I’m not sure if you were trying to allude to it with that line or not, but either way, you reminded me of one of the most accurate statements in all of rock music, that being the following lines from “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads:
“You start a conversation you can’t even finish it.
You’re talkin’ a lot, but you’re not sayin’ anything.
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?”
Hey, I’ll back you up on that rant. When people tell me how lousy the weather is, I smile and say “I know. Isn’t it great?”
amarinth, are you me? Because your situation describes mine really well except I’ve just started college, and yes, almost all the friends I’ve made are extroverts.
Exactly. When there’s someone I want to talk to, guess what? I’ll talk to them! I’m not going to spout of my life story so they can, and I know this sounds terribly Fight Club-ish, wait for their turn to talk.
I’ve found this to be the case a lot as well.
“So, you know how abortion is wrong and against God and everything?”
“Mmm.”
“Yeah, you know?”
Even better is when I spend nearly an hour to listening to someone talk, and after not having said anything, they say, “wow, it’s like you understand me so well!”
The really cool thing about being a quiet person is that folks tend to assume that just because you don’t talk, you don’t listen, either. People tend to have the most extraordinary personal conversations right in front of my face, as though I’m either not there or deaf. Keeping your mouth shut can be very entertaining and informative, sometimes.
that is SO true, crazycatlady! i get to hear the oddest things from people who don’t dare say anything in front of my more extraverted friends. oh well, i’m not complaining…definitely is entertaining!
my SO happens to me the most disgustingly extraverted person i know. he can chat up anyone and he enjoys doing it. god, i can never understand how one goes about being like that.
but my quietness has worked to my benefit. both my ex- and my current fellow were attracted to me because of the quiet and…ahem…sophisticated coolness i ooze. and since both guys are wonderful men, i think i’ll be just fine the way i am.
hey davebear, not true!! i make my dissent known on behalf of all my friends…every last one of them is bloody talkative, but they listen well too!
As a quiet person I can say how much I’ve seen this! Most people don’t often realize exactly how much I know about situations and people because I actually listen to them They may think I am zoning out, or totally oblivious to things when in fact I know it very well.
The other day for instance I was having fun flirting with this cute guy at the club. The next day my roomies came to me to let me know that he was homeless and just looking for a girlfriend so he could have a place to crash for a couple weeks. I already knew this. I didn’t plan on anything more happening between us, he was just a nice diversion at the club while the guys were out trying to pick up girls.
Oooh I hate when people do that to me. If I really wanted to talk I would have said something! And sometimes when I so want to talk I just don’t know what to say. Once someone else gets a conversation started I can usually slide along easily and keep up my end, but don’t expect me to start a conversation (most of the time!)
I have always been introverted, and when I was younger this was compounded by major shyness. Over this past year I have had friends who helped me get over the shyness part mostly, but I will always be an introvert. If I really want to talk to you, or am interested in the conversation, or have something to add I will do so. One of my best friends I suspect is a closet introvert. The two of us can sit around and say nothing to each other for hours, or talk on end for hours but get him to a club and he becomes the social butterfly. He’s also really good at picking up on my moods.
I also find when I go to a bar/club I’m perfectly happy sitting in a corner and having a drink or two, or dancing, or getting up to sing karaoke… all in my own little world. If I’m there long enough someone will be drawn to me and I will be comfortable enough to get into a conversation with them. But it drives me nuts when my friends order me to get up and socialize. Socialize? Bring people by to say hello, or I’ll say hello to people who look interesting to me or that I already know in passing. But until I am ready to get up and start talking to random strangers leave me be.
It’s always funny though when I know people who know each other, and one will say I’m talkative and the other will wonder how they can see that. It’s because I am comfortable enough to blather on with certain people sometimes, they just draw the conversation out of me. If you try to force it though it won’t work. I just get pissed off.
This is very true. I think that’s why I enjoy roleplaying. Because I am acting and people know it. Otherwise people just can’t tell whether I am or not.
I understand what folks are saying about small talk, inane chit-chat, etc. I’ve worked with very garrulous people before, and it can be tiring. But social pleasantries like small talk also serve a greater function. When I ask a co-worker, “Did you have a good weekend?,” I’m not trying to be nosy, I’m trying to show an interest in her as a person. Small talk is a way of letting people that they’re part of a group. I think of it as the human equivalent of chimps grooming each other.
But do you really care or have any interest in how her weekend went? I’m not trying to discount the importance of making someone feel befriended or social bonding (or whatever you’d like to call it), it’s just that personally I really wouldn’t want to rehash my weekend’s events with someone unless I knew there was a chance they actually gave a flip about what I did.
For me, and I think for most other quiet people, we don’t need the chit chat to feel part of a group. We can tell where we fit (and if we fit) without all the banter. We prefer to keep our conversations on the things that are important (to us anyways) and don’t really see any value in discussing the obvious or the mundane.
