There is no research correlating the number of books on introversion with the number of cocktails not consumed by people not going out for drinks after work. But a spate of articles and social media posts on the glories of staying home in one’s pj’s suggests that I am not the only one who went overboard once the “introvert” label came to imply a deep thinker with a rich inner life rather than a lone gunman.

Society has a rich history of people seizing on social evolution as an excuse for bad manners. From the Romantic poets to the transcendentalists to the Summer of Love hippies, many have rejected a supposed facade of good behavior in favor of being true to their inner nature. Good manners are mere mannerisms, the argument goes, which serve only to put barriers in the way of deeper connections.

There’s another argument to be made, though, that those deeper connections are the easy ones. It’s the looser ties, the ones that have to be created or re-created at each meeting, that are tough. Life is largely lived among acquaintances and strangers. So many fall into problematic categories: some appear different or unapproachable, some we actively dislike, some we’ve failed to connect with in the past. What do we have to gain from even trying?

A lot, as it turns out. When I skip big gatherings of strangers, I’m not just being a little rude to the individual people around me, I’m being uncivil in a larger sense. The more we isolate ourselves from new people, the more isolated and segregated our society is likely to become. Those casual interactions in dog runs and at kids’ hockey games are the ones that are most likely to cross social and economic barriers. They expand my little world as well as the overlapping bubbles that create a society.

We can respect our own introversion, and embrace the “quiet” people among us, without abandoning every challenging interaction. When I asked Ms. Cain (while interviewing her about introversion in teenagers) if self-indulgent introverts risked crossing the line into antisocial behavior — if we might, in fact, just be being rude — she laughed, and agreed. Sometimes, she said, “you have to consider the other person’s point of view instead of getting wrapped up in your own discomfort.”

“You don’t have to feel like you have to do what the group is doing,” she said, but “the knowledge that you might inadvertently be hurting someone’s feelings by not showing up or by behaving in a way that’s perceived as aloof can make it easier to extend yourself.”