> My life experience also mimics this. In college I thought I had crippling social anxiety. Turns out I just needed to be around people more to develop my abilities.

I don't understand why you think that the fact that exposure cured you means you didn't have social anxiety?

Exposure is something a therapist would suggest for social anxiety.

The issue seems to be that you think saying that someone has social anxiety means they are permanently broken (and maybe will give up trying to do anything about it?) but I'm not really sure where you got that idea from.