I slithered through the crowd, trying to avoid contact. Not from elbows. I was afraid that someone in this bubbly mass might talk to me. Brrr.

I broke through the swarm and headed for the far corner. Someone had beaten me to it. A woman — my hero — stood there in a T-shirt that proclaimed, “It’s too peopley outside.”

I wanted to run right up to tell her how much I agree. Instead, I headed for the opposite far corner. Because that’s what introverts do when it’s too peopley.

Crowds energize those overly social and talkative extroverts. Crowds terrorize introverts.

It reminds me of a quote I saw from a group called Our Mindful Life: “A large group of people is called a ‘no thanks.'”

I read that the No. 1 fear people have is talking in front of crowds. Not me. I enjoy performing “Burt’s Eye View Live” in front of audiences. The more people, the merrier. It’s a blast.

What terrorizes me is afterward. That’s when I’m expected to mingle. Even though it’s full on peopley out there.

I attended a writers’ conference recently where I was forced to sit at a lunch table with eight or nine other strangers. I figured I could survive that. Writers tend to be introverts. We’d all just stare intently at our salads and not talk.

But one of the people at the table, the ringer, was the spouse of a writer. He kept peppering the rest of us with horribly intrusive and awkward questions, like, “What’s your name?” and “What do you write?”

It was barely bearable.

At the start of the conference, we were presented with a scavenger hunt ice-breaker game. We were supposed to invade each other’s spaces to find others who were from our state or who wrote in a genre different than ours or someone who gave you a hug today. (Wait, what? A hug? With peopley people?)

How much does the average introvert weigh? Not enough to break the ice.

I collected two signatures, only because when some random extrovert shoved their list in my face, I made them sign my sheet in return.

Someone — he didn’t leave his name, being an introvert — once said, “Introverts don’t crash parties; we gracefully exit them.” Twice during the conference, I excused myself from the dinner table — right after dessert, of course — to use the restroom and “forgot” to return to the banquet hall. I scurried to my room, locked the door and gulped big breaths of solitary air.

Why is it that people always are telling us introverts to be more talkative and leave our comfort zones, but nobody tells the extroverts to stop yammering, get out of our faces and make the zone comfortable?

I once was part of a volunteer work crew staring down a long yard of fallen autumn leaves at a church in Warren.

My buddy Paul said to several of us, “We can rake side by side so that we can talk the whole way.”

That sounded like torture — even more than having to rake in the first place. I didn’t want to talk; I just wanted to get the job done so that I could go home.

Mostly, we work well with others — from a safe distance — but we just want to go home. Being around people exhausts introverts. We need alone time to recharge. There’s a big difference between alone and lonely.

Now we need a good slogan. I found a couple rally cries, posted anonymously, because, you know, introvert:

“Introverts, unite! Separately. In your own homes.”

“Introverts, unite! We’re here, we’re uncomfortable, and we want to go home.”

Because it’s too peopley outside.

Write to Burt at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook. It’s not too peopley there.