By Diane Kathrine | Source
I recently came across the term otrovert, and it immediately caught my attention.
The more I learned about it, the more I started wondering whether this could be a word that describes many Empaths who have never quite felt comfortable being labelled as either an introvert or an extrovert.
Now, I do realise that we don’t need a label to understand our nature, but sometimes it helps us determine the reasons why we are the way we are.
The term otrovert isn’t a recognised psychological diagnosis, and it certainly won’t describe every Empath. But I found it fascinating because it seems to offer another way of looking at those people who don’t quite fit neatly into either box.
And I wonder how many Empaths there are who have spent years thinking, “I’m not really an introvert… but I’m definitely not an extrovert either.”
And that’s why the description of an otrovert could work for you.
So, what does an otrovert Empath look like?
You can be sociable. You can enjoy being around people, have a good conversation, laugh, join in and genuinely connect with others. But after a while, you need to step away. You need your own space, your own thoughts and some time to recharge before you feel ready to be around people again.
Being an otrovert doesn’t mean you don’t like people. In fact, you may actually feel things very deeply when it comes to other people. You can crave human connection and genuinely enjoy spending time with others, but you also need plenty of time alone to reset.
And being an Empath can also make this even more intense.
Because you pick up on other people’s moods without them saying a word. You notice changes in their voice, their facial expressions, their body language and even the atmosphere around them. And then, sometimes you can walk into a room and immediately sense that something isn’t right, even when everyone is pretending everything is fine.
Basically, you have an internal radar for people, where you can tell when someone is being authentic and when something doesn’t quite add up. You might not always be able to explain how you know, but you feel it. You notice the little things that other people overlook.
This can be another reason why social situations leave you feeling drained.
It isn’t always that people themselves exhaust you. It can be everything you’re picking up from them: their emotions, energy, and the things they aren’t saying.
AI also found it interesting, that an otrovert is also said to detest small talk.
So, if you identify as an otrovert, talking just for the sake of filling silence doesn’t interest you. You’d much rather have a meaningful conversation than spend hours talking about nothing. And if there’s silence, you don’t always feel the need to fill it.
You can be perfectly happy in your own company. However, some days, you’ll crave people. You’ll want conversation, laughter, affection and connection. Other days, you’ll want to disappear into your own little world and have nobody asking anything of you.
So, you can love people and still need distance from them. You can be incredibly sociable and still need hours, or even days, to recharge afterwards.
You can deeply care about other people while also knowing that too much of their energy can become overwhelming.
So, now we have to ask where did the term ‘Otrovert’ actually come from?
The word otrovert is a very new one.
It was coined by New York psychiatrist Dr Rami Kaminski, who had spent years noticing something in both himself and some of the people he worked with that didn’t quite fit the usual introvert, extrovert or even ambivert labels.
Kaminski described people who could be sociable, friendly and perfectly capable of mixing with others, yet still have this underlying feeling of being somehow different or slightly outside the group.
They weren’t necessarily lonely. They weren’t shy. And they certainly weren’t unable to make friends.
They were simply people who didn’t have that same natural need to belong.
Kaminski eventually used the word ‘otro’, meaning other, combined with ‘vert’, referring to turning or directing oneself. In simple terms, it was his way of describing someone who is naturally inclined to stand slightly apart rather than automatically becoming part of the crowd.
The idea became particularly well known through Kaminski’s 2025 book, The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners. He describes otroverts as people who can be welcomed into a group and treated as though they belong, while internally still feeling like they are standing just outside of it.
And this is what makes the idea so interesting.
An otrovert isn’t necessarily the person standing alone in the corner of the room because they’re too nervous to join in. They may actually be right in the middle of the conversation, laughing, chatting and getting involved. But part of them is still observing. Which, I feel, could describe many Empaths.
Kaminski himself has said that he recognised this feeling from a very young age. He could be popular and surrounded by people, yet still feel strangely separate from them. Over time, he began noticing similar experiences in some of his patients, which led him to develop the idea of otroversion.
I should probably point out, that the term otrovert isn’t currently a medically recognised personality type.
For now, it’s more of a new way of describing a particular experience of personality, belonging and connection. Much in the way the term Empath won’t be used in a medical diagnosis or by health care professionals, yet it is a term that helps many Sensitive people better understand their traits.
