That's one thing I noticed - the author doesn't say "would you like me to introduce you to X who you could talk to about Y?". He says "hey, go talk to that guy" and thinks he's being kind. He's not. What Aditya could be hearing is "you're some kind of loser, there are so many obvious things any normal person would do, and you are doing none of them. Let me list some ways in which you are a loser. For example, you could be talking to that cool guy and you don't. And now that I told you that I'm going to leave you to soak in your loser-ness while I am going to have fun with my cool friends!". It's probably not what the author meant at all. But that's what it easily could become. Aditya clearly has some trouble connecting to strange people, for one reason or another. A kind thing would be to try to help him, not to label him "closed heart" and dismiss him. Of course, nobody owes him that, but if you proudly declare it's your job... If you think telling an introvert not having a good time "why don't you have a good time! go and have good time right now!" is going to work, you clearly don't understand how introverts work.

This doesn't seem to relate much to the parent comment. The idea of someone introducing you to someone else at a party is them helping.

> The idea of someone introducing you to someone else at a party is them helping

Umm ... along the lines of "helping" someone to learn to swim by pushing them into the deep end of a swimming pool?

This is also what stuck to me. The world is not as one wants and is up to the world to come to me with a fix. Self reliance replaced with self pity, will end up with sadness because the world will never be exactly as we want. I do find the idea of finding likeminded people good and you should do it. It is what I do and it is nice.

> And the idea of approaching and talking to someone I don't know fills me with terror.

I think this is social anxiety and not to be confused with introversion.

Sure, they aren't quite the same thing, but they are related.

And I used an extreme example. In general, among introverts, some have a high tolerance for social interactions, some have a very low tolerance and there are people everywhere in between. Or to use the terminology of introverts having to expend energy to interact with other people, you could say different people have different fuel efficiencies.

My SO and me are both introverts, and we've talked a fair bit about it. We both enjoy social events every now and then, but we do need to recharge afterwards.

The common theme for us seems to be that we expend a lot of energy when talking with others. We analyze what they say, in order to come up with thought-through responses or follow-up questions. We don't do "chit chat" as such.

Before such events I dread them, because I know it will feel exhausting. Yet when I'm at them I have a good time. Afterwards however it feels almost exactly like I've been programming hard for a whole day, my brain is spent.

I, unlike my SO, also has some social anxiety. I'm very likely somewhere on the spectrum, as I often feel difficulty getting social interactions right. So I spend some extra energy thinking about what the right response is to this or that, or how to interpret body language. Especially if it's a new setting or a lot of new people this can cause a lot of extra mental work.

This part however has gotten better with the years, mostly because I've stopped caring so much what others think and just let myself be myself more.

I think this is a root well worth understanding. Once I grasped the concept I found it much less stressful. I've even got into public speaking, which horrified me as a child.

I came to realize that I'm really not that important. People aren't watching me. People aren't evaluating or judging me. They forget me when I move on. I'm not profound etc. They don't hang on my every word.

All that are things I put on myself. Nobody really "cares" what I say though, I'm just not that important.

Once I leave my ego out the equation, talking to people is a LOT simpler.

I'm not sure about that. Friends and family members do happen to remember something I or someone else said or did even years ago. People DO watch and pay attention, and often judge.

yes, but that's people you know. Not random strangers at some random party. Talking to strangers is "easier" when you realize that what they think about you does not matter.

Which reminds me that verbal and emotional abuse from parents and close family can have a severe impact reaching far into adult-hood. You can't help having internalized behaviors build around trying to avoid abuse. You can rationally understand that maybe most people aren't judging you like that, but you're also keenly aware that the world is filled with enough who are and with strangers you can never tell who's who.

I’ll be nitpicking but I’m not sure they are really that related.

I’m an introvert and my wife have SA. TBH it’s pretty different : if I go to an event where I know nobody or where I don’t feel like I have something to say, I’ll just go and keep politely quiet. I’ll get more bored and lost in my own thoughts or just listening without talking than stressed.

My wife on the other hand is like you said, terrified and exhausted by such settings and even with familiar meetings. Moreover, the SA doesn’t stops when you start interacting while introversion can disappear or become unnoticeable once you are integrated to the discussion.

