For example, people say I'm good with kids, but it is definitely not natural. I'm redlining that process to evaluate the situation and react appropriately. I know friends who just "recharge" when hanging out with kids. I'd say _they're_ good with kids, I can just fake it for an afternoon (and then I need a nap).

I've also noticed it with D&D. I enjoy getting out and playing it with friends, but also, it becomes a group of new people, kinda, and you're a new person, kinda, so again that "monitor process" comes into play, and by the time we're done a session and I get home, I just kind of need to crawl into a chair and read a book in silence for an hour.

But definitely, absolutely, it's that judgement you mention that's a primary factor, I guess I just see that judgement (personally) coming as more of an internal force.

But nothing drains my energy like my family and in-laws. We are from developing country with a lot of social and religious rules. And whenever I am with them I am not being myself. I have to keep my shield up.

Also I disagree with another sibling commenter said that the most of judging is only in our own mind. In my case when I turned 40, I decided enough is enough, I will just be myself with my family. I slowly lowered my guards, talked about movies that I really like, how I really treat my kids, what I really do on weekends, stopped eating obscene amount of food with them, etc.

And immediately, there was onslaught of judgemental comments, comments about accepting our new countries culture and forgetting our better culture (\s). But what really bothered me was the comments about my parenting style and how I was ruining my kids' life.

Merely exposing yourself to a situation again and again will lessen your anxiety and put the kinds of automations in place, in terms of perception and behavior, that will make you feel “comfortable“ (i.e. allow you to handle the baseline situation on autopilot, so your energy is free for higher level functions, such as strategy or simply enjoyment).

This means that, being an introvert, you can make yourself tremendously more comfortable in extraverted [1] situations simply by going to a bar or a coffee shop twice a week and spending time there. Simply being there slowly gets you used to the environment. (It’s very similar to desensitizing a dog to fireworks, for example. Sorry! :))

Also, I suspect this is what actually creates these differences in personality types in the first place. Some people get really comfortable being by themselves, and others get really comfortable being around others. It starts in early childhood, and becomes a self reinforcing cycle. In many ways, it makes sense to do more of that which you’re already good at. Changing your environment is often more profitable than trying to change yourself.

So if introversion is some strong social anxiety, and you have one bad social experience at a bar, it could just reinforce that anxiety out of proportion to the actual reality. The brain isn't always rational unfortunately.

But I don't think introversion and social anxiety is the same thing, though I absolutely buy that they probably often co-occur. To the extent I have any social anxieties, they are very specific and limited, and don't really affect me much, but the energy drain of interacting with people does.

I tried this - I forced myself into social situations daily for years, and kept a log to make sure I could guarantee that I actually did. It did make me far more comfortable, but it did not at all affect my energy levels.

I think comfort is probably necessary to maintain your energy, but not sufficient.

In the end I stopped because it made me miserable and tired. I don't regret having spent some time doing it, and I learned a lot, but it certainly did not change my introverted nature.

I'm sure to some people it's about comfort levels, and so I'm not suggesting it can't work, and it's probably worth trying for people who feel socially awkward. But for me the main thing it taught me was that I don't want to be a social person.

Of course either case is fairly rare for me

Having said that, I think you have a point with the threat perception part. I do enjoy social contexts where I feel like I fit in and can be myself. The problem seems to be more with social contexts I am obligated to participate in, where I have to put on a mask of interest; probably the threat is to be found that you’re really not interested into that interaction.

Yes. The more you shy away from big gatherings, the harder it becomes to decode audio signals in noisy environments. It also doesn't help if you're much smaller or taller than other people.

For a long time I believed that I can't hear anything in large groups because I'm introvert (which I am) and large groups exhaust me. Turned out to be hearing problem.

And the thing is that I never had a feeling that my hearing is poor. But some day I got tinnitus that did not go away over time, and after some tests I learnt that I'm almost deaf for high-frequency tones. It impairs speech understanding, especially when there is a lot of background noise like on busy street... or family gatherings.

