“Why Are You So Quiet?”
“Why are you so quiet?”
My five year-old self lifts my head from the Cinderella coloring book I was intensely focused on to meet the excited, bulging eyes of my kindergarten class clown. Even then it dumbfounded me that someone with the social skills to charm an entire class with his witty remarks could simply not comprehend that his endless gregariousness was not a universal trait. Back then I didn’t think much of it, although I did find it odd that my preference for coloring over social interaction was an unsolvable mystery, requiring constant questioning from the finest five year-old detectives that the Indianapolis Public School system had to offer. My quietness was a brandishing, and I realize now it was all they saw of me.
---“She needs to talk more.”
My eight year-old self sits patiently, hands folded tightly under my desk, at the annual parent-teacher conference. I was at the top of my class, I never turned in a late assignment, and I was reading high school material, yet I listened silently to my teacher express concern that my reserved nature might put a hindrance on my education. A seed of doubt trickled into my mind at that moment; there was a part of me that always felt disconnected from the world, a part of me that I was convinced must be a mistake. My quietness was a wound that needed to be severed from the body, a weed that would kill the garden. I didn’t know how to eradicate this part of me, so I let the weed continue to grow, wondering if a dandelion could be as beautiful as a daffodil.
---“You’re too timid.”
My fifth grade teacher pulls me aside, a look of deep pity settling across every wrinkle in her stern face. She sets her hand on my shoulder, but it is no source of comfort or warmth, rather a sheet of ice covers my body. Timid. I loathe the word, but the moment she breathed it I became obsessed with its concept. Showing a lack of courage or confidence; easily frightened. Thinking before I spoke, reflecting before reacting—all my preferences added up to that: frightened, unconfident, aimless. Like a deer in the headlights, a rabbit in the presence of a wolf. Introversion equated to inferiority.
I rummaged through my drawers, pulling out all my grey t-shirts, my corduroys, anything that might be considered plain. Plain is quiet, and quiet is boring. I can’t be boring. And so I adorned myself in neon colors and sparkles, sequences reflecting off the light of my shiny new personality. I laughed past the punchline, smiled till my face hurt. “Random” and “crazy” were words embodied by tye-dyed, ponytail swinging girls laughing in the hallways, words used as measuring sticks of one’s desirableness as a friend. If you weren’t outwardly spontaneous, you weren’t doing it right. I pushed myself to talk even when it made no sense, when the words spilling from my mouth were not mine, but felt distant, like another was typing my responses and I was merely a translator.
I had it in my mind that I was getting better at this, that I was evolving into the extrovert that the school system, my friends, and the world so desired of me. Finally I could express my lifelong desire to be a singer without being ridiculed for the timid girl I once was through a chuckle and slow head shake. My heart increased its thudding with each passing second as I gathered the courage to tell my best friend that I could be what I had denied myself for years. I had the confidence to be a singer, an occupation a shy girl couldn’t have.
“But Elisabeth,” she said, smiling as if I was silly to even mention it, “you’re way too quiet!”
At the words, my insides deteriorated. I felt deep sadness, shame, but boiling over I felt immense anger. I wanted to scream, to run, but all I did was stare at her empty eyes, struggling to prevent the waterfall that would inevitably pour from my own. Furious and heartbroken, I wrestled to comprehend that after trying desperately to improve my condition, there was still something intrinsically wrong with me.
My tear stained vision skewed the edges of my laptop screen as I frantically typed Is being quiet bad? into Google, searching for any form of reassurance, not exactly sure of who I was seeking it for. I flicked off the Nickelodeon show playing in the background where the main characters were outgoing, and the shy kid was the undesirable outcast. Everything in proximity mimicked me. I wanted to get away from it all, find a world in which I could be myself without being looked down upon as less intelligent, less interesting, less of a person.
---“You all are quiet leaders.”
My eighth grade self stares at my Spanish teacher with a look of fascination and disbelief. The two words together seemed an oxymoron. How could one be quiet and a leader, when all my life I was reinforced by class presentations, group projects, and professors’ plastic smiles that leaders were charming, sociable, outgoing? She said this to myself and three other girls, the sharpest in our grade. For the first time since the cold touch of my fifth grade teacher, a shot of warmth flowed through my bloodstream and filled me with possibility. Validity filled all the empty crevices that her words had sucked out of me. “You listen, you set an example, you’re driven.” The soft confidence in her voice told me that it was true.
I bought more clothes, plain and grey as I liked. Some of the sequences stayed, some of the randomness stayed, but there was a peace in my presence unlike before. Astonishing, how the words that frequent your environment can so drastically shape it, how profound an effect culture has on character. My Spanish teacher’s words circled my mind, stirring with them thoughts about “quiet leadership” and how that doesn’t have to be an oxymoron at all. Why shouldn’t it make sense that some of the greatest leaders listen more than they speak, reflect before they react? Why is that quality diminished in the loudness of our society? Why shouldn’t my introversion be something that I’m proud of, something I embrace as a strength?
---“You’re so quiet! It’s okay, I used to be like you before I broke out of my shell.”
My eighteen year-old self struggles to suppress an eye roll as my job trainer continues to speak as if every breath is not a terrible waste. The same condescending lies packed into vague questions just as before, but I was no longer defensive of them. Not to say that it was easy, because it wasn’t. Hearing your personality discussed as if it’s a roadblock, something that you can work to come, is always discouraging. Some fail to recognize that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and the same is true of humans (Susan Cain). It’s not me, it’s them I repeat in my mind, but I suddenly become aware of my flushed face and my unassertiveness, as if it’s changeable, disposable.
And so I speak in a quiet voice, but I speak my mind. I walk alone, but I walk tall.
I still flinch when I hear the word “presentation”, but I rest assured knowing my ideas and listening skills give me an advantage. Introversion comes with more confidence than I ever found as a faux extrovert. But the same questions are asked:
“Why are you so quiet?”
Because I don’t feel like talking.
“Are you lacking confidence?”
No, I’m perfectly confident with my decision to mind my own business.
“Break out of your shell!”
Thank you for your concern, but I broke out of my shell when I left my mother’s uterus.
“You’re quiet.”
Wow, I wasn’t aware of my personality type that has been pointed out to me relentlessly by so many brave individuals.
Damn extroverts.
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