[icebergonfire]

As someone who as been on both ends of that spectrum at different points of my life, I’ll attempt to explain: your core concept is completely legitimate and understood, at least here in HN.

Presenting it as a clear-cut _you are a queue of work and paychecks_ is where it breeds conflict. For the royal you that description is merely a description and expresses no judgement, it is simply the _why_ of your intentional lack of interaction with your coworkers.

To the people on the other side, that description brings back the negative feelings they felt when a coworker that held that same opinion (not you) was unnecesarily rude at work and shielded his failings behind the _I don’t do people_ cover.

I realize that asking you to use the human touch (for lack of a better term) is asking you to have to “work” to cater to the social aspects that you are trying to not get involved with…

So instead I’ll posit that your last paragraph is a perfectly acceptable response to the eternal “want to join and be social” question. It’s innofensive yet firm, and it conveys your position in a concise way that nobody can really pick apart unless they want to make an scene and look bad.