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I am the furthest thing from an introvert imaginable. I've just spent my weekend surrounded by about 40 of my friends at a festival, and if it were up to me I'd be there for another week minimum.

I'd rather be locked up in a padded room alone than suffer through the office.

Coworkers are not my friends, and the fake socialization I'm forced to put up with there is exhausting, because I just don't care about them. I have actual friends whom I see a lot more often these days thanks to WFH, and nothing on this planet is going to convince me rotting away in an open air office is better than the alternative.

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> Coworkers are not my friends, and the fake socialization I'm forced to put up with there is exhausting, because I just don't care about them.

When Google and Facebook were getting headlines for their gourmet cafeterias and fancy game rooms and encouraging their employees to work and socialize at the office, I remember saying “I’d rather drink piss beer at a dive with my real friends than a fancy cocktail at work.

You are blaming US culture more than having to go to the office. Our experience will never overlap.

That: "Coworkers are not my friends, and the fake socialization I'm forced to put up with there is exhausting" doesn’t exist where I live.

I'm not a Yank, and referencing your other comment in this thread about the commute, I'm a ~10 minute bike ride from my office.

I just don't care about my colleagues in a friendship context. I only interact with them because I have to professionally, but from my last 4 companies I haven't made a single lasting friendship. Because, again, I have a lot of actual friends who I'd much rather see than the random people from my office.

I lived in multiple places in Europe and it was the same.