Being Quiet

Not going to lie my whole life I have been the quiet girl at the back of the classroom, or even just at the back of the party, with a desperate longing to be one of the confident girls. I had always wondered why I felt so discontent with myself, being this way. Then it had all occurred to me that society looked down upon the introverted, souls in the world, and maybe even sometimes without realizing it. We have all heard the term 'come out of your shell,' and as a quiet soul like myself in my opinion there isn't something more offensive someone could say. It is almost like 'saying forget who you are, and just pretend to be someone else.' A little contradictory to a society that emphasizes to "always be yourself". Because of this frowned upon personality trait, i had grown to actually hate myself, and at every party or social event, I tried my hardest to just be confident, outgoing and talk to every person at that party, but someone the title of being the quiet girl never seemed to leave me. And at the end of the night or day I was still left, with my empty, insecure, quiet self, that couldn't seem to break free.

I literally read everything on the internet, that might help me become more outgoing, and throughout all of these websites and books there was one common theme ' Don't care about anyone's opinion.' I don't know about you, but I am someone who holds high regards of others' opinion about myself; and find it almost impossible to not care about someone else's opinion of me. Since we are human to some extent we all want to be included and be a part of something. So to some extent we all care about others opinions of us, I feel as if those people, that say don't worry about what others say, have a.) never been in a situation where others have criticized them, or  b.) generally do care about what others think, they just try to convince themselves they don't. I once had a friend that told me not to worry about what others thought, to which I asked her, don't you care about what others think? To which she responded with a stern 'no', I then though to myself has she ever really been in a situation where others, have ever not liked her, or not befriended her because of a simple so-called personality "flaw". I mean she is the girl everybody wants to be friends with, so in a way I almost feel like it's easier for her to say! I've gone through my whole life with people telling me,

'I love you but, you're so quiet'
"You're quiet so we can't talk to you"
"You're not very loud, so you don't belong here"

These words are like pouring salt on my cuts, cutting open wounds that never healed. But what I don't understand from people is why they feel the need to say something like that, or that everybody has to be loud in the world, and if you're not, then your some kind of human with a defect. What is so remarkable about this, is that people assume that because you are quiet you are boring, or don't know how to let loose. The last time I checked the definition of quiet, never equated to the same one as boring.

 I am here to tell you guys, that sometimes that girl or boy at the back of the classroom, just wants or longs for someone to talk to them or even say hi, let them know you know they exist. Because quiet people are also very observant people, we know when someone body language says they hate us, we know when someone is sad and quite frankly the world needs some introverted people like us.

So if you're quiet I say to you, YOU ARE AWESOME. YOU ARE ONE OF A KIND AND IRREPLACEABLE. Don't let anyone tell you, you are different and trust me you are not alone, in how you are feeling.

Carly xx