So, perhaps you could also describe yourself as an otrovert Empath, someone who can connect deeply with people but doesn’t need constant company, someone who feels more than they let on, notices more than they say and needs solitude to come back to yourself. You don’t necessarily avoid people. You simply need to choose when you have the energy for them. And when you spend alone it isn’t just you withdrawing from the world, it’s how you reset after feeling so much of it.
Ok, well that’s my musings for today.
I hope everything is keeping fabulous in your world.
Until next time,
Diane
By Diane Kathrine
Your article was very illuminating!
You described my characteristics perfectly. I currently live in a women’s homeless shelter due to unavailable housing. I have met women who are like-minded and consider friends. We enjoy deep conversations and I appreciate these relationships. Nonetheless, I’ve noticed I have a pattern of intertwining and isolating. At first I wondered why I needed to isolate after having a connection, laughter and fun, perhaps feeling a bit guilty and wondering if these ladies thought I was avoiding them personally.
My solitude isn’t just for recharging my depleted energy socializing but for meditation, introspection, and creating art which I crave. I need this solitude like air and water. I can’t fully enjoy it unless I am completely alone for hours or a day or two. Once I have rejuvenated myself, I yearn for connection with these friends. Since you described my experience thoroughly I will explain to my friends why I need their beloved friendship as well as my isolated self love and care.
Thank you for sharing my divine insights. This article is beautifully written and inspired.
Pamela Bray
OMG! That describes me perfectly, and my mom and daughter.
People wear me out, being around them, the drama, and countless, other things, that just get, in the way, and the subsequent, baggage, of being subjected, to the barrage, of incoming, unwanted emotional, stimuli. It takes a negative, toll … I accept, that I cannot absorb, all that energy, at once. There was a time, when I did not know what it was, but that has been decades ago, and I know, my own, limitations. This is a good article. One day, I will be whole, and more enduring. Truly, I look forward, to that, and being around people will be a joy again, as it is meant, to be.
If I read this, an otrovert is just a type of introvert, rather than a third separate category. An otrovert is basically a socially capable, empathetic, caring introvert.
People have the mental image that an introvert is socially awkward or someone who doesn’t care about others, but that isn’t automatically true.
Or to use a metaphor: this article more or less says “next to cats and dogs, there’s also a third kind of pet: the otrocat, and it’s a new species because it’s not a dog; and it’s affectionate unlike a cat.” When really the “otrocat” is just an affectionate cat, and the “cats aren’t affectionate” stereotype was nonsense in the first place.
The reason I’m nitpicking is if the caring introverts deny they’re introverts, then people will get confirmed in their nonsense stereotype that introverts aren’t socially capable / don’t care.
If a woman who likes motorcycles says “I like motorcycles therefore I’m nonbinary / queer”, then she’s confirming people’s stereotype that no woman likes motorcycles. Whereas if she says “yeah I’m a woman and I like motorcycles” then she’s assisting people in seeing that the “women don’t like motorcycles” stereotype was never universally true in the first place.
While I understand your nitpicking, I appreciated the distinction made in this article. And my understanding is that it goes a bit further than a gray cat, or Otrocat.
On a personal note, I find it quite funny because when I tell people that I’m into astrology, I’m often told, “Don’t you feel like you’re labelling people and putting them into small categories?” While in truth, most people use even narrower categories, such as introvert or extrovert.
In any case, I understand your point very well, but I still think this small nuance is a plus when it comes to getting a broader understanding.
Sure, I agree that there’s some gain to be had in adding some adjectives to introvert.
However, what’s the gain in going:
“I’m an otrovert.”
“A what?”
“An otrovert. It’s an empathetic, socially skilled introvert.” [or whatever your precise definition is]
Rather than going:
“I’m an empathetic, socially skilled introvert.”
The second one seems more efficient to me.
Unless you propose that the whole world learns the term “otrovert”, but that seems a bit self-centered of a demand for something that can be explained in one short sentence.
Plus if we start teaching everyone that there’s introverts, extraverts and otroverts… then you have the problem that now everyone who says they’re an introvert will be doubly assumed to be uncaring or socially inept. So now all the introverts basically have to say they’re otroverts or they’re slandering themselves.
