Quite the contrary, roleplaying IS interacting for interactions sake. Roleplaying is about more than just attending arranged events, what is spontaneous about having other people arrange an event for you to attend? It's about 'living'; bringing your character to life with every day situations. Little things make it fun and coming up with ways to make the mundane interesting is what it's all about.

Roleplaying a farmer trying to sell some vegetables or sheep. Roleplaying a Hobbit trying to make a living with music. Having one big community and having people play such "lowly" things makes a community fun and realistic and brings the area to life, and is exactly why some of us want a centralized community. If there's one place to go and everybody lives reasonably nearby things like this develop that add to the community and make it enjoyable for longer. What's the point in the Vesper, Yew, Trinsic or Cove Militia if there's nobody playing a civilian to defend? You can't exactly play a farmer from Yew if you're recalling to Trinsic or Vesper to find some interaction and "just logging in for events" is what ruins communities.

No, you don't have to be directly involved either. Why should your Drow be involved? Well, that's the fun, coming up with ways as to why indeed you would be involved! If not, have an alt and participate in another way. RP shouldn't be purely about defending towns, stealing magic artifacts, murder and assassination or lesbian drow cyber sex orgies.