Weird variation I got of "you're so quiet"

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I probably would have put the spotlight back on to her. It's a way I've learnt to cope because I don't like any attention drawn to me.

Would have said "That's interesting that you think that, no one else has ever made that comment"
or
"Any time I've tried to introduce myself you've been lost in conversation"

The worst I got was I was at some sort of get together and people actually forgot I was there since I was so quiet so when I finally spoke up they actually said something like we forgot you were here they could of been joking but it was awkward.

At work more so I always get told your so quiet or I always get told oh you have such a soft voice its cute and then people are always asking me what so then I have to repeat a total like 3 times just because I dont want to be too loud and being loud in all honesty hurts my voice. \

It used to bother me when people would tell me to speak up and or that I have a cute soft voice but after being in retail for 8 years has made me used to it. It bothers me a little if Im in a bad mood and really dont want to have to say $9.99 over and over but usually its the older people that do it so I understand. Im just glad Im not the only quiet one.

I had a somewhat similar situation when I was in my early twenties/late teens.

Each day, I took the bus to work. The bus driver was very outgoing, and seemed to make it a personal mission to get me to talk.
At that point, when I was uncomfortable, I would simply not speak at all. The more he called attention to me, the less responsive I became, and the more entertained he became. It was awful. There was no avoiding the situation because I had to get to work. By the time I arrived, I was extremely out of sorts and not able to function properly for at least a couple of hours into the morning. This went on for months before a different driver was assigned to the route.

In retrospect, I wish I had been more confident and aware that I could have done something about the situation. You really cannot harass someone riding a bus for not being conversational. For all he knew, there could have been a physical issue preventing me from speaking. But, back then, I didn't know the first thing about AS. I'm in my 30s now and luckily learning about AS has given me a lot of confidence in just being who I am. Live and learn.

The only people I've heard say something as rude as what that woman said was from teenagers...usually younger ones. I don't know why people say weird things like that.

My high school had some premed students from a nearby university come and teach sex education in our health class. At the end of the first session, they asked each of us what we learned. One girl said she learned I was not mute.

One day a few months ago I was at work, telling something to someone who was standing right outside my office when a girl came up to him and asked him something.

He said "I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't hear you; Matt was telling me something."

She responded "That's impossible. Matt doesn't talk."

D'you suppose these things eat away at us so much because we're hyper-vigilant from so many years of teasing and close scrutiny by the very social human race? Are we really getting more than our share of rudeness? Or is it that after being called on our own awkwardness, it just seems so hypocritical? And what is with the people who think they're doing you a favor by drawing you out? "Smile," they say. "Don't tell me what to do," you say. Later, a mutual acquaintance tells you how rude you were. Chick, if I was, I wasn't alone.

There's too many I haven't yet been able to forgive, I have started to want to do so because that's the healthy way to deal with it, honestly. But I have limited experience in the healthy approach... again, my fault there. I recognize that. The problem I've always had is with either talking too much or too little and getting more attention for the silent periods than the other! When I was a teenager, I would hang around with my sister because no one would hang around with me otherwise. She would get the local teens at our church together and we'd hang out and play games or watch movies, that sort of thing. Not a bad set-up for teenagers, you might think. No pairing off too young, but still mixing. But still there was this painful knowledge that no one would seek me out if it weren't for my sister or the fact that we went to the same church. I remember one scarring moment came when we were in one of these situations at someone's house. There was always noise, a hum of it, like being right next to a flock of starlings, chirp chirp chirp. It always seemed to me that there were several conversations going at once and no rhyme or reason to who was in what one. I really could not tell. I could almost see it, a tangle woven between the circle of speakers, impossible to trace one line of it. The best I could figure, I could just toss out a comment on whatever happened to reach my ears. But I never seemed to get an answer from anyone. So I carried on, until one night one goofy boy chuckled to my sister that there I was, talking to myself as usual. It was as if my thread fell out of the tangle... I realized it had never been in there in the first place. But I was doing what they were doing! Why didn't anyone talk back? Obviously they could tell I was talking so why is it that they never saw fit to respond? It's become a pet peeve of mine for people to come out with an observation on me that I never had a stake in, saying something they noticed about me without having actually engaged me in honest conversation to verify this reckless assumption. I wish I could say I was as expert at not leaping to conclusions myself. That's my curse, my own hypocrisy. But at least no one will get me to comment where I lack knowledge. I do fight myself that much.

