Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels

When I was young, unsure about myself, and frequently derided when I stated my preference for quiet evenings instead of going out and meeting people, I grasped at the notion of "introversion" the moment I found it. It made my feelings and preferences legitimate during a time when I perceived that people were telling me that I was wrong for being that way.

Now, more than two decades later, after a bit more life experience, I cringe when someone labels me as an introvert - they aren't wrong per se, but they also unload a bunch of assumptions attached to that label on to me, 90% of which are inaccurate/unrelated/tangential.

A good friend of mine told me that labels are useful, but warned me to not make them my entire identity. He turned out to be right.

You opened up how you feel about a thing and your parents derided you for it. Did it change you? No, but it surely made you feel like shit. This is a social deficit in your parents, and asserting yourself as "introverted" is the workaround.