Being quiet in a big group and talkative one-on-one isn’t fake. It’s knowing where you work best.

Different formats suit different people, and almost nobody is equally good at both. A big group rewards speed and interruption, while one conversation rewards attention and follow-up questions, which are genuinely different skills. Being poor at the first and good at the second is not shyness or pretence, it is knowing what you are built for. Plenty of people who seem effortless in a crowd are hopeless at the other thing.

Stop measuring yourself by the format that suits you least. Ask one person for a coffee instead of attending the big thing. Go to the big thing occasionally and treat it as somewhere to find your one conversation.