For example, I find smalltalk with people I don’t really know to be extremely challenging and tiring. And yet with people I do know, or in conversations on topics where I feel confident, I struggle to shut myself up.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be either introvert or extrovert, merely some set of personality traits.

I always thought my father was just like me, no nonsense, no chit chat, just to the point. Until I went with him when he was looking for storage space, and had heard an 80-year old farmer a bit outside of our town had some.

They talked about essentially nothing for twenty minutes but if you listened very carefully, somewhere in between the farmer had asked what my father was looking for, and a few minutes later my father had spent a few sentences on it, and then later it was mentioned that Xx who is the brother of Y you may know him has that company and he is using storage now but in a month half of it will be free and who knows and the rest depends on what Z does in the spring. In the end my dad kept a lot of stuff there for years paying hardly anything.

And in the meantime they understood exactly who the other was, what kind of people they were from, and so on.

I was in awe (I just stood there listening), they just had a whole type of conversation that I couldn't do.

So now I try to practice when I have the chance.

Introversion and extroversion are, on the extreme ends, whether you need to seek out “down time” after being around people versus never needing down time and always wanting to be around people, respectively.

For example, I’m more of an extrovert and if I’m dead tired at midnight but someone invites me to go out, I will still say yes because being around people gives me energy and it’s like ecstasy. And if one of my friends says no, I will respect it but “won’t get it” as to why you’d want to go home.

(Of course you have responsibilities as you get older but that’s a separate issue.)

FWIW, this pretty much exactly describes an introvert. Being introverted doesn't mean you don't like socialising at all.

If your default preferred way of being isn't "with other people" -- to the point where you feel anxious when you're alone for any reasonable length of time -- you're probably some flavor of introvert?

Well of course. Because majority of people is exactly in the middle between extroverts and introverts. The extremes are fairly rare. Most of us are a mix of introvert and extrovert traits, because it is normal distribution.

The way people talk about it, you would think there are two distinct species with no overlap.

This sounds more like ADHD.

In a sense, we are all a mixture of personality traits. It’s only when you get to the extremes, where it starts to be harmful, that it becomes a “disorder”.

Then I took piano lessons, practised a lot, and learnt three songs quite well.

Ever since then, when I’m at a party where there’s a piano, I’ve played one or two songs, then spent the rest of the night talking with people about music.

Learning to play the piano has helped me to overcome my social awkwardness. Now, instead of strangers feeling like an energy drain, it’s like they charge my batteries.

My point is that you can have no social awkwardness and be good at talking to people, but still have it be an energy drain.

For example, I can’t small talk with someone if I think they’re boring or if it’s someone new who I just met and don’t trust. It’s a terrible trait of mine because it’s pretty judgemental, but it’s something that I’m hoping to improve over time. Because of this, people’s first impression of me is that I’m an introvert, but I’m far from being an introvert (I really need frequent social contact). It just takes a while for me to warm up to someone.

These are typically a gateway/warm-up to high quality conversations.

And I think it's fair to say that extroverts value that glue more than introverts, generally speaking. For an introvert, the value of the glue may even be exceeded by the cost of discussing some random nonsense they don't really care about.

I'm very introverted myself, but I realized if I'm trying to make friends or whatever I have to deal with the small talk.

I think there is a vanishingly small amount of people - even amongst introverts - that will jump straight into the deep end of a discussion with someone right off the bat. Most of my introvert friends also engage in warm up small talk before talking about whatever it is we talk about.

That said, I don't make small talk with strangers unless I'm interested in making them a friend or acquaintance: so I suppose your opportunity cost perspective still applies, as I definitely don't make small talk just to make a silence more comfortable.

"Hi neighbor, it's nice to see a familiar face. I'm glad to see that you are alive and well, as am I. I am still a normal non-creepy person who lives near you & who cares that you are doing well. If you ever find yourself in a jam eg. locked out, I'll try to help you, and hope I can rely on you to do the same for me. But I don't necessarily want to be your friend, and I realize that you have other things going on at the moment, so I won't bother or distract you with a conversation that takes longer than an elevator trip or requires emotional vulnerability or introspection."

I think we don't say these things in these words because it takes too long, and it requires engaging with someone on a more personal/honest/vulnerable level than they may really be comfortable with given that I'm basically a total stranger.

It is the purest form of empathy and yet unfortunately also the most invisible kind.

Hell, I know people who tend to help themselves into dumb conversations while the other person reads a book or does something similar. No empathy here.

This is, I believe, to cover discomfort coming from silence and such conversations, while not completely pointless, often have little value. They would talk about just anything, to combat this feeling. Weather is a good topic because most people can relate and it is rarely annoying.

I would say that both intro- and extroverts can act like this but conversations started by introverts tend to be more awkward. I think that lonely people are more likely to start valuable conversations.

Sure, for their mental model of other people they're being nice (and in some cases they actually are) - but not everybody has the same mind or preferences. True empathy is built on understanding that.

Speaking for myself, if I was sitting at a social gathering I'd totally bear through any length of ice breaking to get to the meat of the conversation. If it was on a queue at the grocery store I'd bail out at the first 5 seconds. It's a matter of expectations.

- is energised by interacting with people

vs

- is de-energised by interacting with people

But there is a social skills / anxiety aspect to this.

Some people aren't particularly inherently energised by social interaction, so will always be introverted. That doesn't mean some social interaction isn't beneficial though - It might mean that they need a lot less though, like how some people biologically need less sleep than others, or degrade slower when deprived of it.

Incidentally, I wonder whether "coping mechanisms" are the difference - that introverts develop stronger internal dialogues that substitute for normal (external) social interaction(s).