Also I feel like introversion can somehow be controlled as you age while social anxiety don’t or can get worse.

I’m In my 30´s, I’m still an introvert but I learned how to interact with strangers politely without giving a fuck. My wife with SA clearly can’t do that at all and is always asking herself if what she just said was appropriate.

> I’m not sure they are really that related.

I would be very, very surprised if most people with social anxiety aren't also introverts.

There are actually many many people who are both socially anxious and extraverted. Really not uncommon. It doesn't look like that because introversion and social anxiety are so often mixed up - just like in this article. Keep in mind those psychological concepts are defined by the inner workings and motivations of people's minds, not by behavior observable from the outside.

Introversion: This person gets energy from being alone or with close friends in a routine situation. (Not the same as being lonely, mind!). They feel attracted by situations and environments promising those situations.

Extraversion: This person recharges by mingling with other people. From small talk at the water cooler to larger social gatherings. They feel attracted by social gatherings, and want to be part of them.

Social Anxiety: This person is anxious in social gatherings (of people not being close friends or family). They have feelings of inadequacy about themselves as social beings, and fear being devalued for acting wrong or - worse - being wrong.

Those concepts are related but not at all the same. Persons being both extraverted and socially anxious long for social situations involving new people, but at the same time feel inadequate of being in them. Or ruminate about their behaviour afterwards. Or actively try to get comments of positive validation from their peers during or after the gathering.

At the same time people can be introverted and not socially anxious at all. I have a colleague like that: loves working alone, doesn't need companions even for longer, more demanding projects, but at the same time has zero qualms leading a team, talking to customers, going in front of unknown audiences. It just exhausts them.

Introversion and Extraversion are concepts involving motivations: What situations do people feel attracted to.

Anxiety is essentially about fear of inadequacy, or perceived lack of agency about a situation. So not about motivation, but about a concept of self.

There are, of course, feedback loops enabling correlations like the introversion + social anxiety one. Children (adults too, for that matter) have multiple avenues of gaining validation and positive experience in live, e.g. social competency (as colleague, parent, friend, community member,...), physical performance (sports, crafting, ...), intellectual performance and so on. If they learn that they are good at a thing, they tend to do that thing more often, because the experience of competency feels good. They will experience these kinds of situations more, and thus gain more competency in these kinds of situations.

Now if a child is often ill, and can't go play outside with their peers, it won't do nothing inside, but instead probably be reading or drawing or crafting. So it will not learn social skills at that time, but will get better at drawing and crafting. If it already had a tendency to introversion, that tendency will probably get stronger.

OTOH imagine a child that was very socially active in early childhood, but then , around 12 years old, the parents moved and the child had to change schools, and got bullied in the new school. This kid probably was extraverted and now gained strong feelings of social inadequacy, of not belonging, of being somehow different or wrong as a person. They will still feel attracted to social situations, but thanks to their experience of being bullied, this will feel very stressful to them. Extraverted and socially anxious.

The most frustrating thing about this article and most of the comments is the refusal to separate introversion/extroversion from social anxiety. If you are an introvert, you will benefit from managing the amount of social interactions and to try to eliminate low value interactions so you can spend your limited energy on important ones, either in the workplace or with friends. If you have social anxiety, then you should probably talk to a therapist to try to reduce and manage your anxiety.

> If you have social anxiety, then you should probably talk to a therapist to try to reduce and manage your anxiety.

One of the difficult things about Social Anxiety, at least for me, is that talking to a therapist is just about the most anxiety inducing thing I could do.

But why use the same words for both when they mean different things?

There's clearly a high correlation though.

I wouldn't say so: introversion is to feel recharged when being alone.

So one could be really eager to socialise but find it terrifying to approach (social anxiety), especially if many unknown people are involved.

I think that it seems that way because we're not trained to see outgoing people as having any anxiety about the matter. It's a funny thing for sure.

This is mental illness not introversion. You don’t get anxious about other things you don’t like. You might not enjoy playing board games or Russian literature. Does it stress you out and make you anxious? Probably not. You just don’t care.