The filter limits unhelpful input into my left ear, which for me is conflicting input in voice range and high-pitched loud noises.

I was instructed to wear it for classes and meetings and to sit to the left of the main speaker when possible.

I haven’t worn it in years, but I credit it with a higher GPA and a few friendships that might have struggled to form if I hadn’t been able to hear well enough to converse.

All people want from you when making small talk is for you to talk about the inane things in your life with a positive energy. The inane chatter shows you're normal and relatable (you're someone who's going to enjoy the latest TV show and get burgers for lunch, instead of shooting up a school), and the positive energy shows you're not harboring ill will towards them.

It's the handshake portion of the Human Data Exchange Protocol (HDEP). I'm fine with that, but similarly to the previous poster, I'm lost when small talk goes beyond the first few transactions. I usually don't know what to say and/or don't usually care about what they are saying.

"Relatable" carries a lot of water here. If you're a woman in a roomful of men, somebody who grew up rich in a room full of people who grew up poor, or maybe don't enjoy watching the latest TV shows or eating burgers, this doesn't reduce the stress of small talk.

I totally agree with what you're saying about the goal of small talk, but that the goal is simple authentication doesn't make the implementation simple or hacking it trivial. People are sniffing around for in-group stuff, and its a test you can fail quickly.

Also, if you fail, now you've fallen into the "shooting up a school" category.

So my answer: talk about the weather today, in the recent past, and projected into the future. Discuss how you both arrived at the place you are at (traffic, routes...) If you were both around when someone else said something interesting earlier, talk about that. Seize upon any answers that hint at something the person you're talking to is passionate about but that you are not passionate about. Ask questions about those. If they start to bore you to death, act like it's all too complicated for you, and either GOTO 10 or drift away. If they don't, then you're having a good time and learning something you didn't know before.

Here's an "exercise": Next time you're in a shop, get your wallet ready before you get to the cashier. At the cashiers most people look down at their wallet or at their shopping, and so giving cashiers eye contact is like a super-power. Look them in the eye and say "how are you?" as you pay. And rather than hurry, pause at that point for a second.

It's absolutely remarkable how much of a difference it made, to the point where I dialled it back because it led to too much extra social contact for me. E.g. I also started greeting the bus drivers at my local bus route, and within a week one of them recognised me at the gym and started talking to me regularly. I'd lived there and taken the same bus for a decade prior to that and never gotten recognised. At the shop near where I worked, cashiers who had never said a word to me in the previous years, suddenly started telling me their life stories, and I'd observe them rush to open new lanes when I approached and there was a queue, sometimes even specifically telling me. And I made no effort to actually hold a conversation beyond that "how are you?" or occasionally "how was your weekend?" once I'd talked to them a couple of times.

The point being that you can learn a handful of little "magic" incantations that basically hand all the job of the chatting over to the other person, and leave you basically doing simple "followups" like asking "really?" or agreeing.

The irony is that doing that, you can let people learn absolutely nothing about you, and they'll still go away with a positive impression of you because you gave them an opportunity to talk about the things they care about.

If you're interested in that approach, Leil Lowndes has books that are quite useful in offering advice that are relatively pragmatic in this way of how to "be social" without necessarily being a chatterbox. I think "Goodbye to shy" is one of them.

Usually I'd rather be neutral and anonymous and not have to stand and listen. Of course this isn't ideal in a work environment, but honestly there's very few people that I actually enjoy listening to, and even less that I enjoy talking about myself to. I'm a private person and at work that becomes difficult.

Knowing how to appear sociable is an important skill, I can do it but find it quite mentally draining.

I suspect that I just don't think like most people, I prefer deep one-on-one conversations to superficial stuff.

Having said that, I do understand the paradox that I will never get to the deep conversations without having to get through the small talk with someone I don't know well, but at that stage I don't even know if they're the kind of person who is capable of or even wants to have a deep conversation at all... I haven't worked that one out yet.

