Is the Inner Monologue Gap a Relationship Dealbreaker?
Peter Clarke explores the divide between people who apparently experience a constant internal monologue and those who do not. In doing so, he asks what this difference might mean for friendship, romance, personality, and the way we move through the world.
I have an ever-present internal monologue. Even as I wrote that sentence, I “spoke” it back to myself in my mind to see how it sounded. Then I “spoke” it back while being self-aware of “speaking” it back. For a few moments, a sort of infinite regress was initiated. Then, still comically self-aware that I was speaking to myself to myself speaking, I moved along to the next sentence. And now here we are (me and all the voices in my head) at last at the end of this paragraph.
Moment to moment, this is how I experience reality.
I only recently became aware that some people report going through life without any such internal monologue. It was a mind-boggling realization. Even after having read about this phenomenon and listened to a number of interviews with people who have no internal monologue, it still strikes me as utterly bizarre. It gives me an unsettling sense that a huge portion of the population is living in a reality I simply cannot comprehend, let alone relate to.
Initially, I found comfort in knowing that the people closest to me shared my experience of reality. My wife certainly has an internal monologue. I have confirmed this with her, but I really did not need to ask. It is the most obvious thing in the world, a central aspect of how she describes events in her day. I also had a long discussion about internal monologues with my friend Devon on our podcast. He, too, shares my mental life.
For several months, I settled into the simplistic assumption that people naturally coalesce into groups depending on whether or not they have an internal monologue. The self-talkers (like me!) are the writers, the book-lovers, the psychologists, the lawyers, the philosophers. And the non-self-talkers (the aliens, really!) are all the visual artists, the engineers, the doctors, the mathematicians. On either side of the divide, we all go about our business, offering different things to society but never fully engaging with one another—certainly never forming close friendships or romantic partnerships. Imagine marrying someone who had an entirely different mental experience? It would be a disaster!
But then this assumption, which I found comforting, was abruptly shattered. While texting with one of my closest friends, I casually mentioned how weird it is that some people cannot hear their own voice in their mind. My friend replied:
“You know what’s wild is I don’t think I have an internal monologue. At least not like the ‘talking to one’s self’ sense like a verbal internal monologue.”
At first, I could hardly believe it. This is a guy I have known for well over a decade—a guy I have lived with, gone on numerous road trips with, and played music with countless times. All this time I had never picked up on his lack of an internal voice?
This new piece of information obviously made mincemeat of my assumption that people only associate with those who share a similar inner life. Clearly the inner-voice divide is not an impediment to friendship formation. Still, I find it impossible to believe that this divide is irrelevant in terms of human relationships. How could it be?
The internal monologue phenomenon has been studied extensively. However, much of this research is highly specific and technical. For example, psychologist Russell Hurlburt, a prolific researcher in this area, has published studies measuring the frequency of inner-experience characteristics and exploring whether inner experience can be apprehended in high fidelity. Similarly, researcher Charles Fernyhough at Durham University in the United Kingdom has used fMRI to study distinct categories of inner speech. Fernyhough documented neurological differences between “expanded” inner speech (basically the same as speaking out loud), “condensed” inner speech (speech that is ungrammatical and extremely abbreviated), and “inner hearing” (which occurs when a person “hears” his own voice in a way that is distinct from actively speaking).
Despite this technical research, I have not found research into the broader social implications of the inner-voice divide, particularly whether it affects relationships. The only relevant information available seems to be a few informal case studies. For example, the podcast Boss Project features an episode in which a woman with an internal monologue interviews her husband about his experience without one.
The most insightful information I have found comes from a Reddit thread on the topic: “inner monologue—dating someone without one.” User 116pizza offers a fantastic breakdown of her experience dating a man who has no internal monologue. Here are the highlights from her commentary, lightly edited and condensed:
I have been dating someone for three years. He has no inner monologue. I didn’t realize it until we were a year and a half in. We definitely have been experiencing a lot of differences in communication and thinking styles.
