It's nice to find reminders of the inevitability of introverts. At a recent crowded work function a colleague had a paper plate filled with desserts and quietly told me that she was going to take it up to her office "to take a break." I knew exactly what she meant. I like people on the whole and it's fun to meet new ones and see the ones I know in a different context but, wow, is part of me relieved when I am able to close a curtain around myself at the end of it. I can shut my office door but it's permeable. A knock is a skeleton key that anyone can use to open it and the landline phone - that durable anachronism - will pull me out of myself when it rings with a three-digit extension like an alarm. It's said that extroverts are energized by socializing and introverts drained by it. I can experience both but am very aware of my own internal capacity to tolerate the consciousness of others. At a certain point even a silent presence can feel like an infringement. An interruption of the dialogue I have been having with myself since I can ever remember. I'm writing a novel in my head and keep adding to it almost constantly. It's filled with inside jokes and secrets only I understand. You have yours. How often you return to it is up to you. But the feeling of not being able to access it when you want is the scourge of us introverts. Of course there is an avenue down which introspection becomes  something else...something curdled and self-negating. Then it's time to turn around and walk the other way. If I've been away from them long enough, people  even start to look good to me.