I'm not sure I'm totally interested in people, per se...
First, a little lot of background.
I was homeschooled, and this, inevitably led to my social life consisting of my younger brother, my dog, my parents, and their adult friends almost exclusively.
Spending so much time around adults meant that I matured (in a sense) faster than most people, which meant that I didn't sometimes connect with kids my age (music tastes were different, wanted to do different things, wasn't all that rambunctious and whatnot). I did have a few friends my age due to a homeschooling group, but they came and went, and I don't know any of the kids I met anymore.
Once my parents forced me into junior college at 17, I met a few people in my classes, and eventually met someone who pulled me into the big group of "the popular kids" (because junior college is really just an extension of high school) and I had more friends than I knew what to do with, I met girls and had girlfriends and normalized socially. Eventually, the group began to fragment, as all large groups do, and I ended up with a core group of really good friends, who I remain close to today.
Going to real college since 21 has been interesting, because the atmosphere here is entirely different, and more productive, than junior college, and the people are generally more "adult" and are intelligent and doing their own thing and living life, which is refreshing. I wouldn't trade my junior college experience for anything, but it's nice to be around grownups. Making friends has been a little slower because it's still a fairly new situation, but it's picking up.
As for how my early schooling situation defined me, I don't think it had a big negative effect or that it stunted me socially, in fact, I feel lucky, because I have never been bad with people; I feel like I was born talented in my personal interactions, and can always make conversation in any situation. I can certainly understand that people could have the same experience and be completely socially destroyed because of it; as good as I am with people, I'm certainly no big extrovert and can be shy to first interact with people initially (after initial contact, though, it's easy). I find the best cure for my tendencies towards introversion are forcing myself to socialize and participate in conversations and meet people (being part of clubs and whatnot at school help a lot in this regard).
At the same time, though, I don't really need people around me so much. Because I grew up so used to making my own fun most of the time, I find that I don't need (or want) to be surrounded by people very often. I do get lonely sometimes (especially when I'm stuck on this campus as I don't have a car and most of the people I know take the shuttle here from another campus), but generally that's related to a lack of female company. This can be a boon (in that I can be fairly autonomous and not need personal interaction all the time), but it has drawbacks (in that, if I don't remind myself to do it, it can be hard to maintain relationships with people because I just don't even think about it, honestly).
So, to this end, I'm not sure if I'm interested in people for more than selfish reasons; I don't think I've ever talked to someone just to be talking to someone because they seemed interesting... but at the same time, I've never turned down a conversation from someone I knew I'd never talk to again. This isn't to say that I'm cold or uncaring, because a truly am interested in my friends and their well-being and life and interests; as separate people and not how they benefit me. But I don't generally go out of my way to talk to people just to be talking to someone.
This is interesting, I'll have to analyze my interactions with people more over the next week so I can see what my motives are.
