I slowly transitioned from being painfully shy and pretty awkward in my late teens to being relatively outspoken and comfortable in social settings in my late t

I slowly transitioned from being painfully shy and pretty awkward in my late teens to being relatively outspoken and comfortable in social settings in my late twenties. In hindsight many of the skills I lacked a decade ago -- speaking clearly, recalling the correct words, smalltalk, even remembering people's names -- were things that improved radically with practise. It seems pretty obvious now. I can have a conversation and actually focus on the content because I'm not focusing on my language, or random social niceties. All the little things I used to have to concentrate on have become rote. Back then I thought these were just things I was just inherently bad at. I get a little frustrated when people blame their lack of social skills on a self-diagnosis of introversion. It's the exact same thing as claiming simple arithmetic is too hard bexause you're bad at math.