i saw a post on here mentioning introversion and i didn't want to derail the main topic. i'm curious if anyone else is a repressed extrovert, for lack of better words?

i remember when i was a kid, i used to be really chatty, to the point my mom even nicknamed me "chatterbox". i would talk a lot and i would say hi to strangers all the time. this was mostly with adults because i was a bit shy around my peers, but i still really wanted friends. but when i'd garner up the courage to approach other kids it was almost never received well. part of it was likely from my autism. i didn't understand all the unspoken rules about socializing so i was often seen as strange and annoying, and with kids being kids they didn't hesitate to voice their opinions of me. this made my already existing social anxiety worse, but my desire for friends never went away. on the rare occasion someone was actually nice to me, i felt so fulfilled and happy when interacting with them.

eventually after being ostracized and picked on one too many times though, i gave up trying to make friends. it felt like a waste of time, because why would i want to talk to someone if i was scared there was a chance they'd be mean to me? to this day i still can't completely shake that feeling despite being self aware. fast forward to when i was in my early teens, i learned what introversion was and i was completely convinced i was a introvert. but as i got older, i realized that i'm actually a extrovert at heart, that got bullied into acting like a introvert. of course i need and like my alone time to recharge, but i've learned that my true happy place is with others. it's just all of this fear of judgment that gets in the way of me actually making that happen