(Finland is a famously introverted nation. Finnish joke: How can you tell if a Finn likes you? He's staring at your shoes instead of his own.)

Evangelicalism has taken the Extrovert Ideal to its logical extreme...If you don't love Jesus out loud, then it must not be real love. It's not enough to forge your own spiritual connection to the divine; it must be displayed publicly.

I'm continually amazed by how many people who appear to be extroverts are actually introverts.

Should we become so proficient at self-presentation that we can dissemble without anyone suspecting?

A widely held, but rarely articulated, belief in our society is that the ideal self is bold, alpha, gregarious. Introversion is viewed somewhere between disappointment and pathology.

We put too much of a premium on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking.

When you go to a football game and someone offers you a beer [...], they're really saying hi, have a glass of extroversion.