"You're so quiet..."

Post Reply New Topic

I get so sick of it! When I'm working I'll have strangers/customers/whatever radomly come up to me and pull that "you're so quiet" and "smile" s**t on me! It angers me more when I'm not feeling depressed and I'm feeling okay but I'm not capable of smiling unless it is forced or brought out by laughter.

Next time someone pulls that on me I'd rather spit it back in their face instead allowing them to tease me for it. It's rude of them to do that to me to begin with.

I find it ironic that NTs would approach me saying that as their actual form of greeting me. I swear everytime someone comes to talk to me for the first time it's to say something about me they notice (and it's usually a criticism not a compliment)

And they say WE'RE the ones with bad social skills?! !

Yea I hear that, it's like you're doing what you feel is normal and others perceive it as "wrong" and it causes you to question yourself.

It's not exactly the same but similar, this dude I know, he's a friend of a friend (I suppose I'd consider him a friend too, I see him often enough, but we don't actually know each other that well) and he always comes up to me and says stuff like "are you all right man?" or "how you doing man?" And it's not a greeting, we'll have been hanging out with a group of people for hours and he will come up out of nowhere and say stuff like this. The other night he was drinking some and he did it probably 5 different times that night!

I know in his case it's not malicious or "teasing", he's a really genuinely nice dude and doesn't mean anything by it, but it's weird to me that I'm in a social situation, doing my thing, feeling as "normal" as humanly possible, and it's made clear to me repeatedly that despite this, I don't appear "normal" or that something is "wrong" with me.

And how do I respond to that? It's not like I get any specifics on why I'm being perceived the way I am, so all I can say is "yea dude I'm good here", and then it's awkward because it's like okay what next.

Some person: "You're so quiet,"

Me: "I know."

Some person: "Why?"

Me: "I just am."

It stops the questions very effectively.

It's not as bad as people pointing out your emotional state. "You look depressed." "You look confused." Or whatever. I never quite know what to say. Even if it's someone pointing out you look quiet it puts you rather on the spot.

One I get is "you're such a good listener", because I'm quiet.
truth is I'm a crap listener, unless it's something I'm really intrested in then I'm a great listener.

I get "you're so quiet" or "why are you so quiet?" a lot. If one of my brothers or friends are around, they always make a joke about it, so I've sort of learned to do the same thing. Sometimes I say "I'm a drummer, I'm supposed to be quiet."

When I was 12-14 at school I was followed continuously by a group of idiots who used to repeat:
"Can you actually speak?"
"Are you mute?"
"Say something."
"Why don't you talk?"
"What's wrong with you?"
Etc. etc.
And then when I actually did speak they would say:
"That's the first time I've ever heard you talk."
"Wow, look she spoke!"
"Say something again."
And used to insult me and call be "babe" as a joke.
They would follow me home some days, just for a laugh.

It's hard to bring up the courage to speak when people are constantly asking me questions about something I'm very sensitive about. Questions make me incredibly anxious at the best of times and personal ones make me practically have a panic attack.