I am introverted too. I used to think I was shy, was told I was .... but it isn't that. It's just that I don't care for large groups so much and when I am in them I am quieter, more reserved, preferring to listen rather than actively engage or try to be the one holding a crowd's attention. I prefer one to one conversations, because those can be deeper, more intellectually interesting to me than small talk or group chatter/banter. I am talkative when I want to be and I don't want to be so in large groups. They take more emotional energy or something out of me too .... then I have to go off and re-charge. I need connection, but I need solitude to prepare me for connection, as it were, I guess, and then to renew me from energy socializing takes from me. My H gets his charge from being with people, but my charge gets drained usually. A good deep conversation with a close friend is invigorating to me though .... in intellectual ways as well as emotional/mental. I guess I've just accepted that the way I am is fine, but I adapt/compromise when necessary.