Engaged in Life

Been processing a bit about the kind of situations I prefer to be in and ones that I don't - and there seems to be something about choice of what you engage with and also actually being engaged. For ages I've known that I hate lectures/classes ... and I hate tutes just as much, so it's not just about being talked "at". There is something about being told what to engage with when that doesn't work for me (and it's not just about being told what to do!!!). It all feels quite unnatural or something - and doesn't work for my brain somehow. Thinking about it has taken me back to school days and the best ways I worked - which was being way ahead so that when I was in class I was just working in my own space. Interestingly for an extrovert (although I did one of those tests yesterday and came up as an introvert), I prefer to work on things alone, but normally have ideas initiated in conversation with others and like to take things back to others too. So I guess tutes where I'd done the reading and we really were coming for a free form conversation around the reading would be brilliant. And while I do in many ways process externally, it's processing what is already beginning to be processed in me not what the situation I'm in is telling me that's what I need to talk about. So ideally I like to be in situations where we are talking about stuff I have come prepared to talk about - but where the conversation has permission to go wherever it goes. For that to work well though I need to ensure I have done the "pre-work/thinking".
Not only that though - I hate situations by and large where I am not actively involved. I get bored if I am not participating strongly and I just don't want to be in the situation. However, there is another side to that - I also enjoy actively watching! So one of my favourite things to do in a group situation is sit and contentedly let the social situation occur. What I hate however is being asked to be involved in the conversation/activity but not in a way that is fully engaging all of me. And so much of life in our normal ways of interacting asks that of us!