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One thing that used to confuse the hell out of me was how some of my friends, who are highly extroverted and can go to pretty much any event and come out with at least one new potential friend, could be so nervous about going to an event that none of their friends would be going to. I mean, if you're good at making friends then why worry about not knowing anyone, right?
My current theory to explain this is that it's precisely because they're used to having friends that they're reluctant to push that particular limit of theirs and experience a situation where they can't fall back on their existing social network. Whereas someone who has few friends and is bad at making more has to constantly push themselves against that limit if they want to have even a chance of socialising and making new friends. The awkwardness of trying to make themselves fit into a social situation where they may not necessarily belong is so omnipresent that it almost becomes part of the backdrop, a struggle that's as much a part of the normal routine as trying to get out of bed on time is for most people. But for natural extroverts that awkwardness must feel all the more terrible because they experience it so rarely.
This generalises out to pretty much everything that's a normal part of life. If you're part of the mainstream for that aspect of life, you almost never have to experience what it's like for things to be difficult, and as a result when things do get difficult you're much less likely to have the skills to deal with it gracefully. And the people who have to spend most of their lives banging their heads against that particular metaphorical wall tend to be somewhat disdainful that someone who has it so easy the rest of the time will just collapse in a heap at the least little problem (or so it seems to them).
(I think this might also be why a lot of black/aboriginal/$racially_different people tend to look down on other groups that try to sympathise with or draw parallels to them. "Oh sure, you gay people think you have it bad, but unlike you guys we can't pretend to have a different skin colour")
My current theory to explain this is that it's precisely because they're used to having friends that they're reluctant to push that particular limit of theirs and experience a situation where they can't fall back on their existing social network. Whereas someone who has few friends and is bad at making more has to constantly push themselves against that limit if they want to have even a chance of socialising and making new friends. The awkwardness of trying to make themselves fit into a social situation where they may not necessarily belong is so omnipresent that it almost becomes part of the backdrop, a struggle that's as much a part of the normal routine as trying to get out of bed on time is for most people. But for natural extroverts that awkwardness must feel all the more terrible because they experience it so rarely.
This generalises out to pretty much everything that's a normal part of life. If you're part of the mainstream for that aspect of life, you almost never have to experience what it's like for things to be difficult, and as a result when things do get difficult you're much less likely to have the skills to deal with it gracefully. And the people who have to spend most of their lives banging their heads against that particular metaphorical wall tend to be somewhat disdainful that someone who has it so easy the rest of the time will just collapse in a heap at the least little problem (or so it seems to them).
(I think this might also be why a lot of black/aboriginal/$racially_different people tend to look down on other groups that try to sympathise with or draw parallels to them. "Oh sure, you gay people think you have it bad, but unlike you guys we can't pretend to have a different skin colour")
