The Lethality of Loneliness: How it can ravage our body and brain (2013)

You can easily succeed. It's about focus and determination. An introvert must shake off the constant demands to conform by society while staying focused on what matters. Introverts must be determined to overcome their introversion through mastering some discipline(writing, coding, painting, etc.). The lower on the totum pole, the more people will push conformity as a way of life. I think that's why most of the doctors, lawyers, c-level execs Ive met have been pretty introverted and independently minded.

Chances are if you're an introvert, you're stuck with the wrong group of people simply because you're not skilled enough to hang with the masters(which requires intense focus and determination).

It sounds to me like you're making excuses for giving up and sitting on the couch because you're introverted and have had some bad relationship or social encounters.

Everyone other than lifelong hermits has experienced social or romantic rejection. There are plenty of introverts who are successful in capitalistic societies.

You don't say where you live but I assume it's in the USA or some other western capitalistic country. Get out of the house, get some therapy if necessary, but don't give up. There are too many oppoortunities at your fingertips even if you're not a type "A" extrovert.

Communities really do still exist. My advice is travel through the developing world for awhile... you'll see the difference. I also find big-city western lifestyle suffocating.

I have to admit that the absence of such "society-induced" isolation here in the Third World (precisely Tunisia) is a confirmation to your assertion.

You're probably going through a phase. I've seen people like this (including me) and my view of things have changed. Even though I agree that current societies aren't really connecting people, but you're relationship with other may change in the future, in a good way.

There are a couple aspects of the problem to consider.

The first is that the article seems to focus on the results of torturing extroverted people by preventing them from socializing.

Which seems to be about as bad as torturing more or less introverted people by forcing us to socialize. I find socializing absolutely exhausting when done in person. Although the article didn't discuss this, I'm sure some will use it as an "excuse" to "fix" introverted people by torturing them on the assumption that to an extrovert its literally unthinkable that being alone might not mean being lonely. I'm actually not alone most of the time, but I am extremely picky who I socialize with in meatspace beyond mere trivialities like hiking club or coworkers or whatever. It works for me and I'm happy.

You probably need to clarify in your head the difference between feelings and goals. Perhaps I'm misreading but you want to be extroverted but you're acting introverted although you're not really introverted at all, its just a skills issue or whatever. Yeah that might be a big (edited: fixable) problem. So fix it.

So think about going to a bar and hanging out until closing time. I'd be fairly well horrified and would avoid that if at all possible, and in fact thats exactly what I'm not doing tonight, and I feel great about that, in fact I'm going to have a lot of fun tonight with a carpentry project and hanging out with my family, totally non-extroverted. Not entirely sure how you'd feel or what you'd do, but I get the impression you'd want to go to the all night bar but wouldn't go and would feel quite bad about that mismatch. If your feelings don't align with your goals then you got a big problem beyond the HN gossip level. Luckily the pros supposedly can fix that with or without pills.

Also agumonkey has it right that you don't stop changing till you die, so don't assume your temporary response today is somehow your identity. Ask any "old" person, about all that stays the same is your actual identity. Your current collection of goals and feelings are hardly permanent, so if you don't like them, changing either or both of them is quite possible. In fact if you're not changing your positions as you age you're probably doing something really wrong.

Finally as a trivia point corporate jobs are going away. The world of my kids and future grand kids looks a lot more like perpetual consulting and contracting rather than cube dwelling. Corporate jobs might be mandatory for middle class lifestyle, but we're getting rid of that as fast as possible too, so that's not incompatible. A lot of salespeople use "community" as a scam to make money, just like whenever someone mentions religion, watch your wallet when someone mentions community.