I think the misunderstanding, in fact, is in reverse, demonstrated by the above comment. The networking required for career growth is, for many people, never going to pleasurable.
My social circles don't have much overlap with, for example, startup founders. Developing personal relationships in my network is not likely to ever benefit my career growth. When people give the advice to "network" to enable my career growth, the people who would be most helpful tend not to have much in common with me, and building relationships with them often means not being true to myself, or even hiding myself.
It isn't enough to simply build relationships or even be good at building relationships. Mostly, one needs to buy goodwill from those people who actually have power to help you.
> When people give the advice to "network" to enable my career growth, the people who would be most helpful tend not to have much in common with me, and building relationships with them often means not being true to myself, or even hiding myself.
Then it's best to recognise this early and decide if you want to be true to yourself or if you want to succeed[1].
[1] Depending on your definition of "success", plodding along for 40 years as an IC, contributing your skills to whichever employer and eventually retiring is, for many, "Success" with a capital "S". The people giving the networking advice are using a different definition, which is usually "rising in your career until you are making an impact far larger than an IC could". Not networking with the other rising stars gives you a very low chance of attaining that second definition of success.
Hm, I mostly agree, but I think that's a bit tangential.
It's not like people really get to make that choice and still have a good chance at success. In order to meet any definition of success[1], you need to get hired. And also, if you're in a job that's making you miserable, you once again need to get hired (somewhere else). Networking is the solution to that problem. If you're not someone who can enjoy and/or succeed at networking, your career is at risk. There's not much you can do about that except take a different path.
[1] excluding either "leave the field and succeed somewhere else" or "start your own company"[2]
[2] although starting one's own company without a robust network would probably also be a pretty difficult path
All relationships in some form require you to not be true to yourself. It's just the way it works, we are all very different from each other so being able to create a shared bubble of understanding is an essential skill. That's not disingenuous or something to be lamented. It's how people bond.
I don't at all agree with that. Or at least, it's only true enough to be misleading and to downplay/obscure the real concerns I'm raising.
Because, of course it's true not all my friends are just like me. But I don't have to hide who I am from them. I can be completely true to myself and we can disagree about some things but still feel genuine connections.
I consider that qualitatively different from a relationship with a person who would dislike and distrust me unless I hide important facets of my identity/personality.
edit: I see that I made the distinction in my original comment between "not being true" vs "hiding", so I think that's where you jumped in. My fault for leaving that gap open; I hope my position is more clear here.
My social circles don't have much overlap with, for example, startup founders. Developing personal relationships in my network is not likely to ever benefit my career growth. When people give the advice to "network" to enable my career growth, the people who would be most helpful tend not to have much in common with me, and building relationships with them often means not being true to myself, or even hiding myself.
It isn't enough to simply build relationships or even be good at building relationships. Mostly, one needs to buy goodwill from those people who actually have power to help you.