The Act of Being Quiet

"Being quiet" can be a way of describing someone. I don't often hear people who describe someone else as "being quiet" doing so negatively. And yet, here I am, writing a post about it. Because the act of being quiet is one that is as beautiful as "being loud" and anything in between. And I just want to talk about it for a while.

I am a mixture of either loud or quiet. Round those I am closest to I am loud and round those who I don't even know, I can be loud. Yet, there are situations where I am quiet, a little less confident and people I don't know who I will be quiet around. This is not to say I am "two-faced" with these two opposite attributes- it's just who we are sometimes! I think this is the case for a lot of people. When I am in a situation where I am quiet, for me, I am not performing the act of being quiet because I don't believe in myself or because I'm not confident, it's just how I prefer to be in that particular circumstance (this will not be the case for everybody). While I write this I am thinking of a particular class at college where I would chose to be a lot quieter than I would be in my other classes. There were reasons I am not going to go into but not ones that made me any less sure of myself.

My point is: I like my loud and quiet scale.

One time I had parent's evening and one teacher said I was confident and loud whereas another teacher said I was quiet and didn't ask any questions. My mum said to me, "Do you need to ask those supposed questions?" I didn't! The point is, although some people will need to ask questions (and in the "louder" classes I would do so because I actually needed to!), my teacher was assigning my being quiet to an assumption that I didn't understand because I didn't "speak up", inferring my supposed lack of confidence too, so to speak. There are these stereotypes to our volume and I find it seriously bizarre.

One of the most awesome people I know describes himself as quiet- an attribute he thinks most people see in him. Not because I think it's a bad thing (because I really do not), I asked how he felt about it. He said he liked it that way. It's not because he doesn't have a voice, opinions and an incredible story to tell that he is quiet, because he does. It's just that part of his personality is him being quiet. So what? In turn, this awesome human isn't summed up by his quietness. (Even if he is 100% quiet all of the time, it wouldn't be an issue, but) around me (and obviously others) he is energetic and loud, and awesome in these moments. Just as awesome as he is when he is quiet; when he is being him. We are supposed to be ourselves, aren't we?

There are these expectations of personality in "the perfect person" and yet I hope we know a million and one attributes (without a million other attributes) in a person are perfect for different reasons. I love one of my best friends because she is "loud" and love another because he is "quiet." And it should be known now that I am not alone in thinking that these two people are seriously awesome.

Jeans & Jumpers,

The Girl in the Moonlight.