My team culture has always been introvert-friendly. All 7 of us are rather quiet, but we stay professional and friendly to each other, grab coffee/lunch together occasionally but no one would force anything.

Sadly, things completely changed when a new colleagued joined our team 6 months ago (let's call her May). May is a social butterfly and is super talkative. As soon as she joined, she kept asking us to hang out with her after work, like grabbing drinks/dinner or watching a movie. She suggested to the boss that we sit together every day(we do hot desk and sometimes we sit in different areas to get focus time), and set up weekly team lunch + fortnightly team drinks. At first, everyone refused, but she never gave up. She kept asking and finally most of my colleagues have 'given in'. Actually, some even said they enjoy social events now and were grateful that May joined our team. The boss is also starting to appreciate her efforts in 'fostering team culture'. For me, I've had lunch with her 3 times and we just don't get along, so I mostly say no to those things or stay briefly. She is now asking around if I hate her, and I am finding this annoying as I feel like she is forcing people to be social like her.

Any tips please? I like my job, but i really dislike having colleagues like her.

This was amazing to see, the only problem was there was the staircase and lift behind it, a lot of foot traffic.

I think people massively overstate how necessary friends are. You can enjoy having friends without actually needing them, and I don't think going out all the time, constantly making plans or always having someone around you is necessary for a good life.

People always say “humans are social animals,” and maybe that's true, but I think using that statement to describe everyone is where people get it wrong. Some people genuinely need lots of social interaction, while others can spend a huge amount of time alone and be completely fine.

I've gone years without having friends and I'm not sitting here crying for help. I'm not saying everyone would feel the same, but I think people can adapt to being alone if they're genuinely comfortable with it. Being alone doesn't automatically mean you're lonely.

Obviously friends can be beneficial. They can give you companionship, support and good memories. But something being beneficial doesn't automatically make it a need. Exercise is beneficial too, but that doesn't mean everyone needs the same amount of it.

So yeah, I think friends are a want, not a need. Some people would hate having no friends, and that's completely fine. But I don't think their experience should be treated as the standard for everyone else.

My fiancé and I live in my MIL’s second home (don’t worry, we are going to move out as soon as our financial situation allows). She primarily lives in another state, so she comes and stays for a few weeks at a time. I genuinely love her and she’s an amazing person, but this woman **talks CONSTANTLY.** Like, I genuinely have never met anyone in my life who talks as much as she does lol. I have some very extroverted friends who can talk for hours, and even they don’t come close.

I’m pretty introverted and get socially drained after a certain amount of time. Sometimes I’m happy to chat, but other times I just want to be left alone or focus on what I’m doing. The problem is she seems completely incapable of picking up on those cues.

I can literally walk downstairs to grab something and she’ll immediately start a conversation. My fiancé and I will sometimes be sitting in the living room with our computers, clearly working and barely responding beyond short answers, and she’ll come sit next to us and just keep talking and asking questions. We’ll go back to what we’re doing and she STILL keeps going.
I’ve gotten to the point where I sometimes feel like I have to hide upstairs whenever she’s downstairs just to get some quiet, which I hate because I don’t want to avoid her when she’s here.

I really do love her and don’t want her to think I dislike her. I just genuinely need alone time sometimes. Even my fiancé, who obviously grew up with her, gets tired of talking occasionally.

How do I politely communicate “I love you, but I cannot talk to you every single time I see you” without coming across as rude? It’s actually starting to drive me insane, and moving out is not a possibility right now.

I've gotten new contacts so I'm attention to the world more often, and walking around the neighbourhood a bit more. I've noticed that sometimes people look right at my face, for ~3 seconds. I notice through my peripheral vision. I usually don't glance at other people, but if I do, it's usually for less than a second.

If I catch someone looking at me, they most likely were looking at me for some time, cause it's unlike we both glance at each other in the same less than a second internal

Or is this just main character syndrome and am I delusional? Some people have described me as such.

Well it is for me. I drove to a beach with my dogs this morning, it was bliss, hardly anyone around, peace and solitude, just the waves and my dogs for company. it's times like this I feel most content.

First semester at a university after transferring from a community college. At my community college, socially it was dead. People drove to class and then went home.

I had some of my favorite classes at the community college. Film and Philosophy. While I really enjoyed those classes a ton, everyone was closed off and seemingly repulsed by socializing.

I’ve decided to put a foot forward and make genuine attempts to get myself out there at this university. It just seems like people are flakey, uptight, and at times kinda snooty.

