Yup!

Item #3 on this list is very meaningful to me right now. I was talking with a friend on the phone and she said she had had houseguests for 17 DAYS! I was horrified, feeling that it was very rude of anyone to expect to stay with someone for that long. I would be insulted if someone felt they could impose on me for that long, and there is no way I would ever for a moment think about staying with someone else for that length of time. When I said so to my friend, she said something along the lines of, "Well, if you came to visit, you could stay for a couple of weeks." My friend is a very devout Christian and name-drops Jesus all the time. It's one of the reasons why I don't want to go visit her. I would have to be on my best behavior to stay there, since normally I cuss a blue streak. And I doubt I could manage more than a very few days of biting my tongue, both to keep my language clean AND to avoid challenging all of her references to the almighty. I would like to see her house and meet my goddaughter's kids, but I don't know if I could hold it together for an entire visit. About the most I could handle would be three-four days, and I don't know if it is worth driving to and from Michigan to South Carolina for that amount of time.

While we're on the subject......Do you guys agree that house parties are really challenging? And, what's worse than parties?
Party games.

DO any of you have any good ways of refusing invitations to parties without hurting the host's feelings or sounding pathetic and weird?

That about sums it up.

I recommend the book "The Introvert Advantage".

In all honesty, it is true that we have a very extroversion-centric culture.

Oh you introverts. You have it easy

Yup, this nailed it

You nailed it.