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Many introverts admire those who are very sociable, charismatic, and belong to many different social groups.  It seems that they have strong social capital and resources.  These are the people who may have ten thousands connections in LinkedIn or a few thousands friends in Facebook.  It is frequent to see them having social gatherings with different friend groups.  The society in general praises highly of those who are highly sociable and have lots of social connections.  People in general perceive them as more successful and influential.  In fact, these people are the most popular person in different social groups.  If you are an introvert or have different ways of socialising, does this mean that you are less adequate socially or less capable in networking?  Do you need to strive and learn to become a social butterfly if you are not?

Social butterflies may definitely be more charismatic and physically attractive.  In fact, they are very good at reading other people’s mind and making an instant connection.  They are good at reading both verbal and nonverbal language of the others in social interactions.  They are also more confident in their outlook and more articulate and relaxed socially.  Furthermore, they are also more generous to others.  They tend to think givers gain.  However, the downside of being a social butterfly is their lack of time or effort in developing and maintaining social connections.  It is easy to imagine that if someone is having a very larger social network, it may be difficult of him or her to find the time required for deepening the connections with all the people in this large social network.  In fact, some social butterflies have set up a system to organise their network and set reminders to touch base with their connections.  If a social butterfly cannot maintain close relationships with some of his or her contacts, he or she may end up feeling lonely and having no support system in case of emotional breakdowns or life crises.  They may end up having lots of people in their social networks but not having any close friends to support them when in need.

Some people may be more introverted or more sensitive to social rejection.  They also prefer to develop a social network that is secure and safe.  For these people, they may have many strong ties with different individuals.  They tend to cultivate deeper connections in many one-on-one relationships.  In some cases, the different individuals having close connections with this person might also be friends on their own.  As a result, this person is more likely to be trusted by all of his or her one-on-one connections, because his or her close ties know that some other people are also close ties with this person.  This person can fulfill deep psychological needs of his or her one-on-one ties and is also a very good listener and secrets sharer.  This person is more sensitive to others’ needs and good at perspective-taking.  In the surface, this person is not popular in a broad sense.  In fact, this person touches the hearts of many individuals and is able to maintain a deep and strong long-term connections with them.  This type of networking style is very suitable for those who are more introverted, socially anxious and sensitive to social exclusion.  The downside of this networking style is the possibility of lack of diversity in one’s network, because it is difficult for a person to develop close ties with people in very different fields without an outgoing and reaching-out style of networking. To some extent, being a social butterfly requires some innate traits that may be lacking in some people.  In fact, there is no one single networking style to be considered the best.  Every networking style has its own advantages and disadvantages.  It is also common for many people to have a mixed of different networking style in their way of networking.  The most important point is to accept our own personality and embrace our true self.  In this way, we can find our unique networking style that is suitable for our needs and personality traits.  It is important that we learn not to compare ourselves with others, just embrace ourselves and live our own lives more freely.