It's a bit pie-in-the-sky to say, "everyone has a fascinating story of some kind and you just have to get it out of them." I think that's largely true, but I understand why you might disagree.
That said, I think you need to revise what you consider "worth it" to mean - it's not necessarily the case that you'll learn some useful new skill or hear a great story or derive some other immediately-tangible benefit from talking to people.
Not every interaction is equally valuable, your time is precious and you are an autonomous human being perfectly within your rights to reject a given social interaction, or interactions.
But human interaction is not reducible to an ROI calculation. It's far too complex and multivariate to be computable by your or anyone else's brain - the best you can do is a rough approximation.
I guess this is scattershot, but the phrase: "Just because I find many people uninteresting does not make me a broken person lacking in basic skills" stuck with me because it alone does, in fact, provide us ample evidence that there is a problem. I would never describe you as "broken" - I'm an introvert, I get it - but if you find "many" people uninteresting, that is a priori evidence that it is you who is uninteresting.
>I guess this is scattershot, but the phrase: "Just because I find many people uninteresting does not make me a broken person lacking in basic skills" stuck with me because it alone does, in fact, provide us ample evidence that there is a problem.
I agree! The problem is that people are remarkably intolerant of those who are different. For instance, if you don't find randomly selected people all utterly fascinating, it must be that you're a broken person.
> but if you find "many" people uninteresting, that is a priori evidence that it is you who is uninteresting
Well. No. The two are not bijective. You can be a very interesting person to most people while still finding most other people not very interesting. The reverse is also true.
> The two are not bijective. You can be a very interesting person to most people while still finding most other people not very interesting.
Indeed, that theoretically can be true. In every instance I have ever heard of, witnessed or been made aware of in any way, however, it holds. The plural of anecdote is not data, granted.
But ask any advice columnist. If you find other people boring as a matter of routine, that's not because they're boring, it's because you are.
Same as with any other part of life. If X keeps happening to you over and over again, and X is statistically uncommon, then either you have weird luck or X is related to something inside you, rather than something to do with the world at large.
[I wrote another reply earlier. In retrospect, it was pretty ranty. I'll try a different angle.]
I've been an introvert forever. My parents in particular would tell me things like "conversation is a game of throw and catch". When I got older, I realized I wasn't shy -- I just hated making small talk. So I responded "Believe it or not, I know how to hold a conversation. I just don't like small talk."
Whenever I tried to steer the conversation towards what I considered more interesting topics, "Um, I didn't want to turn this into a philosophical conversation." Cool. We have divergent interests. I'm capable of keeping myself busy. But my parents would continued to repeat "you gotta throw back the ball sometimes".
So one day, as a teenager, I decided I would try this whole "congeniality" shtick. You know, for science. I was genuinely congenial for several months. I can assert this with confidence because people noticed. Several complimented me on how I came "out of my shell".
At the end of my experiment, I decided congeniality was exactly as overrated as I thought it would be. I've generally been schizotypal-by-default ever since, and never looked back.
That said, I think you need to revise what you consider "worth it" to mean - it's not necessarily the case that you'll learn some useful new skill or hear a great story or derive some other immediately-tangible benefit from talking to people.
Not every interaction is equally valuable, your time is precious and you are an autonomous human being perfectly within your rights to reject a given social interaction, or interactions.
But human interaction is not reducible to an ROI calculation. It's far too complex and multivariate to be computable by your or anyone else's brain - the best you can do is a rough approximation.
I guess this is scattershot, but the phrase: "Just because I find many people uninteresting does not make me a broken person lacking in basic skills" stuck with me because it alone does, in fact, provide us ample evidence that there is a problem. I would never describe you as "broken" - I'm an introvert, I get it - but if you find "many" people uninteresting, that is a priori evidence that it is you who is uninteresting.