I’m with Chronos on this one. I believe, based on both personal experience and things I’ve read, that preferring gatherings designed around a purpose or activity to unstructured socializing is, if not part of the definition of introversion, at least correlated with it. Where an extrovert would see getting together with other people as an end in itself, an introvert is more likely to be open to the idea of getting together with other people to do something.
There’s a Spanish expression I still haven’t been able to translate to English (well, there’s many…): puesta en común as noun, poner en común as verb. Literally, “to make common”, “to make owned-by-all”. Some times, teamwork consists of 1) splitting up the work, 2) distributing the work, 3) the team getting together and not just putting each piece of work besides every other piece, but also doing a general once-over so the completed work is completely smooth; a casual observer will not be able to tell that different parts were done by different people.
Those 3 steps are always done when you’re managing something in a professional environment. No matter whether it’s a project or operations, nobody expects the production people and the maintenance people and the sales people and… to be telling each other all the time “I’m starting a machine-clean operation”, “I’m verifying the readings in our environmental meters”, “I’m entering a new contract into the system”…
You split the work, you each do your part, and you communicate to each other the parts the rest of the team needs to know. Not because people from different departments / streams / whatever don’t want to talk to each other, but because otherwise nothing would get done!
There may be a number of things are correlated with introversion, but correlation doesn’t make something a defining characteristic. I would never say something like, “Introverts are quiet” even though it is true that many introverts are on the quiet spectrum. “Lots of introverts are quiet” is a much more accurate generalization.
At least once a month, I hang out with a group of fellow coworker introverts at a bar to do absolutely nothing but kvetch about work and imbibe (and talk about how monstro’s penchant for red and purple drinks). As I said, I don’t like the bar scene, but because it’s just 1) the four of us, 2) we have been working closely together for years, so we aren’t trying to do the awkward “getting to know you” thing, 3) we don’t let the night drag on, and 4) we only meet up once in a while, it’s tolerable. This is an unstructured activity. Do you think we’re outlier introverts? Or do you think it’s more likely that there’s a subset of introverts who don’t like unstructured activities at all and a subset of introverts who do just fine with those kind of activities as long as certain conditions are met?
If “unstructured activities” were anathema to introverts, you would not expect to find them accepting invitations to or hosting parties. But my experience shows neither is true.
And really, “Hooker” implies professionalism, standards, and a support network which makes it too refined. I believe the proper term for someone who sells themselves to the highest bidder, with no standards as to the actual job duties and no recourse in the event of abuse, is “Whore.”
One thing that some may not consider is physical difficulties. Especially ones you can’t see, like being hearing impaired.
I have horrible tinnitus. I do wear hearing aids and they help a little. I’m Ok in quite surroundings with a few people. But sometimes, even just a room that echos, a loud heating vent, or someone that doesn’t enunciate gives me trouble. Just got my flu shot. Was in a room with just the nurse. I could hardly hear a word she said. A classic Seinfeld low-talker in that case. A lot of people just mumble.
Put me in a loud group with a lot of back ground noise, and I can’t really hear any one at all.
Way out of line and reported.
You could quote Tommy DeVito: “I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown?”
But then again, maybe that’s why I don’t get invited out to work mixers any more…
Moderator Note
I’m going to assume that you were just running with the joke that RaftPeople started, but let’s drop the whole hooker thing.