I think people emotionally like inventing new, positive, special labels for themselves which subtly elevate themselves over the masses. But that doesn’t mean that’s a net-positive for the world.
Actually, I found the concept quite interesting, so I did a bit of research. The term ambivert has been proposed, which is basically a way of saying “gray.” Otrovert, on the other hand, seems to imply something more specific: a low need for belonging. That’s really the key point.
In practice, this often shows up as both an ability to interact and participate socially, and a need to withdraw in order to recharge. So, from what I understand, otrovert doesn’t mean 50/50, or even simply “a well-adjusted introvert.” Fundamentally, it means someone who is sociable but has little need to belong to a group or adopt a tribal mentality.
An introvert can be shy and still have a strong need to belong, while an extrovert can also have a low need for belonging. So in reality, the term adds a third axis rather than simply describing a point somewhere between introversion and extroversion.
If introvert and extrovert refer to the same quality, they are of the same axis; in which case the term could only add a second axis, ‘need to belong’.
Which has nothing to do with being introvert or extrovert.
Those terms already define a tendency of behavior and not a permanent disability to behave either way.
I agree, but theoretically one can define a new two-dimensional model where one axis is introversion vs extraversion, and the other axis is “need to belong: low to high.”
That 2D model is a different model than the 1D introvert / extravert model. Still, the 2D model isn’t inherently worthless / self-contradictory / something like that. And in the 2D model, maybe otrovert is a fine term to use.
Right, technically, this is a second axis, not a third. Well, I appreciated the addition of that article and I don’t feel like defending it the bone.
Okay then. Let’s set up a vote and hope the introverts show up.
Or at least one introvert and a dozen empaths around him.
Actually, the flaw in this article is the way it mixes different ideas and leaves things somewhat imprecise. As far as I know, the original creator of the term “otrovert” didn’t mix it with the concept of the “empath” that we see here on a daily basis. He simply added a second axis.
Diane deserves credit for bringing up the concept — and the article does have value — but I think she blurred the lines a little. Anyway, I rest my case.
Whereas it is true that we can describe people ‘in general’ as extroverts and introverts, when we begin to expand our knowledge of human behavior – human psychological types, in this case – we out of necessity ‘to describe what we see’ not only ‘correctly’ but also ‘precisely’ have to come up with new terms.
The Mongols, who are ‘master shepherds’ have over 20 words for a ‘sheep’.
The Yakuts, who are ‘master norsmen’ have about the same amount of terms for ‘snow’.
The four blood groups that we know are actually .. ‘over 20’ blood TYPES which are ‘reduced’ for the ‘ease of use’ to the issue of ‘compatibility’ (only)..:)
The accumulation of knowledge produces the ability to see details, ‘newances’ in the field we focus on. And this requires ‘new words’!:)
2300+ years ago Plato, repeating after the Seven Sages (of Greece), wrote: “do your work and know yourself.” — Labels are labels (only, of course) but I think that they can be used ‘beneficially’ (at least by some people) during certain periods of human development (and this includes self-exploration too – ‘by default’).
The term ‘otrovert’ sounds a lot like an INFJ (‘social introvert’) to me. But whereas it is a bit ‘hard’ to study the whole 16-type table ‘to get’ it what INFJ (actually) means, it seems ‘easier’ to me to use ‘otrovert’ in a social situation, hehe (.. if you are one..) without getting that ‘funny look’ from the other people…:) So I’m OK with it (IF I remember it:)).
Thank you Diane….. I am an Otrovert!
Grazie Diane, ho letto e meditato con sincero interesse e devo dire che mi trovo totalmente nella descrizione. Quindi sono un empatico otroverso! Gratitudine Maurizio Italia
Totally agree and applaud your insight, and choice of term for this personality type: very like a Myers-Briggs test INFJ!
Haha! I myself thought so too. It seems like an INFJ to me.:)
And a ‘new term’ for an empath quite often can be HSP (highly sensitive person) these days. – Each generation likes their one ‘words’, hehehe.:)
Well, INFJ seems to be quite popular at the moment, especially in spiritual circles. It’s the only one of the 16 types that I regularly see people openly identifying with in very different contexts. Maybe INFJs are simply overrepresented in those environments — that’s possible.
But the Otrovert doesn’t like to belong though.