Have you ever been bombarded with inadequate questions about why you are a certain way? Why you don't talk as much as others? Why you always look mad or sad? Why you don't open up to others as fast?
Well, I have.
College has definitely given me the opportunity to meet a lot of new people, and I am grateful for that opportunity, for the most part. For those I have gotten to know the best, the serious questions don't fail to be asked. Sometimes its pretty hard to try and answer those questions.
For me, I struggle to answer those questions, because I am an extremely reserved person. Definitely a trait I inherited from my father. By definition, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to be reserved is to be slow to reveal emotion or opinions. I can definitely say, in a conversation I'm not too speedy to revealing anything I feel.
There are definitely the pros and cons to being an extremely reserved person, and no doubt have I felt people continuously misunderstand me as a person do to this lovely trait I have. Sometimes I can't help but seeing it as my enemy rather than my friend. I have been blamed for not caring enough, for not texting enough for not giving enough attention. I can't help it! I'm extremely reserved and those who are too understand where I come from. When you are reserved, you don't want everyone knowing your business or knowing what your internal thoughts are at every minute of the hour. I chose to stay quiet because it's easier to be quick to listen and slow to speak. To process the information in your environment, to think before you act. I'm very closed when it comes to showing emotion, and I have seen that to be a fault. I can't express my feelings, even if someone paid me to express them. Sometimes it's a bit difficult for us reserved people to do so, because when you express certain feelings to people, you open yourself up. You show someone to feel what you feel, and many times I have done that, yet it was a slap in the face when certain people no longer cared what I thought or felt. Yeah...I find that quite challenging.
There are also those that don't understand the difference with being quiet and being reserved, some think it goes hand in hand, but it doesn't. Both are two completely different things. Being quiet is just not saying a word making a noise, just being there. When you're quiet, you may still express feelings to another person.
Don't push any people who are extremely reserved, don't push them to their limits. It's an uncomfortable feeling when you get pushed to the limit you don't like to go to. Respect those around you, whom maybe don't like to express as much, it's not that we don't want you to know anything, but it is just that it is a process getting to know us. Eventually we open up, but it is when we think it is the best time, and that may take a little longer than usual.