I'll suggest to you that the boundaries between introversion vs mental illness are probably quite blurred in some cases.

And although it may seem ridiculous to you, there are people for whom board games and Russian literature are pretty stressful and anxiety inducing in the same way that public speaking is stressful for many people.

If you had also included math in your list of frequently disliked subjects, then it might be less ridiculous an idea

It's important to remember that stress responses vary widely

They said talking to another human being fills them with terror.

Blurry boundaries or not, either you're dedicidng to minimize what it means to feel terror, or I agree with who you're replying to. Bit weird to point the finger at someone and tell them they have mental illness, but it does look like it. Again, if you accept the description, I cannot see how terror would be an appropriate response to a conversation and would prevent someone from leading a normal life.

It would be nearly impossible to have a job for example.

Please do not impose the "mental illness" label on people over the internet. One of the foundational requirements for any diagnosis of a mental illness is a negative effect on the person's capacity to function, and you just can't evaluate that over the internet.

Its quite harmful to stigmatize peoples stories. Let people be different.

If someone is feeling deeply anxious over a social interaction, that’s a pretty clear negative effect on their capacity to function.

If someone never feels deeply anxious over a social interaction, that's a pretty clear negative effect on their capacity to function.

And how do you know that the Aditya from the story didn't have a mental illness?

I don’t know that. Why would it matter?

What I miss in these discussions is the "now what". OK, we are all born with different innate preferences, skills, interests, weaknesses.

We live in a world. In that world certain interfaces are virtually required to be implemented. Sure, some advocacy for the different is OK too, but meanwhile self-isolation is just not going to work for most. Also, we all are already learning tons that are based on our instance of the world, nobody would solve or create businesses if it were for pure intrinsic motivation.

How are we improving our weak spots? I sure as hell am going to put energy there, and not waste it all on moping, even further specialisation. Well, maybe those too, but after I spent some effort in addressing point I can identify are weaknesses for my functioning in the world I find myself in.

I've heard one way a parent can help a shy child is to have them look after much younger children. Even very shy children seem to be able to manage talking to less-experienced, less-intimidating, pipsqueaks.

Wonder if there's a way to take that tack.

shyness != introversion

What this guy describes is social anxiety, not introversion.

I mean, lets also avoid pretending there is zero overlap. I am an introvert largely because my brand of social anxiety causes me to function better in typically introverted ways. Introvertedness is a spectrum as opposed to something with clearly defined boundaries.

There is no overlap, it's two different traits, both of which are a spectrum. You can have full social anxiety while not having any introversion, and vice versa. I am introvert very much and yet I have zero social anxiety.

Would it be fair to say “You are an introvert by necessity rather than by choice”?

That's a strangely difficult question for me to answer, this being the first time I've been asked. What is your intention with it? You have me curious.

Thinking briefly on my answer, I would argue (mostly with myself) that it is a mix of both. For example, I consciously make choices about how to conduct my day or a specific task that will fall within the boundaries of my best operational parameters...which I understand makes me sound like a robot, but I am anything but (nor do I understand enough about robotics to pretend otherwise). It's just a matter of having enough self-awareness to listen to what my brain and body tells me works and does not work for me, noting what does work, then trying to accommodate myself for best results. In another comment, an introvert mentioned they can get up on stage and talk to a room of 500 people if they had to. I can do the same thing...so long as I know I have nothing to do the next day, because that action will cost me a ton of processing power and I will need to rest for a long time compared to, say, an extrovert. So, there's a consequence to be consider when making that choice to get up and talk to that room of people.

Alternatively, this also begs necessity. As someone who has actually been diagnosed and rediagnosed with anxiety and having tried different types of treatment to see what works and what does not work (choice, again?) I have learned one thing is for certain; this is not a thing that will just go away or be "cured" in the traditional meaning of the word, so it becomes necessary to learn to work around it.

In my experience, our choices and necessities are often the same, so it's a blurry question with a blurry answer.

Being an introvert isn't a choice.

lol pipsqueaks funny word

Pets are another big one.

