[coolio1232]

My case is like this: I get no anxiety talking to people, I have nothing against talking to people, and I believe I can get my point across well enough and fluently when I need to get things done.

However, whenever there is a social gathering and such that I have to attend, my default, standard set of activities unless someone approaches me is to just look around look at my surroundings, get lost in my headspace while taking a walk around the place while tuning out others and greeting anyone who I happen to know. If I happen to be interested in having a conversation with someone, I will have it. But I'm simply not interested in people by default, or meeting people for the sake of it.

I have never spontaneously felt any inadequacy with myself when doing this. What inadequacies are there have almost exclusively have been pointed out to me by others, much in the same way the author does with Aditya here. I just don't ever feel a need to talk or force a conversation unless others (relatives and colleagues) are pressuring me to do so.

The mannerisms of the Author are what I've often heard from the management people in the companies that I've worked for and in some Linkedin posts. I'm not trying to deny at all that effective communication and networking has its benefits, but the way they talk, including the Author's article often makes me feel like they're masking an insurmountable amount of annoyance and vitriol for those who just don't want to talk. It's as if they will not accept anything other than the status quo of constant chatter and networking.

[xandrius]

I'd imagine the keyword is "have to attend".

If you truly have no choice then who's to blame you but if you decide to show up to a party and then proceed to walk around and look at the furniture all night then maybe you could have put a minimum amount of effort to engage with others who could have stayed at home that day?

But if you are somewhere to listen to some nice talks and then they force you to "network" then I'd say it's totally ok to sit it out and avoid anything unwanted.