To answer this and another comment, I think of it being able to manage social interactions reasonably well as a life skill. Without it people can have a really bad day if they have to deal with aggressive salespeople, unpleasant customer service issues, or overbearing family members.
The dancing analogy is a good one but while I can go a month without dancing I cannot go a month without required human interactions that put me in uncomfortable positions.
A peer post suggested that one should therefore force extroverts into uncomfortable situations too. My thought here is that I’m not trying to torture one group but not another. School forced me to be more athletic than I found enjoyable. I don’t believe it was that they were trying to make me feel bad, even though that’s exactly what running does for me. By analogy I would not ask the school athletes to gain extra weight just because I was forced to jog a mile.
I don’t have a dog in this race. I’m not even suggesting that it should be done, just sort of bringing up the thought experiment. I’m an ambivert or whatever it’s called. I could happily spend a year not dealing with people but I can also do it with unusual skill when called to do so.
> By analogy I would not ask the school athletes to gain extra weight just because I was forced to jog a mile.
This is why I don't like your analogy (no offense meant); it approximately correlates extrovert=healthy=strong and introvert=unhealthy=weak. While I don't think athletes should be forced to gain weight, I do imagine it's good for extroverts to have to sit with themselves in quietude a little more than they might otherwise, just like I imagine it's good for introverts to do the opposite. Not in every case of course, but speaking broadly.
So I guess I see it as two equally-valid approaches trying to understand each other better, more than anything.
Maybe what I'm saying is: I agree with you — it's a good idea. But it's opposite is also a good idea, and I wouldn't want it to be one-sided.
Maybe another point of fuzziness is whether "introverted" means "bad at social interactions" or "prefers to avoid social interactions" (and/or "finds social interactions draining"). I tend to see it as the latter, but maybe you mean it as the former?
The dancing analogy is a good one but while I can go a month without dancing I cannot go a month without required human interactions that put me in uncomfortable positions.
A peer post suggested that one should therefore force extroverts into uncomfortable situations too. My thought here is that I’m not trying to torture one group but not another. School forced me to be more athletic than I found enjoyable. I don’t believe it was that they were trying to make me feel bad, even though that’s exactly what running does for me. By analogy I would not ask the school athletes to gain extra weight just because I was forced to jog a mile.
I don’t have a dog in this race. I’m not even suggesting that it should be done, just sort of bringing up the thought experiment. I’m an ambivert or whatever it’s called. I could happily spend a year not dealing with people but I can also do it with unusual skill when called to do so.