It seemed to me that social interactions cause anxiety not only because you are an introvert but also due to the situation in which the interaction takes place. It seems to me that even if you are an "extrovert," you would feel anxiety when speaking at some seminar. It all depends on the context. But I might be wrong.

> the idea of approaching and talking to someone I don't know fills me with terror.

It seems you have completely missed the point of the article: this is something you need to work on. If you don't, it will negatively impact you for your entire life.

My point is that if someone isn't as good at socializing as you are, instead of assuming that they are too lazy or "closed heart" to do better, acknowledge that it might be orders of magnitude more difficult for them than for you, and try to be understanding and helpful instead of dismissive.

One thing I’d mention is that just because someone is good at socialising in the outside doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own issues. Demonising people who can colour within the lines in this area when they make a mistake or are pushed out of their comfort zone can be exactly the same for us as it is for you guys to be told “just talk to the person”.

I'll never assume that someone else doesn't have struggles that I don't know about.

But when a self-labeled extrovert (or introvert or whatever) begins to tell me to just go do X to help with my introversion, it makes me want to stop talking about the issue to anyone.

I could be wrong, but I think you might be misunderstanding someone's point from above.

They said "you need to work on this, or else ...", but they didn't use the word "just".

I.e., they weren't implying it would be easy. Just that it wouldn't go away on its own, but that working on it would (in their estimation?) help.

Kinda like when my doctor tells me I need to lose weight or else I'll have problems X Y, and Z. She knows it's not easy.

I am an introvert and I can (and if necessary will) take over the microphone and address a room with 500 people in it. I might even enjoy that a little.

What makes me an introvert isn't that I am shy (I am not), what makes me an introvert is that I find all interaction with other people except a select few exhausting and draining. Don't get me wrong: That doesn't mean I am weird or bad at talking with people — in fact I am qite the opposite. It just means it costs me a lot of energy, while extroverts appear to lose energy when they are alone, I lose it when there is a certain kind of social interaction needed around me.

So people don't really see me as an introvert, because to them it is all about being shy and a little bit awkward. But that isn't what makes you an introvert, the energy part is.

The presumption that introversion equals shyness still pervades even with what seems to be a cultural awareness amongst people on where they stand on that trait.

I'm very much like you in that many people mistake me for an extrovert because of the opportune occasions where I display "extroverted" traits in social settings. However it's more of a decision (mostly based on energy) than a default mode I fall back on.

I'm very much like this. I often compare social gatherings to activities like hiking. I might go for a hike from time to time and I might even enjoy it, but it will be exhausting and I will need some time after the hike to recharge.

It's one of those "healthy chores". Unpleasant to think about, usually not as bad when you're actually doing it. Also like hiking (or lifting) there is an element of risk.

I agree and most psychology articles I have read describes it as such, that introversion or extroversion is about what recharges you and what drains you. What the OP article and most of the comments are talking about is social anxiety. I am an introvert, but I love get togethers and social situations. I just know I have a very finite emotional budget for those things and plan accordingly.

> take over the microphone and address a room with 500 people in it

I'm not sure this has anything to do with introversion.

Speech and debate clubs are filled with introverts. The notion of "stage fright" is completely orthogonal to introversion. You're speaking at people, with YOUR ideas, YOUR words - it's not a dialogue, with shared feelings, mood, etc, which is where introverts generally get drained.

That was my point, precisely because the clichè in popular culture equates introverts with a kind of recluse who would rather die, than speak in front of an audience.

The whole discussion here is about introverts and how the existing public perception of us is flawed, because it misses the point entirely. As playing musician I know many extrovert performers who are agued with stage fright, something which doesn't bother me as an introvert at all.

Maybe it is because being seen in a bad light by people I wouldn't enjoy to meeting in the first place isn't a threat. When I play, my biggest fear is that we won't perform to our/my own standards and thats it. If the audience digs it that is great, but I am not afraid of them hating it, because I am aware of how good/bad what we do is.

> However, I think that introversion, like most things is a continuum, not binary.

It’s a measurable scale from 1 to 100 in the big 5 model.

I'm routinely getting >95 in tests.