Drinks and the summer barbecue: surviving (and enjoying) it as an introvert

The invitation is already in your calendar: the company summer drinks, Friday afternoon, the office garden, a few rounds and a barbecue. And while everyone around you is busy speculating about the weather and the food, you can already feel your energy quietly draining away. Not because you don't like your colleagues. But because you already know exactly how you'll feel around eight o'clock tomorrow evening: empty.

Let's start with the reassurance that there is nothing wrong with this. You're not antisocial, and you don't need to force yourself to feel differently about it either. What's happening is simple: for an introvert, a summer get-together is the sum of almost everything that costs the most energy. Lots of people at once, conversations darting in every direction, background noise you have to listen through, and the kind of small talk that, frankly, recharges you far less than a real conversation does. On top of that, a setting like this offers few natural exits: you can hardly get up and leave halfway through without it being noticed.

The difference between you and your extraverted colleagues isn't a matter of willingness, but of fuel. In a crowd like that, they actually recharge, like a solar panel drawing energy from the light around it. You work more like a battery: you give off energy in company and have to recharge separately, in the quiet. That doesn't make you any less suited to a party. It just means you have to approach it differently.

Not a buffet, but a tasting menu

And that's exactly where many introverts make their mistake. We walk into these events with an unconsciously extraverted goal: speak to as many people as possible, join every group for a moment, "do" the whole room. As if it were a buffet where you have to try a little something from every dish. No wonder you end up standing in a corner halfway through the evening with an overloaded plate and an empty feeling.

Try seeing it as a tasting menu instead of a buffet. Not as many loose contacts as possible, but a few courses you really taste. One good conversation with that colleague you'd been meaning to talk to. A quarter of an hour going deeper with someone about something that genuinely matters. That is your version of a successful evening and, as it happens, it's also precisely what you're good at. Because while the room is full of people hopping from group to group, you're the one who actually listens, asks the follow-up questions, and still remembers tomorrow what the other person told you. People remember that one conversation with you far longer than the ten fleeting chats they had elsewhere.

A task is a gift

A nice upside of the summer barbecue in particular: there's almost always something to do. And for an introvert, a task is often a gift. Offer to turn the meat, pour the drinks, help with the salads. It gives you something to hold on to, a natural reason to be standing somewhere, and a ready-made topic of conversation that spares you the dreaded emptiness of pure small talk. Standing next to someone and doing something together feels a lot more comfortable to most introverts than standing across from someone with the assignment to "have a conversation."

Plan your exit

Give yourself permission in advance to leave early. That one sentence in your head ("I'll stay until around eight and then I'll go") often makes the difference between an evening you sit through and an evening you actually rather enjoyed. Because the moment you know there's an end in sight, it becomes much easier to open up to what's happening right now. The knowledge that you may leave at any moment is, paradoxically, often the very reason you end up staying longer.

A few things that help as well: arrive a little on the early side, when the group is still small and you can ease in, rather than walking into an already full, noisy room. Deliberately seek out the edges (the kitchen, the patio, the spot by the barbecue) where it's just a touch quieter and conversations naturally go a little deeper. And above all, plan your recovery: don't put three of these events back to back in your calendar, but allow yourself an empty evening afterwards. That's not a luxury, it's maintenance.

So you don't have to grit your teeth through the summer with all its drinks and outings. You're allowed to enjoy it too, in your own way. Not by pretending to be a different type, but by playing the party by your own rules. One good conversation, a useful task, a clear endpoint and then, gladly, off into the quiet.

Drinks and the summer barbecue: surviving (and enjoying) it as an introvert

Not a buffet, but a tasting menu

A task is a gift

Plan your exit

About the author

The power of a highly sensitive brain