I grew up in a small town, with a family who was at church every single Sunday (and if there was a fish fry or social, we were there too). My dad grew up in th

I grew up in a small town, with a family who was at church every single Sunday (and if there was a fish fry or social, we were there too). My dad grew up in the same town, with a similar family situation. And as a result, he knew everyone. He used to drive me absolutely crazy whenever we'd go out because no matter where we went, he'd bump into someone and wind up in a 30 minute chat. But as an adult I realized it was hugely important for my own social skills to witness and get pulled into those conversations. I'm an introvert (I take after my mother in this respect), but I think I'm a pretty decent small talker, and since my own kids have started getting bigger I've been trying to make an effort to overcome the friction I feel to opening up to new people so that I can demonstrate some of what my dad did. For the most part I actually enjoy talking with people, but I do really have to push myself to get started with conversations sometimes. My wife and I actually just forced ourselves to attend a birthday party for a neighbor that we'd been invited to tonight. Our kids landed there ahead of us so our hands were forced. We ended up having a great time and got such a warm greeting from the host (sometimes it can really surprise me how happy a person is to see us, haha). tl;dr: It's definitely worth the effort to push past the friction sometimes.