I think it's because of time pressure. I don't ever seem to be able to find enough time for myself as it is. I have much more "free" time than most people, but my hobbies seem to automatically and seamlessly fill whatever time I have! Most people don't seem to be ever become so focused on their hobbies, except people on the internet with their super-detailed sites on niche topics, but I never seem to meet them, or perhaps I just never elicit their obsession out of them.

If I had unlimited time with no responsibilities, maybe I would feel like I have more time to chat with others, but that's not reality, and at least up until now I have not once ever felt like I have as much free time as I'd want.

Just rambling now, but it boggles my mind how anyone could ever get a chance to feel bored with so much interesting stuff in this world.

>It can also help in being able to at least lessen the pain to get better at redirecting the conversation to be the least annoying possible.

Haha, this resonated with me.

I will try to focus on redirection rather than avoidance strategies. Thanks for that.

I read a quote recently, "Be curious, not judgemental", and I will try to do that.

I see it as exploratory. You're just trying to find some common ground with someone you don't know. Eventually you'll find something you both like/dislike and can bond over that a little.

You can usually skip a lot of it and just ask about/mention something that interests you and if they've ever done/seen/heard/read about anything like that. If you open up about something personal, people usually respond in kind.

For instance, I've always wanted to go hang gliding and after being cooped up during the pandemic, I took the opportunity to go when restrictions relaxed a bit. Did you anything as soon as things opened up again? The pandemic is a shared misery we can all bond over.

Calling none sense. IT'S NOT IN YOUR HEAD!

There are objective levels to it.

Say I work in film making and specialize on actors wardrobes , I can make a good living, perhaps even reach a 7 figures net worth.

Fast forward award seasons comes around, during the afterparties everybody wants to talk and interact with the stars. Even if in my head my self-confidence is sky high and I am super social, approaching everybody, these people would avoid me and judge me as a weirdo, both during the party (to my face) and afterwards.

In that moment I am an obstacle to their real social goal of the night: interacting with Jennifer Lawrance, taking a picture with her, or even getting any reaction from her (including negative ones and extremely negative ones such as flipping the bird or telling people off).

This is an extreme example , of course, but generally people go to social gatherings and have a pretty clear idea of the person or even the profile of people they want to interact with.

This means that people do , in fact, judge or pre-classify or create standings in their minds, and if you aren't one of those sought after people then an interaction with you will most likely received as a disappointment compared to an ideal scenario that they had built in their own minds.

This means that you'd be judged.

Being irrelevant and being hated/laughed at are the same thing essentially.

Meaning they are both something else compared to the desired outcome: being loved and respected.

When you are in a super-optimal and franly desirable situation you are never just a passerby and thus you are never irrelevant.

Jennifer Lawrance, for example is never classified as a passerby and thus she's never irrelevant.

In response to your earlier comment, say the orfer of preference is the follwing:

1) Being loved and cheered by a crowd

2) Being ignored by a crowd

3) Being hated and actively threatened by a crowd.

Irrlevancy might be at no.2 , but it's notorious that second place is the last place

Like you, I blame it on the Illusion of Transparency: when we try to guess what other people are thinking about us, we do so with complete awareness of ourselves, so that model we make of other people is unnaturally good at seeing our flaws, especially the ones we're making an effort to conceal. Not only are people generally great at lying (they're not going to see through you), but they're likely also not paying that much attention to you.

For every comment I have ever read about how "that person working at X store doesn't care about what you do / buy", I know a handful of people who are that person working at that store who talk to no end about the various kinds of customers who enter their store. It's great feel good motivator to those who are oblivious to the lie, but it is a lie none the less.

Sounds like there are different ways to define or come across as introverted. I attribute my disposition more to sensory sensitivity reminiscent of autistic or ADHD-like traits rather than social anxiety.

I have recently discovered I get a lot of energy from Teaching kids or even just watching Kids play. Playing around with them may drain my physical energy, but mentally I feel so much better every time. Whenever I see them I see infinite possibilities. The world is so much better it is now than it ever was, despite I know all the shit that is happening in real world. And I have no problem speaking with Groups of parents in any social settings. And in a social event where our interest aligned like some technology forum.

