of long road trips with another couple in the car. Most of the time that has worked out really well and was lots of fun. On one notable occasion it didn’t work so well. The other couple was completely disinterested in the beautiful scenery we were driving through and went to sleep in the back seat until we reached our destination. No point in taking the scenic route. On another occasion, the back seat passenger was busy playing video games or texting the entire trip.

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  9. Morning all. I’m pretty easy to travel with, as I don’t get my shorts in a bunch if things don’t go the way you want them to. Last November I got stuck with clients in Costa Rica when our plane had some mecanical problem. Client’s husband went and bought a couple bottles of wine and we got rooms at the airport hotel. We all lounged about in the client’s room, watched tv, drank wine, room service pizza and nachos… had a fine time. Later the Account Exec who was with us told me that he was climbing the walls the whole evening because things hadn’t gone the way “they were supposed to”.

    Of course, if you let me be in charge of the timetable, you have to be able to keep up!

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    1. I take it the Account Exec wasn’t invited to the wine party. Sounds like things went exactly the way they’re supposed to.

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    1. I suppose you two have a lot of bird-centric conversations. But as the person behind the wheel, you pretty much have to take his word for it. It wouldn’t be safe to also try to catch a glimpse of that ivory-billed woodpecker at 70 mph.

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    3. If you swerve in North Dakota you go off the flat road across the flat ditch into the flat field. Just turn the wheel back toward the road again or turn left and head over to south dakota

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  11. I love travelling with the s&h. We get a book on disk, listen and stop it as needed to discuss. I’ve also trained him in the joys of pulling off because there is an obscure historical marker to check out.

    We don’t get to do this often.

    Travelling even briefly with my parents is pure torture, starting with the fact that riding in the back seat of a car has always made me sick.

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    1. I wonder why the back seat has that effect on you, MIG. Loss of control? Limited vista? Back-of-head allergy?

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  13. I have fun with conversation but in dales scenario where I am locked in a pod wit a crew of yakkers who talk about the current wisp of a thought at loud volumes for extended periods of time I think I would need some headphones with the sound blocker feature. Podcasts of wait wait don’t tell me and iTunes collection out of my new 3 tg memory book. Remember rocket man sock puppets

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  14. I have a breakfast group I hate to be in on conversationally a lot of the time. They are dorks and I just hang in there waiting for the conversation to turn to something I can partake other than the continual babble of suburban mush brains. I’m sure they are thankful I am there to make their conversations meaningful and fulfilling

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  15. On long road trips I put on music and sing along. No one has thrown me out of the car thus far, but it can’t have been easy. I don’t carry a tune very well.

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    1. My sister told me a few visits ago that she didn’t like my incessant singing along, mostly in harmony, to whatever music presented itself in the car. I’ve tried to bite my tongue (or whatever equivalent prevents humming) since then with her. Makes me glad that I’m alone most times in the car. #2 son confessed that he wasn’t crazy about it either.

      Aside from the annoying singing/humming, I think I’m a pretty decent travel companion. It’s best with only one other person or three. Having a third person in the back seat without his/her own discussion companion is difficult because it’s hard for that person to hear unless the front seat folks are practically shouting.

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