Honestly, I still don’t have my head wrapped around the way he thinks. But I’d say the major differences that present as issues in our relationship are:
- He doesn’t understand why I worry or anticipate and prepare for worst case scenarios. He feels this is very negative and brings him down when I express my worries. For me, I can’t help it because my brain discusses with itself and often uncovers issues before they happen.
- He doesn’t understand why I hold on to the past, even the recent past. For me, when something upsetting happens, I have a conversation about it with myself in my head frequently. I discuss, analyze, recognize through conversation in my head. It’s hard to forget an upsetting thing, especially when it was discussed so much [in] my head. For him, if it’s not right in front of him, he is not thinking about it generally. He doesn’t carry around weight.
- For him, he is kind of an out of sight, out of mind person. When you are right in front of him, he can be super loving and considerate. But I feel when you are a long distance from him, you just aren’t super present in his mind, therefore he doesn’t put too much thought into you. For me, I discuss the person I am dating in my head with myself. Especially when I feel in love, I enjoy “talking” about them in my head via thinking.
- Lastly, even though we didn’t know about this inner monologue thing at the beginning, the awareness definitely helped (at least for me). It made me understand why he doesn’t understand my anxiety. It also helped explain some of his impulsiveness.
When I was studying psychology in college, a professor challenged us to consider—in the context of romantic relationships—which catchphrase is more accurate:
“Birds of a feather flock together” versus “Opposites attract.”
There is some intuitive truth to both. But for someone looking for a partner, the answer is clearly the former: one wants to spend time with someone who shares his interests, worldview, social status, and the like. Even if one finds himself attracted to someone who is his polar opposite, good luck making a long-term relationship work if he wants to buy a pickup truck, move to a Dallas suburb, and attend church three times a week while his would-be partner is dead set on selling her car and moving to Brooklyn.
The inner-voice divide should be considered a factor in this calculation. It strikes me as similar to differences between extroversion and introversion in that there are many downstream effects. It is not that extroverts cannot marry introverts (we all know instances of this) but rather that extroverts will need to adapt to the reality that their less-outgoing partner may try to escape certain social situations and will likely never be thrilled at the idea of dressing up for Halloween.
In terms of the inner-voice divide, the downstream effects are less obvious but potentially just as significant. For example, as 116pizza noted, a person with an inner voice may be more anxious than their partner, while a person with no inner voice may seem to act impulsively from their partner’s perspective.
When I think of my friend who has no inner voice, I cannot say that this difference between us has had any obvious negative implications. However, when I reflect on it (when my hyperactive inner voice reflects on it), I can see how the inner-voice divide leads to subtle differences in our tastes and lifestyles. For instance, even though we share the same political position on drugs, he is far more open to drug experiences than I am. To him, drugs are invitations to adventure, whereas for me, they are—by and large—invitations to feel paranoid. Literary taste offers another example. Even though we both place a high value on literature generally, he is primarily interested in song lyrics, whereas I am more interested in fiction. As for fiction specifically, he loves Dune, whereas I find it horrendously tedious—presumably because he can breeze through the detail-heavy sections, while my brain compels me to read every individual word.
These differences between us are utterly insignificant, of course. It is not like I feel any less close to my friend now that I know we share different mental experiences. Just as 116pizza concluded, the knowledge of this difference between us might even help us better understand and empathize with each other’s quirks.
Still, nothing definitive can be said about this topic until it is properly studied. It seems to me that having versus lacking an internal monologue should be considered a relevant factor not just in terms of relationship success but in nearly any other realm of life. Who is better suited for playing chess, for playing tennis, for becoming a dentist? Who is more likely to develop schizophrenia or to be diagnosed with ADHD? Who is more likely to develop sleep disorders, and which sleep disorder treatments work best for which type of person?
Pursuing answers to these types of questions could help each of us navigate the world better—even if, ultimately, we are all very much alone in our own heads.
Peter Clarke is a writer and lawyer in California. He is the host of the podcast Team Futurism.
