People have often wildly conflicting views on what it means to be an introvert.

I subscribe to the definition that an introvert is someone who primarily derives validation and worth from himself, rather than external people or stimuli -- think staying late to solve a tough problem, rather than staying late to impress a boss.

I'm definitely an extrovert, despite being relatively quiet and thriving in private situations. That being said, I still love 'going out' in the broad sense; our minds thrive on novelty, and people are definitely part of that.

I don't know why we have to bin people like that. I love staying in to program, or read, or whatever, but I need to go out a lot (every day, or more, if I can help it), because I love hanging out with friends, meeting new people, doing new things, etc.

Intrinsic vs extrinsic validation doesn't really factor into it. I just like hanging out with friends and making new ones.

We bin people like that because, before the bins, we just assumed there was one and that people who weren't in it were bad. Now we know there are two, and people might simply be in a different "good" rather than out in the "bad".

Well, enough of that. Here's a new theory: There are no bins, there's a continuum of behaviours, and there's no good or bad.

I think, (and I'm being presumptuous here), everyone knows there are no true 'bins', and that people are complicated, and every characteristic is from in a continuous metric, and there is no good or bad.

I also think that this is why bins are used. It's not an attempt at correctly describing people, but rather a simplification, using general terms in order to communicate the traits in a, best-effort, meaningful way.

I could never adequately describe how I _truly_ am as a person. All I can do is draw on gross simplifications that you yourself can translate to a meaningful metric based on your own experience.

Sure, that makes sense, I'm just of the opinion that scales describe people a bit more accurately than bins, e.g. the Kinsey scale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale

I think you're right, though, most people probably use it as a sort of description rather than a hard categorization.

People have a massive incentive to put themselves in bins: it gives them the opportunity to hate on the people in the other bin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups

> Well, enough of that. Here's a new theory: There are no bins, there's a continuum of behaviours, and there's no good or bad.

Hey, if you can convince the other 7 billion people who drop people into bins as a matter of biological instinct that you're right, then cool.

This is actually really easy.

"but I need to go out a lot (every day, or more, if I can help it"

Therefore, you are an extrovert.