I know most of my weekends are quite boring, and unless my tales of weekend debauchery and excess were well known I wouldn’t expect anyone else to find any interest in the re-telling of my past days events. But that’s just me.
I really find this an incredible discussion – incredible in the sense that it completely dumbfounds me that non-quiet people seem to have a problem with it.
burundi, I just want to second what XJETGIRLX said. When I hear inane comments about the weather, or the casual “How’s it going?” or “How was your weekend?”, it does not come across to me as interest in me as a person. It seems, rather, that the person is just saying what is expected of them - it (usually) seems insincere, when it’s just a vague, general statement like that. I think many other introverted people feel that way as well, judging from this thread.
So I understand that you may be trying to use it for that purpose, but you should understand that it does not consistently accomplish that purpose. I think it’s different if the statement is specific enough that it’s targeted for that individual, such as “Hey, you said you were going skiing this weekend, how was it at Mt. Lookitthat?” That would show that you’ve been paying genuine attention to a person, and would be more inclusive.
I don’t have a problem with quiet people in general (I am a bit introverted myself), but I have known some really quiet people who are quiet enough to be unnerving. One of my husband’s best friends married a woman like this. She hardly speaks at all, even when you directly ask her a question. When she does speak, it’s often so quiet that I can’t hear her. If she wishes to speak with her husband, she whispers in his ear (and he jumps to her command!) I mean, I whisper in my husband’s ear, too, but not all the time, and I don’t usually do it in the middle of a conversation with other people!
He’s started doing the whispering thing, too, and it bugs me. It bugs our friends, too–enough that some of them actually told him not to marry her! My husband and I kept our mouths shut (hey, if he likes her…) and we ended up being the only people out of that group of college friends who were invited to the wedding. Actually, my husband was a groomsman, and got to sit at the head table, so they had me and my daughter sit at the table with her parents and grandparents during dinner. That was even worse, because I didn’t know them at all, and they were all just like the bride! (I did have an acquaintance with his family and some of his other friends who were there, and I would have sat with them if I had been free to choose. It’s bad enough that I couldn’t sit with my husband, but this was almost torture.) The silence was deafening. They didn’t even talk to each other. I’m not a chatter, either, so I’m sure that made it worse–I’m not used to coming up with a whole bunch of topics for chitchat with strangers. I tried, though, because I’m not used to sitting in total silence with people at a wedding reception, either. (What’s the point of that? I can sit in total silence at home!) I eventually gave up on them. The only one at that table who would talk with me was my five-year-old daughter. It was…weird.
Actually, my husband likes his friend’s wife, and is not bothered much by her silence. He happens to be so extroverted that he could probably strike up a conversation with a brick wall if he wanted to. If he talks at her enough, she’ll talk to him. The rest of us are more introverted in nature. We don’t talk to hear ourselves talk–we talk because we want to hear what the other person has to say. When they refuse to oblige, it’s unnerving and discouraging. My husband is less easily discouraged by that. Perhaps the extroverts who don’t like quiet people are less extroverted than you think.
I think that my tendency to keep my mouth shut has helped me in many ways. For one thing, my in-laws still like me. They think I’m very quiet, but in truth I’m just very choosy about what I say.
This thread is wonderful. It has made me realize so much about myself and my relationship with my wife. I simply must have her read this.
She asks me how my day was: “Fine.” Or “Worky.”
I ask her: She talks for at least a half-hour.
It doesn’t bother me as much as it could, because her job is interesting and she cares so much about it it interests me even more.
Now talking to her mother … The woman will talk for an hour and say nothing of value, and afterwards I feel like I’d just run a marathon.
One, she called our house while we had friends over. I didn’t want to speak to her to begin with and she knows I’m not all that talkative, so while she blathered for almost five minutes, I said only, “Uh-huh,” and “yep.” At the end I just said, “Yup, bye.” and hung up. It was great because every one of our friends had stopped what they were doing were listening in, all holding their hands over their mouths so they wouldn’t laugh.
I hate this question, or the related “What did you do this weekend?” It’s embarrassing because I don’t really do anything exciting or fun. Whatever I did over the weekend will never compare to what an extrovert did (or someone who isn’t boring). A few times I’ve lied to people, telling them about some make-believe adventure I’ve had, just so I don’t get that sad feeling.
I also hate “What do you do for fun?” Um, read books? Post messages on the internet? Practice the piano? Take long walks? These aren’t “fun” activities to most extroverts, and I’m always afraid of coming across as a boring freak.
If you want to let people like me know that you care about them, simply ask if they’re having a good morning (or afternoon or whatever). Not too personal or probing, but it’s a good launching pad for a conversation.
I never know how to respond to “What’s up?” Out of all the questions someone can ask me, that has to be the most annoying. I don’t know why.
