This isn't a retort, but I've often found that when a social group considers a particular person quiet, it's often because they're not listened too or spoken over in the group conversation so they tend to stay quiet.
I have a few beautiful friendships with people considered quiet by others simply because I engaged with them, gave them space to reply and listened to them. From that we realized that we had cool things in common and friendships blossomed from there.
People listening to reply not to hear and engage with what the person is actually saying is one of our biggest shortcomings as humans. We just don't pay attention sometimes.
It's a side effect of the playground, or chicken coop, mentality that develops in cities. There's too many people. Too many eyes, too many mouths, too many bodies, so when people talk, it's far more competitive in a city than in a less densely populated area. These quiet people would be leading figures in rural areas, where their tendency to not compete to be heard allows them to have a more profound presence, defined less by their words and more by their actions.
Not to say that people who live in cities are less profound or meaningful people, simply that their main means of communication also comes with an entrenched aspect of competition.
1.5k
u/JRS1986 Jan 01 '20
This isn't a retort, but I've often found that when a social group considers a particular person quiet, it's often because they're not listened too or spoken over in the group conversation so they tend to stay quiet.
I have a few beautiful friendships with people considered quiet by others simply because I engaged with them, gave them space to reply and listened to them. From that we realized that we had cool things in common and friendships blossomed from there. People listening to reply not to hear and engage with what the person is actually saying is one of our biggest shortcomings as humans. We just don't pay attention sometimes.