I found this article and thinks it represents well my feelings on me being introverted by nature. You can also read the original from here. I’ve underlined the portions that I agree with. 

Quiet people subjected to rude and erroneous comments

Very few, if any, people are always quiet

Caroline Daykin

Variety Editor

When my best friend, “Glenda,” attended a wedding over Christmas break, she was sitting with her friends at the reception when a guy the rest of her friends had previously met sat down at the other end of the table. Although he made “odd comments” on their conversation, this person never introduced himself to Glenda.

Then, out of nowhere he said, “What about your friend down there, she’s either ignoring me or she’s shy.” Glenda simply replied, “Neither!” to deflect his attention, angry at the latest in a string of rude comments about her personality. The way she saw the situation, Glenda had nothing to say to this person, he never said anything that required a reply, and after he made that comment she definitely was not going to talk to him.

In class last year, Glenda was in an art class when a guy and a girl began having a conversation about drinking. She was minding her own business, since she didn’t feel like she was a part of the conversation, when he said, “You don’t get drunk, do you, Glenda?” He had made an assumption about her, which she feels happens frequently since she is a quiet person. She just said “no” and continued minding her own business. She reflected that this comment was especially thoughtless because it could have been even more traumatic for her if she had had a drinking problem.

Another friend, “Trisha,” told a story about a rude manager at work. The manager’s friend stopped in, and the manager said to her, “Yeah, it’s been a rough night, this rebel has been causing trouble…no, not really, she doesn’t even talk.” Trisha felt that she was being discussed as though she wasn’t there, and reflected that this manager didn’t know her, and she did not want to know the manager.

I have also had many comments of this sort directed my way. For example, in high school I was sitting in class and a guy said to me “Why are you so quiet all the time?” I thought about it, and realized I didn’t want to dignify his comment with a response, so I didn’t say anything. He must have thought I was too shy to say anything back, so he said loudly, “Dang!”

Amanda Hyde, who graduated from Morris last semester, says she hears comments to the effect that she is quiet “all the time” so she “quit thinking of that as rude.” However, she maintains that “I like talking, in fact my family thinks I do it too much.”

This points out the fallacy in the assumptions Glenda, Trisha, Amanda, and myself have had made about us. People tend to assume that just because we are quiet in some or most situations that we always act this way, a supposition I think is true of almost nobody.

The misunderstanding stems from a lack of knowledge about introversion. While extroverts draw energy from outside themselves, introverts get their energy from their inner world. More relevant to this article, introverts usually open up more easily in small groups or one on one, since they find large groups too overstimulating. They also tend to need to know people well before feeling comfortable with them. This means that just because someone is quiet when you first meet them, it doesn’t mean they always act that way.

Another factor that leads some people to be quiet is shyness, a term synonymous with social anxiety. Introverted as well as extroverted people can be shy, which results in acting inhibited due to an excessive fear of being judged by others.

The fact that the vast majority of people aren’t quiet all the time is a factor in why quiet people find it so offensive to be labeled that way. It feels like the person making the comment is making a conclusion about you without taking time to really get to know you. Trisha’s manager told her friend that Trisha never talked, which of course isn’t true, and my high school classmate said I was quiet “all the time,” another false statement. Amanda is frequently told she is quiet, but her family thinks she talks too much.

Another reason quiet people may be sensitive to such comments is the extroverted bias in our culture. We idolize actors, musicians, and politicians instead of writers, computer programmers, and artists. For this reason, people who are introverted and/or shy have probably been sent the message that they’re inferior, and when they hear a comment about their quietness, this message is reinforced.

However rude these comments seem to their recipients, I don’t think that is their intent. On the contrary, people who make the comments are probably just trying to start a conversation. But what are we expected to say in response to an observation that we are quiet? Next time you’re tempted to comment on someone’s supposed quietness, think of something else to say.

 

Probably the worst thing though, to me, is people judging me as arrogant and stuck up because of my quietness, especially when they don’t even know me.