> but it's exhausting to me. Whenever I come home from a social occasion I need time to recover.

Going to the gym is exhausting, running a marathon is exhausting, spending a day weeding your garden or laying a new carpet could be exhausting.

Usually people feel great afterwards because of the experience and despite it being hard work and taking time to recover from. Parties etc. can be the same.

Call me introvert or not, before doing the exercise I feel a little resistance to do it, but after - feel very energized. For parties: it's diametrically different - feel big boost of dopamine before party, but after - I feel some regrets, so I'm just trying to not think about later.

This is true on some level, and what you describe has been called type 2 fun. But for plenty of people, partying and socializing is really type 1 fun, they find it enjoyable the way some of us find working on programming or other nerd things intrinsically rewarding in the moment, which they may see as unfun but potentially good for you long term.

My point is, yes, sometimes it's good to just ignore the discomfort and push through, but we should also know that it's not how everyone feels about it. Some people actually willingly go down into a crowded basement club with loud music and not just as some kind of tough challenge to survive and shape your character to have tbuilt tolerance for that harsh environment,but they find it enjoyable, no matter how baffling it seems to the rest of us. I don't know proportions, but these people exist. Of course plenty of people are somewhere in the middle range, where they enjoy some aspects while hating the rest, and the thing they enjoy about loud clubs is likely about prospects getting laid and similar stuff.

> Parties etc. can be the same.

They can for some, but to be very clear, I don't. I feel mentally drained in a way I absolutely do not enjoy. The experience can be fun during, but the net benefit to me is low enough, and for many types of socialising it's firmly in the negative, that I restrict myself very much in terms of what socialising I consider worthwhile.

As I said, it's very much down to your personality - most of the time I'd rather spend time in peace and quiet alone or with my wife or son (and I need some of that time to be entirely alone)

Only a specific subset of people enjoy running a marathon. Hell, as it is a fixed length (and not a fixed duration), it is even worse if you are not at the top of fitness and VO2max: how many people would enjoy running for 6+ hours?