Yep, he sure was. Underneath all of that macho bravado, he was just another one of us pathetic introverts. First of all, he wrote every morning from 6 AM – 10 AM. All alone in his writing cottage of course. All of us have to write alone. You can’t write if other people are around. Well, at least you’ve got to shut the door. Admittedly, it’s not a very sociable hobby. After that, he had lunch, then he’d go off to the bar or wherever and drink or rabble rouse with the boys.
What nobody knows is that Hemingway was actually painfully shy. See all that boozing? That’s called liquid introversion, folks. That’s why he drank so much, to kill his shyness. It works for some of us if we’re not too far gone.
We think of Hemingway as carousing it up in wild and dangerous men’s bars, right? Try again. Let’s walk into one of his favorite bars right now. Maybe it’s in Italy, or the Alps, or Paris, or Key West, or best of all, Havana. Sure it’s wild at the main bar where the bartender’s serving up drinks. So where’s Hemingway? Damn! There he is, off in a darkened corner of this particular clean, well-lighted place, drinking alone in the dim light. Which is usually exactly how you found him.
Finally, one more algebraic proof and we will be off. How do we know Hemingway was an introvert? Well, he was a great writer, no? That’s all the evidence you need. All great writers are introverts. No exceptions, ever. Extroverts can’t be great writers. They’re just not wired up that way. For one, they hate being alone. That’ll kill it right there.
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