> I felt that my academic time was utterly wasted in public school

No it wasn't! You learned how to interact with normal people. That's a lifelong skill.

> "You're so well-adjusted", is a frequent refrain.

Sure, some people make it work. I don't think this invalidates the broad observation that private and homeschooled people are frequently socially... off. I myself had a homeschooled kid in our town who transitioned to public school for high school and made a very gregarious time of it. Then again, his parents also had him integrate tightly with athletics for the decade before this over precisely the concern about socialization we're discussing. Perhaps there's a critical time in development when socialization is necessary and there are other venues than public school to remediate this. I'm just saying you can't expect to completely avoid normal people and then slot into them later in life.

> No it wasn't! You learned how to interact with normal people. That's a lifelong skill.

It taught me the necessity of being as viciously crass as my new classmates in order to fit in. If you consider that normal, then let it be known that I'm perfectly fine sticking with abnormal people thank you very much. I am perfectly content learning the lessons of Lord of the Flies by reading, and not by getting thrown into a small re-enactment of it.

Though I suppose public middle school psychology was useful when I was an internment camp guard in southern Iraq. I'll grant you that.

> Then again, his parents also had him integrate tightly with athletics for the decade before this over precisely the concern about socialization we're discussing. Perhaps there's a critical time in development when socialization is necessary and there are other venues than public school to remediate this.

I'll add to your anecdata - most homeschoolers I knew did sports and other extracurricular clubs, outside of the co-ops they may be participating in.

> I don't think this invalidates the broad observation

The word you're looking for is stereotype. There's lots of harmful and inaccurate stereotypes about all groups of people out there, and polite society generally frowns on using them as a form of bigotry.

> Perhaps there's a critical time in development when socialization is necessary and there are other venues than public school to remediate this.

There are tons of opportunities for this sort of thing, in the form of non-school youth groups such as 4H, sports teams, scouts and so on.

In fact, actual in class socialization is frowned on or punished in most schools. It's the in-between time and extracurriculars when that happens most anyway.

> No it wasn't! You learned how to interact with normal people. That's a lifelong skill.

If that's the main thing you learn, it's only worth an hour or two of the school day. So it's not all wasted but it's mostly wasted.