I recently learned of the term “otrovert” which Gemini Overview defines as:

An otrovert is a term for a personality type, coined by psychiatrist Dr. Rami Kaminski, that describes individuals who do not seek to belong to groups but instead embrace their sense of “otherness” and independent thought.

The main difference between an “introvert” or “extravert,” and an “otrovert” (I will leave the parenthesis out from now on, but please read it as if they are still there =) is that an otrovert may enjoy social contact, but does not orient their social behavior towards the group. This is opposed to both introverts and extroverts, which, while having different focuses, still orient their social behavior towards the group.

An introvert may eventually grow tired of socializing and prefer personal time, but when they are socializing they interact with other individuals via their group identity and shared values. Otroverts will interact with other individuals as Unique (capitalization on purpose), disregard group identity, and give little importance to what is shared.

I can think of a couple such people, myself included.

While, this is fine an all, but just adds another arbitrary species in an incomplete taxonomy. We should instead create species from conjunction of criteria and not simply ad-hoc.

So what are those criteria? What is being classified by introvert, extrovert, and otrovert?

Well the answer is one’s relationship to the various “others.” Give me a second to dig through a couple years worth of diary entries…

Now, lets enumerate the “others” an individual can come into relation with:

  • their material being
  • themselves, spiritually
  • themselves, through the lens of the group (religiously)
  • themselves, through the lens of another individual (introspectively)
  • another individual
  • the group
  • the god

The introvert will prioritize relation with themselves, their material being, and possible the god both externally and internally reflective; with the group and other individuals as secondary. The extrovert will prioritize their relation with the group and god, both externally and internally. The otrovert will reject the group and god and prioritize their spirituality, being, and possibly individual relations.

There are possibly more and better criteria for otherness and I’m simply unaware, or it hasn’t been reasonably studied.