BEDA 2: There Must Be Some Misunderstanding

Greetings!

Have you ever just felt lonely? Like, that awful, cliche feeling of being a room of crowded people and still feeling hopelessly alone?

I guess being a girl, being 19, being human, it's natural to feel that way every now and again. Humans are complex creatures aren't we? We aren't going to be completely understood all of the time, which I think is great.

But sometimes I just think people should kind of learn after a while. I think that people you spend 95% of your time with should come to understand you a little bit right?

I mean let's take me for example. When you first meet me, you learn one thing right off the bat - I am quiet and polite. Extremely quiet and very polite. I know, that's two things but they go hand in hand. You ask my name and I give it and I smile and I say thank you and return compliments, all the while being quiet and using as few words as possible. I'm like a robot. I can't work any other way.

The second thing you learn about me is probably that I like to read and write because for some reason people always ask me what I like to do as a follow up question to your typical niceties.

The third thing is that I like Harry Potter. It won't be clear at first how much I like it depending on how interested the person asking is in Harry Potter but it will come up because it's part of me.

So these are the three basic things that you learn about me up front.

So, say you know me for Over a year and I see you everyday and am around you 24/7. I know it's hard for people to get to know me because I am so quiet, but generally when I'm quiet, 100% of people will say, "You're quiet! Why are you so quiet?" and I will shrug, give a coy smile and say "I don't know." 95% of people will be dissatisfied with this answer go on to pry more information out of me.

Now, it is that five percent that have known me over a year who will continually ask why I'm quiet and then let it go and then out of the blue tell me how they don't understand me.

Now, I already know I'm difficult and that in order to get me talking you have to pry which i'm sorry for. I'm not a very good conservationist and off paper I'm not very witty--I'm not very witty on paper either--so I'm not very sure of myself when it comes to talking to people.

But what I cannot stand is for someone who wants to try to understand me not make an effort to understand me. I'm not going to sit down and tell you out of the blue explain to you why I love Harry Potter so much. All you have to do is ask "Why do you like Harry Potter so much?"

Ask me why I'm so quiet and polite all of the time.

Ask me my favorite color.

You telling me continually that I'm quiet over and over again isn't going to get you anywhere. I'm so easy to understand. I'm not deep. I make sense.

Like, why do I like Harry Potter? Because it taught me about love and friendship and that when you're going through the worst possible thing you could ever go through as long a you have those two things and a little a bit of magic you WILL make it out alive.

Why am I quiet and polite all of the time? Because I'm an introvert and you're probably ten times more interesting than I am. And I'm polite because you're supposed to be polite. It's good manners and people really like you when you're polite and I like being well-liked so it's not going to hurt me to be nice all of the time.

My favorite colour is periwinkle!

I was once asked why I never get angry and I reply that because most things in life aren't worth getting angry over.

Now in this case the answer confused people and in that case you can't really ask a follow up question because well, there aren't really things that make me angry (except Nick Cage.... Grr...)

But I digress, you know how they say it's the quiet ones you have to watch out for? Well, maybe if people stopped wondering about the quiet people and asked them questions instead we would make more sense.

And the people that do ask questions and do make an effort to understand the quiet people in the world, I love them. They make me feel like I matter. I feel like the more you know about me, the less you judge me or stare at me all bewildered like because you'd know, "oh, she's always nervous in front of new people" or "this is probably an uncomfortable situation for her."

One of my best friends was a quiet little introvert just like me, but one day I decided to ask her to help me with my history assignment and ask her about herself and BAM. Now I love her and all her WWE obsessedness and she loves me for being addicted to Potter.

Because I asked her a few questions. And if little, shy, terrified of new people me can ask someone a few questions and make a best friend then it can't be all that hard to ask me a few questions just for reference so you're not so baffled by me.

And I feel lonely because even though I'm surrounded by all these wonderful and intersting people day in and day out they don't know me. They don't get me. They don't understand me. It's hard to feel accepted when you're in a place that you're just so out of place in. And to think, all this loneliness could be dispelled is people just tried a little harder.

Fare Thee Well,
April