That's a false dichotomy; the above example, which opposes narcissism (or similar) to shyness, is a very typical rationalization of the disadvantages of shyness.

In a way, shyness can be interpreted as lacking capacities to handle certain acts/contexts (eg. to communicate to another person if one would like to, and in the way one would like to); having such capacities though, is a necessary condition for their abuse, not a sufficient one.

In my perspective, the opposite of being shy is being socially confident: talking to other people/strangers without fear[s], if one wants. This is different from being a chat machine; abstractly, it's a capacity.

The problem of framing confidence (instead to narcissism and similar) as opposite of shyness, is that it's difficult to accept; nobody would say "I'd rather be me than a confident person".

edit: cleanup of mistakes and repetitions

> In my perspective, the opposite of being shy is being

> socially confident. That is, if one wants, for example,

> talk to a stranger without fear, he/she can do it, if

> he/she wants - which is different from being a chat

> machine. Abstractly, it's a capacity.

Yes and you have to choose wisely who you talk to or maybe even want to become friends with. Evaluating people quickly is crucial to not get mugged, fooled or just to keep a happy mood. So the confidence requires developing some skills in understanding people and also learning in which ways other people read you.

At some point I very boldly neglected a lot of anxieties I have or had myself, for instance being more direct with women or talking openly about "inconvenient truths", especially at work. This worked for me pretty well for some time but at some point not any more. Being someone that really thinks things through, it may be overwhelming for someone else hearing the results of a long thinking process without context. If you do that too often the other person may choose stop listening to you or just get angry. Also on several occasions I ended up being angry myself, ignoring the fact that there are people who just might be interested in using you. It's important to understand why shyness or anxiety is there.

On the other hand, when you are not shy at all, talk about every little thing, it may get very difficult to become proficient in an engineering discipline. Memorizing things is tough, the best known methods to do that involve being on your own. Asking questions all the time may distract or even annoy your colleagues that work concentrated by themselves.

> That's a false dichotomy; the above example, which opposes narcissism (or similar) to shyness,

> is a very typical rationalization of the disadvantages of shyness.

I knew a guy who basically had this engineering background and I bet when he was younger, he was likely quite shy. So he was super open, talking to literally everyone and often making jokes. When I met him the first time he seemed really charismatic, fun and basically also someone I could learn something from. But at some point I realized that he virtually had no friends and also failed to truly listen and understand other people and their perspective. It was quite sad because he is an alcoholic. He might lead a happier life being more shy.

I think the topic is more than "shyness is good/problematic/bad" or "extroversion is great/not so important". It's basically a rabbit hole to the inner workings of society and work places.