Most of us are descended from people who lived in small communities and rarely interacted with people who lived outside of them. It's only in the last 200 years (an instant on evolutionary timescales) that the majority of humanity ended up in a position where we have to constantly deal with more than ~30 people on a regular basis.
Sure, we spent a lot of time with those 30 people in the past, but calling that "extremely social" is pretty misleading in the modern context—today that kind of wording evokes a very different image than the small-scale village life that dominated our ancestors' lives.
I'm a hardcore introvert by modern standards, but for me that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy spending time with my small circle of friends and family, it means that when I branch out beyond that small circle socialization is actively draining. I'd have done just fine in village life, it's the completely unnatural modern world that is overwhelming to my social limits, and I get rather tired of extroverts telling me that it's just because I don't try hard enough to "exercise".
I would be surprised if this is true. Ancient civilizations were complex. When Pompeii erupted the population was around 10k just there. Having the chance to walk around part of it. Everything was dense and close and there were large city centers and markets. I'm sure the rest of Rome is just as big and same for the other cities and empires going back thousands of years.
And Rome (the city) had a population of 1 million or more, but that doesn't change the fact that demographers estimate at most a 10–20% urbanization rate in the Roman empire—meaning at least 80% of the population lived outside of cities in rural areas. And that's Rome, which had a notably high urbanization rate compared to periods before or after, not matched in Europe until the industrial revolution.
Compare that with an 80% urbanization rate in the US today and we're looking at almost exactly the inverse from where we were 2000 years ago in the Mediterranean. And it's even worse if we're just looking at the US, which had a 5% urbanization rate in the 1790 census and didn't even get to 20% until 1860. Where we're at now is simply unparalleled in history, and there's ample evidence that we're not well adapted as a species to this kind of density.
There's a huge difference between going to church on occasion (or even weekly, which was not always the norm) and living in a city with a population density measured in the thousands per square mile.
I think this idea of villages of 30 people where you don't talk to anyone is just a fantasy. Even the Mayflower had 130 people to just set up their new town.
I didn't say that—I said you'd regularly interact with only ~30 people (give or take). You'd probably be on good terms with a few dozen more, and it's been demonstrated that we really lose the ability to have relationships entirely by about 100-300.
The average city today has about 8x that number of people per square mile. That's entirely unlike anything that evolution equipped us for, which is why I object to OP's assertion that we all descend from extremely social people. By modern standards we absolutely do not.
in what way do you feel like your expected to talk to anyone in our modern world? even here online, there's no expectation for you to respond to anything I said here
It's notable to me every time this topic comes up on HN that an extrovert invariably comes on and straight up tries to argue that introverts are just people who don't try hard enough. When that happens to people with other biological differences it's immediately and rightly decried—even other mental differences have become increasingly recognized and protected from that kind of condescending judgement—but the combination of the hidden-ness of the difference and the fact that those with this difference are less prone to speak up to defend themselves means that it's okay to tell a whole class of people that the difference between them and the average case is that average people try harder.
This is an incorrect rationalization of your own prejudices, nothing more.
> I wish y'all would accept that it's just hard, but worth it.
You need to accept that your personal experience is not universal. It's one of the most basic realizations a thinking human needs to have.
In my immediate circle alone - my sister is a strong extrovert and always has been. She thrives on large groups. If she's stressed and wants to relax she'll go to a party or downtown dance club or hang out with a dozen acquaintances. She's been that way since tween. I bring her up because she's very upfront, and I trust and believe her, that social engagements alone are NOT, and never have been, hard work or effort. They're natural to her, she gains energy from them, she enjoys them tremendously, and gets recharged through them. This is not my external observation but her convincing expression. I know others like that.
Then there's me :-). Lot of that, such as parties and dance clubs and even large groups of friends, sounds awful to me. Easy on assumptions though : As per my parallel comment, I've been a client-facing consultant for 20 years. I practice and teach soft skills and emotional intelligence at fairly high level at work. Having started as a hands-on techie for the first decade of my career, I haven't written a line of code since 2018 - ALL I do now is talk to and manage and coach and mentor people, meet with clients, etc. I spend about 7 hrs a day actively engaging people professionally.
And it's still as draining as it is rewarding and enjoyable. 20 years of active practice and daily high level socialization has not meaningfully moved the needle on whether I gain energy from people, like my sister always has, or drain energy even with people I enjoy doing activity I like.
Absolutely there's detail and granularity to this - I love teaching and have been a visiting professor for 3 years at local college. I love mentoring and coaching and do it daily. But at the end do the day I strongly crave alone time to recharge after social activities (which is what I call "being an introvert"), whereas I know people (I call them extrovert) who simply don't need that, at all. The notion that simply practice can change that, hasn't been the case for anybody I know.
You can gain skills and that's indeed worthwhile! But that does not automatically alter the energy management situation.
So my apologies, but your post is the most literal proof that some extroverts don't understand this, at all, and like Freud, make wild assumptions based on limited internal experience :-/. It's less of a capacity thing, which I'll agree may get expanded, and more of what does activity do and how does it draw on that capacity.
Do you think the hunters who were huntering kept chatting all the time? Or the gatherers looking for berries/mushrooms just talked and talked and talked and judged anyone who went by themselves?
Did the goat herder have people walk up the hill with them to prattle on about their family life or could they perhaps be alone in there? Or any craftsman for that matter. The cobbler could just spend time making shoes, they didn't need to talk to customers for 12 hours a day constantly.
I don’t assume that - people tell me as much! I have close friends who assure me that socializing is not hard work for them, and they’d yap all day if they didn’t control themselves the same way that I would read or play games all day if I didn’t control myself.
This gives me hope: there's no silver bullet, but one day we can find a cure for our modern curse of excessive extroversion :)
I'm an introvert but not because my "social battery" is discharged by socializing, but instead because I need to discharge in solitude
I have unlimited social stamina and can do it forever, if by forever you mean that if I'm left in socializing without that necessary solitude I will spin off into mania and eventually get in serious trouble
But I can go once and be good for months. See friends a few times a year as well, and I'm sorted.
This is hard to explain, but I think it's about "who you are/how you see yourself". As if there's a tension in my head, "am I my thoughts, or am I how other people see me?" When I have been more social recently, I ruminate less and am generally happier, but I feel I lose a bit of "depth" in my psyche. I just feel kind of "thin", like a minor character in a TV show. Though writing that, maybe that's just depression trying to pull me back in.
Just because something was a necessity for a greater cause in ye olde days does not mean that it is also a good thing in itself. Now that it's not a strict necessity, a not insignificant number of people are admitting they don't like it.
Personally I consider myself more intro- than extrovert. I find people dishonest (even the most honest ones) and dealing with that reality is extremely tiring.
”I used to think I was introverted because I really liked being alone but it turns out I just like being at peace and I am very extroverted when I’m around people who bring me peace.”
Socializing is always draining. I enjoy being around other people and I enjoy socializing, I like going to parties and meeting people and whatever else, but it's extremely tiring for me. No matter how much I like the person it's with, I'll be exhausted afterwards and I'll need a lot of time in solitude and isolation to get all that energy back.
It has nothing to do with how much peace a person brings me. Being social to any degree takes energy and I need to be alone to get that energy back.
That's introversion. Not "I don't like people".
I think the discussion here suggests it's an issue of perspective. Is socialization a fact of life, or is it something you are allowed to opt out of?
It's okay to be tired. A day that leaves you exhausted should be celebrated and followed up with rest to prepare for the next day!
The discussion here is wrong and at odds with the science I've seen and my anecdotal experience. You can't just decide we're all the same and that some of us just have an attitude problem. That's asinine and irritating.