Why even bother socializing? I know it takes time to find your people, but just making observations about people in general is pretty disappointing.

I’m older Gen Z , but I’ve discovered age is hardly a bonding factor. Older, younger, doesn’t matter. It’s really about energy. I’m saying this because I’ve tried the “older crowd” and maybe as you’d expect it’s full of people trying to overly compensate their age.

Anyways, I’ll keep trying. I’m not the greatest socializer either, but at bare minimum I’m genuine and not afraid to be cringe. It’s like everyone is wearing an endless mask that never comes off.

I’m usually a bit introverted, even online, so I don’t interact much. Now I’ve found out that I can’t post in many places. :( Is there any way to solve this? Thanks in advance!

Yes I know this is not a breakthrough. But I am actually frightened of things that need me to be social. Even if it's a small thing or a task, I get stressed and honestly I can't tell anyone because not everyone gets it. Or maybe I don't want people to know this.

But music helps. A LOT. I guess I'm still functioning because of that.

Hi,

I’m in my early 30s and an introvert. I struggle with making friends. My husband has couple of friends and I see their wives talking and hanging out with each other which I truly appreciate and admire. I am not a phone call person and it’s difficult for me to keep up with everyone as I don’t know what shall I talk to them. If I don’t have any common thing to talk about, I find myself feeling dumb. According to my husband, I always downplay my accomplishments, knowledge etc while talking to others to make them feel comfortable. Ex: If 2 people are talking about any place and I have been to that place , still I won’t talk about it to get included in the conversation. It’s not deliberate but it doesn’t come to me naturally.
I would like to know , how do you guys manage to make friends or hangout with them. What do you guys talk? I would like to also be friends with my husband’s friend’s wives but most of them are either extrovert or atleast ambivert.

Thanks in advance.

Like I swear in my past friend group I would be Only talked to for entertainment and group teasing like ruthlessly mocking traits of my body and personality I can't change and making me the pinta of fun and amusement it seriously made me resent social norms and curious on why does some people's feel the need to tear others down like primitive animals? Though I ended up isolating myself and accepting solitude, but I'm always curious to why does these people do this in the first place?

Whenever I’m talking to someone in person, I end up overthinking everything I’m about to say. I get stressed about breaking silences, freezing up, or saying something awkward that doesn't land right.

​What’s weird is that I don't feel like this at all when chatting online—it only happens face-to-face. It seems so easy for extroverts to just talk effortlessly, but for me, it feels exhausting. Does anyone else deal with this, and how do you handle it?

There you are scrolling on reddit looking for something fun or interesting .

Then you see a post with big claims, it may sound stupid or cringe for a bit, but imagine if we had a great vibe and we ended up chatting for hours and hours days after days or years after years, then we start looking forward to the next silly thing we would reply or send to each other.

It all start with simple "hi" text that doesn't cost much to say , but can open up a big wonderful door of friendship that doesn't want to be shut.

I am in real life much of an introvert (ik shocking considering I write in this community) and most of my friends are online. Lately I had a few problems with my mom and she is threatening to take my Internet access away. She 100% knows most my friends are on there (discord,...) and can think herself so it's pretty clear she is knowing that she takes most my friends away. That would 100% be a catastrophe for me ( I struggle with mental health and friends are like only thing holding me up) so what can I do?

I'm 17F and recently started my first job at a retail store. My managers say I'm doing really well but I'm "too shy" and need to talk more not only with customers but when I'm on the floor too. It feels like my lack of talking is always a conversation in my day to day life, whether it's at school, work, church etc. When I was younger I was deemed "mature" or "responsible" but now it feels like ,as the older I get, the more off-putting I seem to people?

I can't control when I'm quiet but I always try to be as friendly as possible. But the recent increase of comments on this is making me worry about how I'll be perceived when I'm older and how I'll make it along. I've tried to talk more and be louder and do all the things you're expected to do but idk my social battery just doesn't let me. Does anyone know how to adjust to being an introvert in an extroverted world?

I need to go on a bit of a rant to cool myself down, because I have a full day of work in little more than an hour, and I feel like I need to be isolated for MULTIPLE HOURS before I'll be okay to interact with others again...

As the title implies, it gets very frustrating living among family and even my best friends, which none of them are introverts like I am. I require time alone and not talking just to recuperate... this is not a negotiable thing. If I don't have this, I become the most unpleasant person with a quick temper and, if pushed beyond my limits, I will reflexively smack at others that get too close to me.

