I started working at my first-ever office job in March 2019. In my first week, I would go into the office for three days and work from home for two.

I loved the thrill of working in an office in Abuja, mostly because it was the Nigerian definition of success and of being a true adult after college. My co workers, before my arrival, were very close friends with one another, and I enjoyed the freedom and civility that hung in the air.

Unfortunately, I don't think I ever truly made my way into that group of friends (I'm talking best-friends-outside-of-work level friends) for some reasons. I believe that the most prominent reason is that they all shared common interests that I could not have cared less about.

For example, one of my co-workers, Ben's favourite topics to talk about were marriage and religion. This isn't necessarily a friendship-ender for me, but I wasn't about to pretend that God or marriage isn't scary just to fit in. I also wasn't about to ruin the mood by going off on a tirade about how our generation's notion of marriage is naive, or the way God is being misconstrued by pastors.

So, for most conversations, I would just sit quietly (or put in headphones to drown out the insanity).

At the same time, I felt that I still liked and enjoyed the vibe with these people and didn't want to pass up the opportunity to make friends. But how do I do that? For most of their conversations about Religion, marriage, and beauty, I didn't have anything to add. And when I did, I didn't want to seem over-eager to insert myself into a conversation that I was not invited to. (This was most of them.) I ended up attending a handful of happy hours and lunches, but it was mostly because I felt that I couldn't complain about not making friends if I didn't at least try.

Then in March 2020-actually, on the exact day that I was hired as a full-time employee after being a freelancer-we all switched to working from home.

Our jobs have all been fully remote since, and I haven't seen any of the aforementioned people. Outside of work-related conversations, I haven't seen or talked to any of them. When my boss asked me if I'm glad I'm working from home, I've mostly wanted to say that I'm just happy to not have to listen to my colleague's inane conversations anymore but I said it's fine.

Source: https://www.talkutalku.com/blog/being-an-introvert-in-nigeria-is-becoming-an-extreme-sport-why/

Ok

Some are introverts truly and enjoy the company of themselves. Some aren't. These latter group do not contribute because they lack self esteem that their opinions count.

If you ever held yourself back when you could have given your opinion and move the conversation forward, the boost your self esteem with these simple tricks


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs-E7XXJwaI
I have tried them and they work