The Cougar Review

By April

“You’re quiet.”

I used to get that a lot, and I didn’t really like it. I’d wish people would come up with different words to describe me. I wanted to be so much more than just ‘quiet’. Heck, a rock is quiet. A stick is quiet. A carpet is quiet. And I didn’t want to be described with the same adjectives as any of those things.

After middle school, I stopped getting so many comments orbiting around the notion that I was quiet. But then, one day, my mariachi teacher told me I was too quiet and too reserved. He said that he wanted me to be “more extroverted”. That made me flashback to all those days of elementary where people would toss the word ‘quiet’ at me all the time and seemed to push me to be “more extroverted”. But the thing is, I can get awfully talkative. I mostly just act that way around people I feel comfortable with. Although, sometimes- if I’m uncomfortable and stuck in awkward silence- I can get weirdly talkative. I’m not totally comfortable or in-awkward-silence- uncomfortable around my mariachi group, though. That’s probably why I’m so quiet. I don’t think that’s really a bad thing, though. I get that my mariachi teacher is worried I won’t make good friends and form a sense of community if I don’t open up more, but I wish he– and the people like him that push me to be “more extroverted”- would just let me be a turtle in my shell sometimes.

Like what if I’m just mentally drained and would rather barf up my lunch than make small talk with someone? Or what if I just don’t want to talk because I’m too busy deciphering The dialogue in the book I just read in my head? Sometimes I wish people would be more open to silence. It would make me a lot less anxious because I’m always nervous about making things awkward and to most people silence equals awkwardness. Heck, I think that too… (I might be a bit of a hypocrite.) I feel like it’d be nice to reinforce the notion that silence is just silence, and quiet people are just quiet people and that doesn’t make up their whole personality.

Sincerely,

The “quiet” kid