You're so quiet...

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I have gotten that a lot, along with "you should smile more" or "why don't you ever smile?" Bugs the heck out of me.

Once when i was working, i came into work and a friend i felt comfortable talking to came out of the bathroom and said the girls are all talking about me in the bathroom saying i am "too good to talk to them." That wasn't it AT ALL! So, when they came out, the main one who started the crap, i sat next to her and tried my hardest to talk to her (she didn't know my friend told me as they didn't know she was in there) to make her feel like crap for ever talking bad about me (or really cause i am not the type to deliberately upset people). She probably didn't tho.

The just the other week, and this is finally when i figured it out, my neighbor asked if i was always this quiet and i said yes. She said, "Ok, then i won't assume anything." What?! Really?! Ok then! I guess NTs assume things if we are quiet? At least now that has been my experience. Her daughter asked me the same thing and said she's like that too, yet this is the 1st time we have talked and here she was talking up a storm. Might i add, she is very talkative to everyone, so how is she so quiet? lol!

Btw, growing up, although i got "quiet" and "shy" labels, my stepdad had always called me "motor mouth!" lol! And my mom, still bugging that i talk too much.

I usually am quiet, largely because I used to get the "shut up, we don't care!" reaction when I talk monotonously about something that only I'm obsessively interested in. The "quiet" thing is, I think, learned behavior to avoid getting beaten to a pulp or getting made fun of.

Over the last year, I've taken to starting mostly one-sided but short conversations with quiet people and talking up a storm myself. I hope they don't mind, but perhaps they're too quiet to tell me to take a long walk off a short pier and leave them alone. In any event, I figure they're probably a lot like me, and are reluctant to talk to anyone, and maybe prefer listening to people until they know them better. Some of them have been completely unfriendly no matter what I do, but others do seem to warm up and talk a lot more after I've "broken the ice" for about 30 minutes a day over a couple days, and it makes me feel good to see them relax, smile, and chat a little.

I have recently taken to saying "you are so quiet" to people I don't know very well, but if the person I say that to doesn't seem interested in talking, I usually follow up by smiling and saying "don't worry, it's OK if you don't", and then I might leave them in peace and then try to start up a conversation on a later date. I also have started telling gentle but sad-looking people "please smile" before chatting a little, and usually they do smile, at least a little. I don't know quite what to do yet when they don't react positively, though - fortunately, nobody has tole me to mind my own business or go away yet, as I'm not confident enough with this yet to handle a hostile reaction well