But as you said I do get burnout in my previous settings with Business Meetings, I have to shield up, and after been through a lot of shit I know it is basically war zone. Not just outside but often a lot of in-flighting within companies. It is tiring. Especially when I am almost 100% correct in predicting outcome, while often tasked with fixing it. And the people judging on you because you are XYZ. I still remember the day I got promoted everybody's faces changed. And then later you know they all want a piece of you.

And an unpopular opinion, I really like Peter Thiel's take on it, most extrovert are low conviction people. And they are also the ones that tends to suffer from herd mentality. While also offering their herd views to the others since extrovert tends to run the world. And that is how you get herd mentality from top to bottom.

Anecdotally: I notice as my confidence grows I enjoy social gatherings more and am less tired afterwards, whereas 5 years ago almost every social event would be tiring, now some are actually energizing.

Edit: on the science bit. Yes, this is merely what I tell myself. But if we were to test this, perhaps we can do so by monitoring the glucose consumption of brains of introverts in different types of social situations?

Thanks for this insight. It says clearly something I've been feeling, but haven't articulated.

I've thought about taking some martial arts classes, perhaps jiu-jitsu because I know they "roll" from the first class onwards. I think it would help me get over part of my anxiety. However, I'm 40 and in mediocre shape, and I'm worried that the risk of getting injured outweighs the benefits.

Some BJJ groups will be great places to learn at your age. Look for people who demonstrate care that you are new, teach you how to defend yourself, and are generally devoid of ego/machoism. Especially the senior people leading the training. Gracie BJJ will teach you technique for months before they let you roll. That's probably not a bad thing because you'll learn how to do things and will be less likely to hurt yourself and will have time to build conditioning.

As an interesting addendum: To me the type of social events that are most draining are opposite of yours. When I can set myself apart (such as holding speeches, even in front of huge crowds) or by "drowning in the crowd" like in large events where I can just ignore everyone most of the time, I'm fine. It's like being alone. I held the commencement speech for my university in front of thousands of students, faculty and a TV crew. Piece of cake. Small groups where people expect interactions, on the other hand, even if they are people I'd totally trust and where I can let my guard down totally, are brutal on my energy levels and far more stressful as well.

In retrospect, I think of myself as a gregarious introvert. I love people but they wear me the fuck out. For many years I just pushed past those feelings, specifically not listening to my body as the author recommends in step 4. So I was in effect gradually training my nervous system that "social situation = pain". An important function of animal nervous systems is learned aversion to painful situations. So my feelings of anxiety about social situations were not irrational, but correct and proportionate.

Once I started taking my own health and feelings seriously, what I saw as social anxiety gradually dissipated.

For those interested in the mechanisms here, I highly recommend "The Body Keeps the Score". It finally gave me an intellectual framework for a lot of my experiences around this.

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I think they are definitely different things. This is something I've thought about for a long time. I've come to and changed my opinion on the distinction many times throughout my life, and I probably will change them again, but I currently like how I see them.

So, here's my journey, opinions, and why I think they are different:

I used to think I was just a little shy, at least that's what other people said when they described me. I eventually came to terms that I was shy. I was just another kid who was quiet at first but would warm up to people.

Then I came across the idea of being introverted, and I was self-labeled an introvert. Other people also seemed to think so and also called me this. Same thing, I was generally quiet, but it was now because "talking to people drained my energy, and isolation regenerated it".

But then I realized I did enjoy talking to certain people, but I was scared to. I came across the idea of the "shy extrovert". For a short while I thought this was me. After a while this labeled made less and less sense to me, but I kept it since I didn't really have a better label.

Finally, I realized I had social anxiety. I realized that my fear of asking questions, or going to the gym, or to schedule appointments on the phone, or to really do any uncertain human interaction was not introversion. It was social anxiety.

However, I still feel that my contentment with being alone for long periods of time is not due to social anxiety. I still eventually become lonely. When I'm lonely, my social anxiety hinders me from seeking human interaction, but it was the introversion in the first place that enjoyed the solitude.