For years, we’ve sorted personalities into two neat boxes: introverts who need alone time to recharge, or extroverts who thrive in groups. But psychiatrist Dr. Rami Kaminski has coined a term for people who don’t fit either category — “otroverts,” from the Spanish word “otro” meaning “other.”
These people aren’t drained by social interaction like introverts, and they’re not energized by crowds like extroverts. Instead, they’re oriented in a completely different direction: toward independence, authenticity, and a fundamental discomfort with belonging to any group, no matter how welcoming.
If you’ve always felt like a “perpetual outsider,” skip team-building exercises, maintain one or two deep friendships while avoiding social cliques, and find yourself unable to care about belonging — you might be an otrovert. And according to Kaminski, recognizing this isn’t just validating. It might explain your entire relationship with the world.
We’re All Born This Way, Then Most of Us Change
All babies start out as individuals with no concept of group identity. Around age two, we begin learning to socialize, share, and consider others’ needs. By age four or five, most people recognize local culture and group-based identity. From this point on, everyone undergoes cultural conditioning through exposure to their environment, language, customs, and guidance from adults.
The vast majority absorb this conditioning smoothly. They learn to be team players, value group membership, and internalize the unwritten rules of social collectives. But some people — otroverts — resist. Not because they’re defiant or antisocial, but because something fundamental in their wiring rejects the premise that belonging to a group should matter more than being themselves.
“At around five, when cultural conditioning kicks in, many people make the transition to a shared group identity,” Kaminski explains in interviews. “Otroverts, however, can’t get with that. There is something in that particular person that sort of rebelled against the notion of conditioning or indoctrination.”
This isn’t a disorder or a phase. It’s a distinct personality orientation that persists throughout life. If you felt like an outsider in elementary school, high school, college, and now at work — you’re probably not doing something wrong. You’re just wired differently.
What Otroverts Actually Look Like
Otroverts often feel more comfortable talking to people outside their peer group — kids who prefer adult conversation, adults who connect better with people much older or younger. They tend to be sophisticated, thoughtful, and display a level of insight that surprises others. Bosses, mentors, and colleagues often find them excellent one-on-one, even if they seem distant in group settings.
These people ask complex, thought-provoking questions. They question conventional wisdom, challenge accepted knowledge, and approach problems from unique perspectives. While they’re typically well liked by peers for their wit and intelligence, they maintain only a few select close friendships and remain indifferent to social hierarchies.
They avoid group-oriented activities like team sports, office happy hours, or networking events — not because they’re anxious, but because the pressure to conform in these settings feels overwhelming and pointless. They’re not bored by being alone. In fact, they need substantial time in solitude to recharge after social interactions, which can be misinterpreted as antisocial behavior.
Otroverts find it difficult to adapt to environmental changes like new jobs, moves, or organizational restructuring. Because they don’t operate according to unwritten social rules, they often feel disoriented by transitions that others adjust to easily.
The Surprising Strengths of Not Belonging
For most of us, watching someone consistently opt out of group activities triggers worry. We’re conditioned to believe that people need to be team players, that networking matters, that fitting in is essential for success. But Kaminski argues that otroverts possess significant strengths precisely because they don’t follow the herd.
They form opinions based on personal analysis rather than group consensus. They reject the “hive mind” and typically develop narrow but deep specializations rather than broad general knowledge. They’re comfortable with being outsiders and impossible to pressure into conformity.
These traits often lead otroverts to become artists prominent thinkers inventors and founders later in life. Once they release the burden of trying to fit in, they have space to think their own thoughts. Not belonging frees them from the tides of consensus, allowing them to recognize patterns and blind spots that group members miss.
In workplaces drowning in groupthink, otroverts can be invaluable. They’re the ones who’ll point out that the emperor has no clothes, who’ll challenge assumptions everyone else takes as gospel, who’ll solve problems from angles no one else considered.
How to Support Otroverts (Including Yourself)
The most important thing is accepting this orientation instead of trying to fix it. Whether you’re recognizing this in yourself, your kids, a partner, or a colleague, the instinct to push toward group participation needs to be resisted. Observe and respect comfort zones rather than constantly trying to expand them through forced socialization.
Encourage one-on-one connections. Otroverts thrive when given autonomy to explore their interests and build deep relationships with select individuals, not when pushed into networking events or team bonding exercises.
Validate the questioning impulse. When an otrovert asks “why do we have to do it this way?” they’re not being difficult — they’re engaging in the critical thinking that defines how they process the world. Respect that impulse rather than shutting it down with “because everyone else does.”
And perhaps most importantly, don’t pathologize it. Many otroverts spend years trying to mask their natural tendencies, playing the role of pseudo-extrovert to survive in group-oriented environments. This is exhausting and can lead to emotional breakdown and depression. Recognition that this is a legitimate way of being rather than a problem to solve gives permission to be authentic.
The Cultural Blindspot
There’s a fundamental tension in how we talk about belonging: we desperately want everyone to fit in, to have community, to be happy in social settings. Anyone who consistently chooses solitude over groups triggers anxiety about loneliness and isolation.
But otroverts aren’t lonely. They’re comfortable. They don’t experience FOMO the way group-oriented people do. The anxiety we project onto them often isn’t theirs at all — it’s our own discomfort with someone who genuinely doesn’t share our assumptions about what healthy social connection looks like.
The real challenge is accepting that some people’s wiring is fundamentally different from the cultural script we’ve all absorbed. It requires trusting that otroverts know what they need better than the self-help books or the team-building consultants.
It means redefining success to include deep thinking, authentic relationships, and creative independence rather than just popularity, networking prowess, and team spirit. It means protecting the right to opt out when everyone else is pushing participation.
Most of all, it means recognizing that not belonging isn’t a deficit. For otroverts, it’s the foundation of their greatest strengths — the very thing that allows them to see clearly, think independently, and contribute perspectives that would never emerge from within the group. They’re not broken. They’re just oriented differently. And that might turn out to be exactly what the world needs.