The ideal way to interact would be to be able to be myself while still managing to spark some openness and life in my conversational counterpart. After all, most deep wants are somehow achievable, and there isn't any obvious reason why it should be impossible to connect with other people if you happen to hate smalltalk and often enjoy being alone.
The definition of introvert is not requiring that much external social stimulation, not hating to interact with other people.
Nope it is draining for introverts.
Your definition of introvert is a bit off too. Introverts ARE mentally drained by social interaction. I am. And I am invigorated by alone time. I am an introvert, but me and all my introvert friends don't have any trouble talking to people, starting conversations, small talk, parties, even public speaking.
In fact the people I know that do have trouble with those things strike me as shy and socially anxious extroverts.
The introvert, according to Jung, generally perfers to focus on his own feelings, thoughts, ideas, dreams.
While the extrovert, generally prefers to focus on things outside himself, like objects, other people, and their ideas, feelings, etc.
So, in the original sense, these definitions have absolutely nothing to do with shyness or lack thereof, or about feeling "drained" by interaction with people vs being alone.
An introvert could be perfectly happy being with other people, as long as he can focus on his own internal world. And an extrovert could be happy being alone, but as long as he can focus on people or things outside himself.
If I'm in an elevator, what's the quickest way to make someone stop talking to me about my bike? If I'm waiting for a bus, what's the quickest way to get a stranger to stop talking to me about his life? If I'm reading a book, what's a polite and effective way of saying "Sorry if you're illiterate, but I actually do read for pleasure"?
Reposting this but: We had a team bonding day in which we were split up randomly into small groups. Random or not, the group I was put on was all introverts. We were given a problem [a clever problem-solving exercise] and the observer (who was an extrovert) noted that (to him) 'it was like they were all just staring at the puzzle for 5 minutes. They were just sitting there thinking. No one in the group said much of anything until they arrived at a silent consensus.' Contrast that to other groups where members debated the relative merits of their solutions. We won the game.
In another company exercise, done after a Myers-Briggs session, they split the I's and E's into groups. And then they said (hypothetically) 'You have the day off. What do you guys want to do with the day? You have $100 each'. The I's were like - I'm gonna read a book, run errands etc. And the E's were like - 'Who's going to Vegas? Party at our house.' The E's were planning parties while the I's were planning alone time.
And yet I have no problem initiating conversation or small talk or meeting new people or anything like that. In fact one of my pet peeves is when people confuse introversion for social anxiety, they are not the same thing.