The Life of an Introvert

What Does Antisocial Really Mean?

If you ask most people what the word "antisocial" means, they'll tell you that it means someone who is not social, doesn't like to talk to people, and hides out in their room all the time.

Apparently, that's not what antisocial actually means. 

I did some more research (Wikipedia) and I found out that anti-social behavior is categorized as behavior that can lack consideration and can cause harm to other people. In other words, bad. 

Yes, you may be surprised to know that anti-social behavior has very little to do with not talking to people or withdrawing from social situations. Some examples of anti-social behavior I found were inappropriate use of fireworks, firearms incidents, glue sniffing, making excessive noise, etc.

Yeah! Making too much noise can be considered anti-social! Weird, but okay. 

You guys probably think I'm stupid for not knowing this before, but I ask you, if anti-social behavior is actually violent behavior and not introverted behavior, how did the definition of the word change to mean someone who doesn't like to talk a lot? I guess it's one of those commonly misused words. 

Did you guys know that racism and sexism can be considered anti-social behavior? That's somewhat amusing. Everyone who has called me anti-social up to this point has implied that I'm racist, sexist, and violent, even though they didn't know it. Whoops. And I'm pretty sure I don't sniff glue or use firearms either. 

But what about the other word? Maybe some of you know, but 'asocial' is also used to describe people that don't really like talking to other people that much. 

I remember one Saturday when I was with my friend and we were hiding out in her room during some party. Her mom came in and called us "asocial"

Of course, we both start cracking up because we'd never heard the word "asocial" before and we thought it was made up. Her mom told us that it was a word used to 'describe quiet people'

But as it turns out, asocial isn't an accurate term to describe quiet people either.

I looked up the word asocial, and I saw that it meant inconsiderate of others or selfish. And nowhere does being quiet indicate that someone is selfish. 

Now, if you already knew all this, congratulations. Seriously. I still can't believe how long it took me to figure it out.

But I also can't count the number of times both these words were used incorrectly, even by me. Anti-social behavior is actually a problem, and sometimes can indicate a mental illness in people suffering from it. 

So if introverted people or shy people can't be called anti-social or asocial, where does that leave us? Does it make us social? Sure, you can be introverted and anti-social at the same time, but you can also be extroverted and anti-social. 

Why can't we just be known as introverted or quiet people? Heck, why can't you use those terms to describe people but not in a negative way? 

So I have to correct myself on this one. Being anti-social or asocial is actually a problem because it implies selfishness or violent behavior. But I'm not anti-social, yeah. You're not anti-social, yeah. We're all not anti-social, yeah! (Spongebob reference).

As it turns out, both introverts and extroverts are indeed social. They are just differently social. 

And to clarify, making fun of someone that is anti-social won't help them. So stop doing that. It's not a casual word because anti-social people can suffer and they can make other people suffer too. 

I wonder if antisocial is one of those words whose meanings have changed over time because people have started to use it differently. Either that, or it's just a very misused word.

In conclusion, we have four words. Introverted, shy, anti-social, and asocial. All of these words mean different things, surprisingly.