My fellow introverts, we all need to remember something:

Too much alone time is just as bad as too little. It’s just a different kind of bad.

I, for one, have to watch it sometimes. As an introvert — and as the author of a book called The Introvert Manifesto, for crying out loud, which devotes many of its pages to the introvert’s dire need for some solitude in life — I protect and defend the concept of alone time, vigorously. As I write in the book:

I plan for my alone time. I plot for my alone time. I finagle and juggle for my alone time, the same way extraverts look for activity and social interaction. I all but put alone time on my calendar — because if it’s not a part of my life, well, then I don’t have much of a life.

I stand by these words, and will til the day I die. I really do need my alone time; all introverts do.

But today I’m reminding myself — and all of you reading this — that there was a reason I included the phrase “a part of” in that book passage I quoted, just as there was a reason I included the word “some” when I talked about “some solitude in life” in the third paragraph above:

Introverts need people too.

I know this — actually, it’s more accurate to say that I’m being reminded of this — because I’m really feeling it right now. It’s almost embarrassing to say it, like I’m violating some sort of fictional introvert code or dishonoring the introvert brand or something (which is ridiculous, by the way). But I’m lonely today. And I’ll be even more honest: I’ve been lonely a lot lately during the workday. Because for me, “going to work” means walking to the kitchen table, opening my laptop, and starting to do my research and writing. The kids are all at school. My wife is at school too, teaching kindergartners in an environment that is the polar opposite of mine.

I’m here, all by myself. Alone. No colleagues. No office banter. No interaction. A few days ago when I was really pushing it on a writing project, I went an entire workday without talking to a soul — and thus, without even hearing my own voice, let alone someone else’s.

Not good. Not good at all. It’s no wonder I’m feeling the way I’m feeling. We humans really are social animals, after all.

And so while I often do have to plan for my alone time and plot for my alone time and finagle and juggle for my alone time as an introvert — especially when I haven’t been getting it, or when I really do need to actively pursue it because I’ve actually had a day full of interaction — sometimes, like today, I have to plan and plot for and finagle and juggle for a little people time.

So I’m getting out of here, out of this house, just as soon as I post this. Not because I’m rejecting the concept of alone time, but because I’m accepting the concept of people time — and reaffirming that there can and must be a balanced mixture of both in my life. In every introvert’s life. In everyone’s life.

When my wife Adrianne asks me about my day, she means it. She genuinely wants to hear about what I did, what I’ve been thinking about, and how I’m feeling. In some detail.

I need to get the detail part through my head.

Actually, I need to work on my head — my thinking — where sharing is concerned. And I doubt I’m the only introvert on the planet who can say that.

As Sophia Dembling wisely notes in her Psychology Today “Introvert’s Corner” blog post “When the Listening/Talking Ratio Is Out of Whack,” it’s often easy for us introverts to listen to the stories of other people’s days in great detail while neglecting to share the full stories of our own, or anything even close to it. It takes less energy, and in some ways it’s simply a lifelong habit that is such a part of our essence that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

Yet it can be problematic, too, as Dembling points out. She says we introverts can find ouselves “perpetually in the position of sounding board,” for starters, which has the potential to lead to fatigue and resentment over time.

But there’s a much more sinister problem to be concerned about.

Often when Adrianne asks me her loving question — “How was your day?” —  my brain’s first response goes something like this:

Fine. I guess. I did some administrative crap this morning, wrote a little, and did some house-y stuff in the afternoon. The end. It’s so boring, who could possibly care to learn more? Yawn.

Not good. Not related to my energy expenditures or my habits. And certainly not at all what Adrianne is looking for with a question that comes straight from her heart each time she asks it.

If you’re an introvert who, like me, struggles to share at times — even with a very close and trusted loved one — you might have a self-worth issue on your hands. And while it may be connected to your introversion, it is not your introversion in and of itself. It’s a different animal. And it will be critical for you to get some help with it, from a counselor (that’s the route I’ve taken) or from another trusted soul in your life.

In the meantime, practice. That’s what I’m doing when Adrianne asks about my day: I’m practicing sharing in detail. One day recently, I knocked the ball out of the park and shared with her for several minutes, elaborating on several activities I was particularly proud of, including blogging. Yesterday, conversely, I laid an egg with my one-word reply: “Fine.” I didn’t come through, for her or for myself.

That has to change.

I don’t have to change who I am as an introvert, and neither do you if you wrestle with this issue. We don’t have to be something we’re not. But we do need to be heard, and to allow other people to hear us.

The only way we can do that is to give people something to hear. Especially when they ask.