"<..> every human being has a need for socializing, but it takes effort and is exhausting. The amount of effort it takes and the degree to which it is exhaustin

"<..> every human being has a need for socializing, but it takes effort and is exhausting. The amount of effort it takes and the degree to which it is exhausting differs from person to person, but it is not fixed. Socializing is like a muscle or a skill that can atrophy with neglect or develop with training." That's ever so true and socializing does take considerable effort and it's exhausting. I should have made that point in my earlier post. If you read it then you'd know that I wasn't the slightest bit concerned about the isolation the pandemic has brought into my life. These points you make also account for the answers I gave to the article's poll—in that at times I'm very sociable and at others not so much. As socializing takes effort and that it's tiring, I've cherry-picked the easy bits and largely ignored stuff that requires serious work and effort. I know that if I want or need to socialize then I can pretty much do so in any environment or situation as I've done so successfully in the past and on quite many occasions. The issue for me (and I reckon also for many others of a technical/scientific bent) is that I rarely see need for me to commit the effort to do so—given that there are so many other activates that I'd prefer to be doing. Cognitively, I know, and I think I've always known, that I should spend more time socializing and networking than I do, as they can and do take one to high places along with a concomitant increase in one's status and income. Simply, I'd be better off in many ways if I just took the necessary time and effort, however the motivation is just not there for me to do so, as I'd have to stop doing other things that I deem more important and or more valuable. There's nothing new in this understanding and the notion has likely been around forever. Recently, this old 2003 article by Paul Graham about Why Nerds are Unpopular made its reappearance on the web here on HN but also there have been other similar accounts around for decades. Of course, what's relevant to this story and these comments are the reasons behind the motivation for why some people are introverted and or why they act this way—as critically it determines whether a person considers said trait to be either distressing and unwanted or desirable and necessary—or perhaps even essential: http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html