If that lady had wanted to get to know you, she should have been less impulsive and given some thought to good manners.

D'you suppose these things eat away at us so much because we're hyper-vigilant from so many years of teasing and close scrutiny by the very social human race? Are we really getting more than our share of rudeness? Or is it that after being called on our own awkwardness, it just seems so hypocritical? And what is with the people who think they're doing you a favor by drawing you out? "Smile," they say. "Don't tell me what to do," you say. Later, a mutual acquaintance tells you how rude you were. Chick, if I was, I wasn't alone.

There's too many I haven't yet been able to forgive, I have started to want to do so because that's the healthy way to deal with it, honestly. But I have limited experience in the healthy approach... again, my fault there. I recognize that. The problem I've always had is with either talking too much or too little and getting more attention for the silent periods than the other! When I was a teenager, I would hang around with my sister because no one would hang around with me otherwise. She would get the local teens at our church together and we'd hang out and play games or watch movies, that sort of thing. Not a bad set-up for teenagers, you might think. No pairing off too young, but still mixing. But still there was this painful knowledge that no one would seek me out if it weren't for my sister or the fact that we went to the same church. I remember one scarring moment came when we were in one of these situations at someone's house. There was always noise, a hum of it, like being right next to a flock of starlings, chirp chirp chirp. It always seemed to me that there were several conversations going at once and no rhyme or reason to who was in what one. I really could not tell. I could almost see it, a tangle woven between the circle of speakers, impossible to trace one line of it. The best I could figure, I could just toss out a comment on whatever happened to reach my ears. But I never seemed to get an answer from anyone. So I carried on, until one night one goofy boy chuckled to my sister that there I was, talking to myself as usual. It was as if my thread fell out of the tangle... I realized it had never been in there in the first place. But I was doing what they were doing! Why didn't anyone talk back? Obviously they could tell I was talking so why is it that they never saw fit to respond? It's become a pet peeve of mine for people to come out with an observation on me that I never had a stake in, saying something they noticed about me without having actually engaged me in honest conversation to verify this reckless assumption. I wish I could say I was as expert at not leaping to conclusions myself. That's my curse, my own hypocrisy. But at least no one will get me to comment where I lack knowledge. I do fight myself that much.

If that lady had wanted to get to know you, she should have been less impulsive and given some thought to good manners.

I don't get it. People think people who are really quiet are weird, but no one ever cares when someone never shuts the hell up (or at least no one actually says anything rude to them, from what I've noticed). :/

Well I can't believe it's already been a month and I guess I got just got preoccupied with other things since that time, but I still wanted to give an update on this. As it turns out, the lady in question was apparently just trying to be friendly (albeit doing a really bad job that one time!) which became more and more evident later on as she and I talked to each other at different times after that. She even turned out to know of some valuable information that will most likely help me out later on with continuing college... I almost felt bad about how annoyed I was with her before. LOL... One or two times afterward she did make a passing remark about how "that's why you should talk to people" or something like that, regarding the chance I almost missed to learn the helpful information she was privy to, but never again did anything she say come across as rude or condescending like what I wrote about in the OP.

Also thanks for the responses, and I have read them all by now. Even though a lot of the real snappy ones were amusing and clever, I wouldn't have used any of them as you never know in an environment like that how it can put you on people's bad side and this just wasn't worth it at all. Probably the best response IMO would have been the "really? nobody's ever told me that before" as it puts the ball back in their court by not requiring you to appear defensive, while at the same time putting them at somewhat of a loss for a decent response. They can't very well deny it since they don't know, and it forces them to think even if only for a split second about the possibility that they just might have misjudged you or spoken too rashly. Staring at them with an air of incredulity as I did probably works almost as well for that purpose though.