"We Were All Really Worried About Her!"

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About 8 or 9 years ago, I remember someone describing a friend of hers from college who had been very reserved when she started the course but had become very loud and confident since. She described this situation by saying "She was really quiet and we were all really worried about her" and went on to say how good it was that she had since "blossomed" into a loud, confident individual.

I remember thinking at the time, "Why worried? The world needs both kinds of ppl. It would be an insufferable place if *everyone* was brash and confident".

You might think that the intervening years would have changed my view of this somehow in the light of experience, but actually I still view it the same way. But what do you think? Do you think that the people who were really worried were right to be worried?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:08 (twenty years ago) link

depends how quiet. and how brash and confident.

both can be bad

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:12 (twenty years ago) link

it sounds like she didn't want to be quiet so the worry may have stemmed from people sensing this and fearing she was not able to be who she wanted to be. a lot of people are very quiet (and often seem boring on the surface as a result) but want to be part of groups and that's where difficulties can occur it seems.

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:13 (twenty years ago) link

the world needs ppl who are balanced, i think, not groups of extremes.

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:13 (twenty years ago) link

I have heard it said that quiet ppl can be regarded as thinking *other ppl* are boring because they don't respond (or don't respond as much) to what ppl say to them.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:15 (twenty years ago) link

Often mistaken for a superiority complex

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:19 (twenty years ago) link

The problem with shy ppl (oh god that sounds awful, but there's no other way to start the sentence) is that their shyness can get confused with moodyness. I used to be, still am sometimes, around ppl I don't really know. Ppl used to just say I was moody & it really had f@#k all to do with that. But yeah too extreme of either can be a nitemare!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:22 (twenty years ago) link

When you haven't achieved the balance and tend to flit between the two extremes, it's a weird situation where you react significantly better to some people over others and this could be picked up on and intepreted as something else.

x-post - yup.

― Crickets Dance On Tequila Booty (Barima), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:22 (twenty years ago) link

The reasons that people "are worried about her" seem a bit spurious. Reasons to worry about your friends: Coz they're ill (including mentally ill or depressed), Coz they're in a shit relationship, coz they're going through a hard time, emotionally financially or otherwise, or other actual problems which require care and attention and support.

If your friend's quietness and shyness were symptomatic of something deeper, well, maybe your friends were right to worry. If not, your friends were interfering fuckwits who should be spured like the scurvy dogs they are.

I hate when the phrase "we're worried about you" is evidence of a social pressure to conform, rather than actual genuine worry about the health or well being of the person.

― Possibly Kate Again (kate), Friday, 4 June 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link

being quiet can sometimes have to do with depression and anxiety

― unholy ghost, Friday, 4 June 2004 13:53 (twenty years ago) link

sometimes people are quiet because they don't like the people they're around and are just containing it.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:09 (twenty years ago) link

amen

― jack cole (jackcole), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:18 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, sorry:

alady

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:19 (twenty years ago) link

aeunuch

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:26 (twenty years ago) link

anasshat (isme)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:27 (twenty years ago) link

anephebe

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:28 (twenty years ago) link

For Isme with anasshat and squalor.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:30 (twenty years ago) link

sometimes people are quiet because they don't like talking.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:32 (twenty years ago) link

What always creeps me out is the combination of intolerance and meddlesomeness that people believe they're doing right in inflicting unasked upon their 'friends'. They start with the false assumption(based upon their own desires) that everyone must be like the self they project. This reveals an ignorance and lack of curiosity which I scorn. Then they presume to inflict this make-over (shades of American foreeign policy) on putative friends who have never desired it, which is the most fundamentally impolite thing one can do. That they cannot understand that sometimes one has friends one does not ressemble irks me sumpin' fierce.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 4 June 2004 18:22 (twenty years ago) link

haha michael OTM. we had exactly this situation with a friend of ours a few years ago; she very dogmatically made diagnoses on people who weren't behaving in exactly the way she imagined they should. Suffice it to say we aren't close any more.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 4 June 2004 18:29 (twenty years ago) link

kyle first statement was so OTM. I keep being told by my coworkers "girl, you gotta talk more!" No, I don't!!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Saturday, 5 June 2004 01:57 (twenty years ago) link

seriously. YOU gotta shut the fuck up more

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:11 (twenty years ago) link

not you, Rosemary, you know what I mean

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:30 (twenty years ago) link

heh, do I ever.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:30 (twenty years ago) link

There's also the fact that at this point in my life I am well aware that in many situtations I am a quiet and reserved person so what is the reason for telling me?? Do you think I don't know?

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:32 (twenty years ago) link

I think these people do think you don't know, much in the same way you would find out, were you to take off your glasses, that YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL!

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:43 (twenty years ago) link

I want to make some sort of Kathy Ireland joke here.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:58 (twenty years ago) link

as usual, kate hit it on the head.

and why is it ODD that a person can be reserved at one time, but outspoken another?

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 5 June 2004 02:59 (twenty years ago) link

michael OTM too!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 5 June 2004 03:00 (twenty years ago) link

In work situations, don't even get me STARTED!!! I am quiet at work because I am trying to WORK. I am not there to socialise, I am there to get a job done. If I want to socialise, I go down the pub. Sharing an office with the most talkative girl in the universe has really been an eye-opener. She is constantly on the phone, and when she's not on the phone, she tries to talk to me. I swear, if she were left in that office alone, she would start talking to the walls. This drives me NUTS. Can't she just shut the fuck up and leave me alone with my numbers and my medians and means and modes so I can actually CONCENTRATE without having the Cocteau Twins blasting on the headphones to tune out her noise? I say hello in the morning, goodnight when I leave, a couple of pleasantries inbetween but honestly!

It's not me that's got the problem for being quiet, it's her for being so goddamn insecure that she can't spend a SECOND without talking to someone.

― Possibly Kate Again (kate), Saturday, 5 June 2004 05:59 (twenty years ago) link

I am not quiet at work because it is simply not possible when I have a room full of criminals to not yell at and scream at and throw my body in front of the train to try and keep in order.

Outside of that it is bizarre to try and open communication because what else shall we (myself and colleagues) talk about it if isn't chasing down deliquents and body-slamming them into the walls? There is nothing.

― Ask For Samantha (thatgirl), Saturday, 5 June 2004 07:37 (twenty years ago) link

SHY AND QUIET PEOPLE, do you want people to talk at you when you first meet them, or just to leave to alone? (I am guessing the latter from Kate's post?) There's one of your number in my room right now (the boyfriend of a good friend), and I have no idea what to do...

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 12 June 2004 20:27 (twenty years ago) link

Shy and quiet people (not all of them, just some of them, including me) prefer to be allowed to observe the conversation for a little while, then slowly be drawn in as I get more comfortable. Do *NOT* whatever you do, just carry on asking a barrage of questions, hoping to draw the person out. That feels like an inquisition.

― Possibly Kate Again (kate), Sunday, 13 June 2004 05:56 (twenty years ago) link

I find that the longer I'm out of a convo the harder it is to get back in, as if I'm slowly becoming invisible or receding into the distance. I will say something but no one notices. I appreciate being asked things, though I guess a continuous stream of questions could seem like an interrogation (but that's never happened to me).

― nickn (nickn), Sunday, 13 June 2004 22:39 (twenty years ago) link

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