Years ago, I read a post about "The Tyranny of the Extroverts", and it's lived rent free in my brain ever since. Extroverts are WAY overrepresented in politicians, legislatures, senior executives, and upper management. Promotions, and raises are typically HEAVILY weighted by who can be the most interactive and engaged with the most people in the most meetings. Society calls people who would rather a quiet night at home rather than going out with friends or partying "lame" or "losers" or "shut-ins".

All us introverts see these messages all the time while growing up, and it can get DEEPLY internalized into a guilt/shame spiral. "I'm bad at being a person", "I won't ever have friends/be worthy of friends", "I'm just not 'management material'", etc. and then spur ourselves into squeezing out "on" energy to mask and pretend to be an extrovert. Which isn't sustainable in the long run.

This is what it means to be an introvert in an extroverts world. Just because you don't get energy from crowds, your potential in many ways is capped and limited by those in power who can't or won't understand why you don't process the world like them. They asked all their extrovert friends, and they don't see any problems with a day full of meetings followed by going to a happy hour followed by going to various social schmoozing networking events. Meanwhile, the rest of us hit our limits after a few hours and then blame ourselves for being "broken".

(Yes I'm aware that everyone has different proportions and situations where they can be one or the other or a mix. And just because someone is mostly an introvert doesn't mean they can't "turn it on" for periods of time)