Why Are You So Quiet?

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Dude...I hate that question. I usually answer "because I have nothing really to say" though I'd like to say "why are you so loud?"

the only thing worse than "Why are you so quiet?" is "What's Wrong?"

"Because you never shut the hell up" is a good one too.

I was with a friend the other day and she said something more annoying than "why are you so quiet?", she said "talk to me.". I just thought "about what?". I had nothing to talk about and I didn't feel like talking. Why do people feel the need to talk about useless bullsh**?

^^^^

I had a friend once whom I could spend time with and sometimes we DIDN'T say anything to each other. But neither one of us was bored with or put off by the other. That was so nice.

I go around not really speaking at all unless spoken to. There are weeks when I think I don't pass 100 words total and weekends where I don't utter a word until arriving back at work and have to mumble the obligatory "Morning" when passing 6 or so employees. Last Saturday I told one about discovering AS about myself. His final words as he was walking away from this 7 minute conversation (the length of a cigarette), was "Because You don't know when to shut up!" WHAT????

Everyday of my life!

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who knows what hell this is to have to be asked and labeled like that everyday. In fact it's gotten so bad and irritating to the point that I'm afraid I'll lose control and have a severe meltdown if I'm teased about this in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's really hard to ignore these kind of people though, especially if they use it as a means of humiliating you infront of other people like a person from college did to me one time. I even told him on AIM later how upset I was about it and just laughed back at me.

...idiot...

Hi all - I'm 45 and am not diagnosed aspie - just here because I think I maybe - and I understand what you are all saying and relate to it strongly.

I've always been labeled 'shy' and maybe I am just that - but there does seem to be more to it than that.

The women I work with chatter and cluck and fuss over one another in a manner that I just don't understand. They do it to each other and I find it stupid and annoying but at the same time am hurt because they don't do it to me!! What is it about me that makes me exempt from this activity? What am I suppose to do/say? The stupid thing is that on the odd occasion they do pay attention to me - I feel rediculous and don't understand the rules of the game - so the attention is soon lost. I feel both sad that I couldn't engage in the game but at the same time releaved to be invisible again. The thing is I would have to 'act' all the time and that is just to exhausting.

It is not nice to not fit in but at the same time I don't want to cluck and fuss about! I guess they really do care about each other - but there is so much speech and drama involved!!

Another thing I seem to sense is that these actions toward others (the clucking and fussing) give the person doing it some kind of self pleasure.

Well said SoLow!
I have spent most of my career self employed and thought I was just fine. My contact with people was sporadic and get-in-make the exchange-get out. (No not drugs- independent jewelry repairs for different stores). I always just thought I was kind of a loner and didn't like most people enough to stick around them much.
Now I have a 'real' job where I work with the same 6 to 8 people every day, all day. I see the same things you do and feel the same way about it. I just don't get it. If I were to try to 'act' they would be shocked and I would feel too weird and exhausted. The hardest thing to me is that I can not think of enough 'nothing' things to say.
I've always been regarded as weird and aloof but I never even had a clue as to how or why or when until I came here.
I was once told that I was shy.....OH H**** NO! I'm anything but shy! I thought I was trying to be low key to hide that I don't care what the freakin rules are! I do as I please! But alas.... they will think bad things no matter what I do or don't do...............
I am not diagnosed either but the topics on this forum are the final Eureka experiences for me. A lifetime of gathering things like this very topic like secrets. Unable to find anyone else to say these things to. No one who could relate, tell me why people said this to me or help me figure out what I might do about it.
I think I'm finally home.

I hate it when people ask me that. I always smile and make eye contact, and I always use social body language instead of standing there looking like a lost soul gone deaf and blind. And I always answer people if they ask me something, and I smile as I answer them, and I also answer in a normal way.
It's just that I've always been a listener. I like to just sit and listen, (unless I'm with family or familiar friends like colleagues).
Last Sunday I went to my mum's friend's wedding, and there was a lot of people there I didn't know, and they are all very chatty, sociable people (NTs of course!) and I felt like a fish out of water a lot of the time because of being so shy. But I still smiled and used social body language and looked relaxed, but my brother said his friend asked him why I was so quiet. I felt annoyed when my brother told me that his friend asked why I was quiet, because why do people expect everyone to be loud, like them? Plus there was loud music in the party after the wedding, and because I can't have conversations when I'm in a loud environment, because I've got to keep shouting to the other person which gives me a sore chest in the end (I have a heart condition).
I'm not very good at starting a conversation with strangers either. It makes life so difficult, and I hate having AS because of it.

I always ignore them. You will encounter two types of people who ask that question. They are either ignorant or they are concerned because they might think you are depressed or down.

Aspies aren't quiet...we are annoying.


And yeah, I do get asked that question a lot.

Or something along the lines of "Are you okay?"

No i'm not okay, i've got a f*****g mental disorder.

Basically my life goes through cycles of "You're so quiet" and then "You're so weird." So basically, damned if you do, damned if you don't. People pick on you for being shy if you don't talk, and pick on you for being weird if you do.