jebmo’s posthaven

If they could do it, why not me?

Around the same time as the publication of “Quiet,” in 2013, I turned 40, and achieved a certain level of professional success. It seemed like permission not to try quite so hard. At first, saying “no” to fund-raisers and coffees brought with it a keen, almost illicit pleasure. What freedom! I started slipping out of meetings and school assemblies at the first possible moment instead of staying to chat. On one delicious occasion, I sat in my car and read a book while my children attended a family-oriented athletic function.

It was all so easy to excuse. I wasn’t neglecting my friends, avoiding my fellow parents or letting my community engagements suffer. I was preserving my energy, engaging in self-care, allowing my “tortoise shell” to protect my vulnerable, precious self. I’d spent so long accommodating the world’s demand that I get out there and participate. Finally, the world seemed willing to accommodate me.

There is no research correlating the number of books on introversion with the number of cocktails not consumed by people not going out for drinks after work. But a spate of articles and social media posts on the glories of staying home in one’s pj’s suggests that I am not the only one who went overboard once the “introvert” label came to imply a deep thinker with a rich inner life rather than a lone gunman.

Society has a rich history of people seizing on social evolution as an excuse for bad manners. From the Romantic poets to the transcendentalists to the Summer of Love hippies, many have rejected a supposed facade of good behavior in favor of being true to their inner nature. Good manners are mere mannerisms, the argument goes, which serve only to put barriers in the way of deeper connections.

There’s another argument to be made, though, that those deeper connections are the easy ones. It’s the looser ties, the ones that have to be created or re-created at each meeting, that are tough. Life is largely lived among acquaintances and strangers. So many fall into problematic categories: some appear different or unapproachable, some we actively dislike, some we’ve failed to connect with in the past. What do we have to gain from even trying?

A lot, as it turns out. When I skip big gatherings of strangers, I’m not just being a little rude to the individual people around me, I’m being uncivil in a larger sense. The more we isolate ourselves from new people, the more isolated and segregated our society is likely to become. Those casual interactions in dog runs and at kids’ hockey games are the ones that are most likely to cross social and economic barriers. They expand my little world as well as the overlapping bubbles that create a society.

We can respect our own introversion, and embrace the “quiet” people among us, without abandoning every challenging interaction. When I asked Ms. Cain (while interviewing her about introversion in teenagers) if self-indulgent introverts risked crossing the line into antisocial behavior — if we might, in fact, just be being rude — she laughed, and agreed. Sometimes, she said, “you have to consider the other person’s point of view instead of getting wrapped up in your own discomfort.”

“You don’t have to feel like you have to do what the group is doing,” she said, but “the knowledge that you might inadvertently be hurting someone’s feelings by not showing up or by behaving in a way that’s perceived as aloof can make it easier to extend yourself.”

Extending ourselves can actually be good for us. We forget that we don’t always know what makes us happy. We predict that we prefer solitude on our commute, for example, but consistently report a more positive experience when we connect with a stranger. That doesn’t have to mean we abandon our book to an hourlong discussion of the merits of our seatmate’s grandchildren. We can embrace both the graceful brief conversation and the retreat into headphones.

In his book, “If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy,” the behaviorist Raj Raghunathan describes studies suggesting that prosocial behavior makes us happier, even when that behavior comes at a material cost to ourselves: Toddlers are happiest when they give monkey puppets treats from their own stash, adults in rich and poor countries alike reported feeling happier when they spent a small sum of their own money on others rather than on themselves.

Years ago, I was habitually late. “I can’t help it!” I declared to an expert in time management (I’d turned my effort to reform into a magazine article, as writers do, which gave me the excuse to seek professional help).

“Have you ever missed a plane?” she asked. I had not. “Then you can help it. You just care more about yourself than about the needs of others.”

I may be naturally reserved, and more comfortable alone than I will ever be in a crowd, but I am not at the mercy of my nature. There are many excuses for failing to conduct ourselves with courtesy, for avoiding gatherings and conversations we don’t think we will enjoy, or for just putting on our pajamas and staying home. Too many of them boil down to just that one thing: We care more about ourselves than about the needs of others.

That’s not about introversion. It’s just an ordinary version of selfishness.