I've been in middle office and front office.
You're either cut out for front office or not. The pace is very fast and standards in front office are pretty high. It's not unknown for meticulous people to get poor feedback on attention to detail in front office, but where they never get that bad feedback in any other industry they work in. And I've seen some people with good social skills get asked to improve communication skills in front office finance, yet never get that feedback elsewhere. Middle office can often be much more relaxed, especially on politics.
You have to think long term. If you're not cut out for front office finance you won't last in front office, nowhere to hide. I've come across back office accountants that are unsuited to their jobs and that never got kicked out after 30 years in their line of work, but front office isn't as easy going.
Flip side of course is that if you're cut out to be in IB as a loans analyst you'll probably find work pretty quickly no matter what happens to markets.
That's it really, if I was advising my 23 year old self I would try and start off as a middle office quant but gaining some of the client facing, people and business skills I got from front office. I find I use those soft skills to my advantage as a data professional. The drawback was that using them as selling points was difficult as managers had a tendency to not see past the fact that my IB roles used very little in terms of hard quant skills, which is why I'd try get a middle office role. It's not about "interest", it's about being "useful" and playing to your strengths.