Your friend is very shy and doesn’t take part in extracurricular activities/sports at school. His parents are worried that he doesn’t mix with others but studies all the time. With your partner discuss • what might be the reason for this and • what you can say or do to encourage your friend to interact with others.
Answers
Everyone is responsible for their own social development. If you know someone who's awkward, there's no law that says you have to go out of your way to help them. I think if you genuinely like and care about someone, and you already enjoy their company, but can just see how they could benefit from improving their social skills or confidence a bit, then by all means try to help them along.
However, say you're in college and you've just moved into an apartment with three other people, and one of your roommates seems really isolated and withdrawn. They seem nice enough, but you're busy with your studies and your own social life. You're not under any obligation to try to draw them out of their shell. If helping them doesn't interest you, or you think it would be inconvenient, that's fine. Or you may have an awkward acquaintance, but to be honest you don't have a lot in common with them, and you never clicked that well. You're off the hook here too. Just because you could help someone doesn't mean you're forced to.
Similarly, if you do help someone, you don't have to go full out. If all you can manage is offering the odd bit of assistance, that's okay. Plus if you've already started helping someone, you're allowed to back out at any time. Just because you tried to do something for a person once or twice doesn't mean you're now honor bound to try to assist to them for life.