I was thrilled to read Susan Cain‘s Quiet recently. As a dyed-in-the wool introvert, I sighed with relief to know after all of these years that I’m less abnormal than I think. I get sweaty if I’m invited to a cocktail party, and I hate class reunions. I love fires and reading, and if I were forced to spend eight hours every day alone in my study reading or writing, I would get excited.

The problem for me and my introverted friends is that we live with the nagging in our gut that we need to be fixed. Something is wrong with us and it always has been. Which introvert among us doesn’t still feel the awkwardness and embarrassment of not speaking up in class? We were the wall flowers—the last to get picked at a high school dance (not that we really cared because we didn’t want to dance anyway but thought we were supposed to want to).

As kids, we introverts were seen as a bit “off.” Someone needed to pull us out of our shell because being so quiet wasn’t right. We were seen as anti-social, insecure, and uncomfortable in our own skin. The truth is, none of…