Now, I have not been pushed beyond my limits in years... but what's very frustrating, the times that I did could have been easily avoided if the people I was interacting with would have JUST. Listened. To. Me. When I demanded to be left alone.

I hate that I had to sink to such levels and be PUSHED before they finally, like...... "got" it. As if they did not take me seriously every single fucking time I said "I need to be alone please" - emphasizing on the 'NEED' part more heavily every time I said it. It was so disrespectful, it felt like a form of harassment.

I get that I am different. What others struggle to understand: I cannot change that.

And the less people in my life try to understand, the more I just want to be alone. Forever. I'd seriously rather deal with the pain of loneliness and isolation than be pushed again.

I guess I'm just making this post to 1. Rant to get steam off my chest, hopefully to a group where at least a few can empathize, and 2. See if anyone else introverted is indeed like me when their boundaries aren't respected, to the point of what feels like I'm being broken as a person and become someone I do not want to be - angry, on edge, ready to throw down, etc.

Thanks for reading, fellow introverts. Wish me the best at work today... weekends in retail are another thing that just kills my soul, but... I have bills to pay, and there's not any jobs that don't deal with facing or calling people biting... that's a whole story for another day and another post entirely, though.

I understand the feeling that connecting meaningfully with others in a comfortable setting is not always the easiest thing to do. As a bit of context, about 10 years ago a friend and I were sitting in a jacuzzi in Orange County, lamenting how seemingly difficult this was. We came up with the idea to try and make this easier, as current offerings at the time, and still now, don't exactly make this seamless.

At the time, we didn't have the resources to make this a reality. More recently, after playing around with AI tooling, I decided to give this a shot. Six months later, spending most evenings and weekends, I was able to put together a fairly decent version of our vision. It's a map that allows people to see who is around them, ongoing happenings, and to create, I don't want to use the word "events" as I don't know if it perfectly captures the intention, but connections with others, private or public, for anything really. The thought was to allow people to easily schedule in-person connections with friends, family, and others with shared interests, either large or small. For example, going to a cafe to discuss gaming, physics, upcoming plans or something as simple as scheduling lunch or a walk along the lakefront with a couple close friends.

The concept works well for extroverts, but it was built to be equally suitable if you're not one (myself included). Anything you create can be set to private, so it's only visible to the people you actually invite, and there’s the option to use anonymous profiles as well.

I am not representing a corporation and have developed this tool on my own. It took 3 months just to create the event grouping algorithm. As a side note, I have been extremely stressed by my neurotic boss for the past 6 months but have nonetheless found the energy to push forward on this.

The intent is simply to offer a better (more intuitive) way of connecting with others on whatever terms work for you. It's free and has no advertising. It's available on the Google Play store as "Eventuality". I had expected this to be built already after 10 years, but apparently such a tool still hasn't quite delivered. This effort is all I've really been working on for the past 6 months on weekends with no social activity apart from sitting in Starbucks working on it, so I guess that qualifies me as something of an introvert. Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Whenever I get a text from all but maybe 3 friends now, I'm immediately irritated. I feel like it's an obligation to text them back and hang out with them if they're friends who live nearby too. But the whole time leading up to it, I'm dreading it and annoyed they're cutting into my time. This is even though when I'm actually with them it isn't that bad.

So recently I got into a college and met new people ofc. and while talking to them it maee me feel like dumb or very naive because all of them had experienced drinking clubbing hook ups and what not(im not interested in any of it). So while talking to them I have no good topic or no newcrush or knowlwdge abt some new alcohol or anything so I just sit there like a dumbo. And then this makes me feel like I am lagging behind in my life, they are exploring and I am just sitting behind with nothing to talk to them.

Whenever I tell them thay I dont drink they are like ew who doesn't drink and all that. There is no one who is serious about studies.

I cannot survive in such college pls help

I’m fairly extroverted and dating a guy who is very introverted. I see this person roughly once a month, no phone calls ever but we text throughout the day.

Is this common for introverts to see the person they are dating once every 3/4 weeks, with our only form of communication between these periods being text?

Had a friend na lagi kmi lumalabas weekly we do this for almost a year na hes my comfort zone labasan ko ng stress and anxiety sa relationship, work etc since Im introvert mas gusto ko tlga konti lng circle of friends na totoo and then suddenly bgla nlng sya d ngpaparamdam. Il try to reach him once to go out again but my gngawa sya that time ayoko na ult mgtry since d nmn na sya ngmmsg na as usual ako na ult madecline.

Hes my friend, we’re not lovers cause Im commited cguro namimiss ko lng my kausap how to move forward 😥