Unless there reallly is something “up” that I want to talk about, I usually reply to this question with “S.O.S” or “You know, the usual” or something like that. Put the ball back in their court.
Of course then you run the risk of somebody responding to that with, “Yeah, me too”–which is why the original question is often annoying to me. Fortunately, I walk quickly and am usually out of range by the time that one falls out of my questioner’s mouth.
Oh, and monstro, what’s wrong with saying you read a book over the weekend? True, it’s not as exciting as jumping out of a plane with a couple Playboy Bunnies and having an airborne menage a trois during freefall, but it can, IMO, be the beginning of an interesting conversation. Unless of course you work with a bunch of people who think books are stupid, which has happened to me before, but I’ve found that in most places people like to talk about their books (or movies, or music).
Unless there reallly is something “up” that I want to talk about, I usually reply to this question with “S.O.S” or “You know, the usual” or something like that. Put the ball back in their court.
Of course then you run the risk of somebody responding to that with, “Yeah, me too”–which is why the original question is often annoying to me. Fortunately, I walk quickly and am usually out of range by the time that one falls out of my questioner’s mouth.
Oh, and monstro, what’s wrong with saying you read a book over the weekend? True, it’s not as exciting as jumping out of a plane with a couple Playboy Bunnies and having an airborne menage a trois during freefall, but it can, IMO, be the beginning of an interesting conversation. Unless of course you work with a bunch of people who think books are stupid, which has happened to me before, but I’ve found that in most places people like to talk about their books (or movies, or music).
When I ask my coworkers how their weekends were, yes, I really am interested to know! I like talking with people and I listening. I actually like to hear their stories, even if they are about reading a book all weekend… I don’t think I mindlessly jammer on and on either…it’s just a little social interaction. Some people tend to talk at others…and that is annoying for almost anyone in range, not just quiet people! I don’t think that all people who talk, however, talk endlessly about nothing…
I know what you mean. My roommate freshman year of college was sooooo quiet. She was 17, skipped her last year of high school to go straight to college, and, from what I could tell, was very unhappy the whole year. She never said anything…not a word. She didn’t say hello or goodbye…she basically never acknowledged that there was another person in the room with her. She would turn out all the lights when she left the room (with me left sitting there in the dark!) as if no one else lived there. It was uncomfortable living in a very small room with someone who didn’t talk to me at all. She did, however, stay up until 4am every night chatting on IRC, so I guess that’s how she expressed herself. I tried to make friends with her, and went out a couple times to the movies and stuff, but she never opened up at all. I know more about her from the one introductory email she sent me before I met her than I do from a year of living with her! She dropped out after that year and never came back…
My roommate from freshman year (well, from the first half) wouldn’t speak to me, either, after the first week of school. She did speak to others, so I think that she just didn’t like me, or something . She’d come into the room and immediately put her headphones on and listen to music so that she wouldn’t have to say anything to me. Just before winter break, she deigned to speak to me in order to inform me that she was switching rooms. She said it in a way that made it sound like I should be broken-hearted about it or something. :rolleyes: I was, in fact, relieved.
I think that’s an example of “quiet” meaning “stuck-up”.
I don’t have a deep, burning desire to know, but, yeah, I do hope she had a good weekend. And I really don’t expect a long answer; I usually just smile and say, “Great. How was yours?,” when people ask me. I’m the least talkative person in my small office, so I don’t worry that I’m making my co-workers uncomfortable by chit-chatting with them.
I definitely understand that many introverts consider small talk insincere and a waste of time, but I think that most purveyors of small talk really are just trying to be friendly. And I think there’s a way to acknowledge that–smile, brief answer–without getting sucked into a conversation. Unless you’re dealing with someone who just won’t shut up. In which case, you have my sympathies.
I love this thread. It’s the exact same way with me. A lot of the time I just pull the, “not much, how about you?” manuver so the burden is taken off of me.
I don’t talk to my roomate a lot, and this being my freshman year, I’m not too sure what the standard level of interaction is.
If I’m watching TV or something and he comments on it, I’ll respond, or if he asks me a question or asks me to do something, I’ll obviously respond, but other than that we don’t really talk. And really, I don’t want to. My room is one of the places I expect to be able to not have to deal with anyone if I don’t want to. He’s a very talkative person, so he gets his fix from the other people in the hallway. Fine by me.
Coming rather late to this gabfest(!), let me add that I am also an introvert. Sometimes not by choice, and sometimes because I am tired of trying to insert a comment into the conversation, and having my attempts to join in swept aside by those who will not shut up. It seems the only way to make myself heard is to jump up, smack the table, and yell,“Hey I’m talkin’ here!!” which I won’t do. So I just shut up myself and ignore the loudmouths. It was hurtful the first few (million) times it happened, but now I just bring a book when possible, and they can have their petty little chitchat while I entertain myself.
you lost me.