it’s okay to be a shy adult

right?

hello quiet readers, just a quick announcement before we begin today’s post. as you may know, i have recently moved to norfolk and started a new job. as i adjust to all the new changes in my life, i’m making some changes here too. you’ll now hear from me every sunday instead of wednesday and i’ll no longer be doing extra posts every other friday for paid subscribers. you’ll still get the same stuff from me, it will just be posted on sundays now. thank you for understanding as i transition to a new chapter of my life!

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every parent’s evening at school, my teachers would say the same thing, oh she’s a pleasure to have in class, i just wish she would raise her hand more! it wasn’t long before my mum began to joke that she was going to stop attending parents’ evenings altogether because she already knew what they were going to say.

i never really saw the issue with not raising my hand. if my grades were good, what did i need to go through the hassle of talking in front of people for? honestly, i still have this idea to this day. although there is obvious value in asking questions to deepen your understanding of a subject or connection with another human being, if i don’t have anything relevant or useful to say, i usually don’t say anything at all. i am not threatened by silence.

i started a new job recently which entails an ungodly amount of speaking in front of others. what i once thought was an easy enough temp job has become a complete test of character. i have to ask a lot of questions to my manager in order to do the job correctly, something which makes me nervous. but i recently found out that they’re much younger than i am. a part of me thought, well you should find it easier to ask them questions, they’re basically a child, nothing scary and authoritative here, but that still didn’t help as much as i thought it would. i still sort of dread going into the office every day.

but another thought crossed my mind, i think i would be embarrassed if they found out i was quite a bit older than them. it’s no mystery that i’m shy in this job. one person didn’t even know a candice worked there until a couple days ago. when i was my manager’s age, i would have thought someone who was twenty-eight would know who they were, where they were going in life, be self-assured and confident, certainly not afraid to ask a question in front of others. would they think the same about me? am i not growing up as i should?

halloween is coming up, so i thought it would be nice, now that my partner and i have bought our first home, to put a pumpkin outside our door. he then informed me that it’s not just a cute decoration but an invitation for trick-or-treaters. i instantly froze up at the idea. oh no, forget it then, i said, because i already find it hard to speak to strangers, let alone children, i am just a child myself! but then i remembered, i am literally nearly thirty. i am adult.

but why do i assume i cannot be a shy adult? what underlying assumptions do we have around quiet people over a certain age?

it’s not often you watch a celebrity struggle through an interview because they’re shy, they probably have to think of it like a performance to get through it, much like i do in a lot of the daily interactions i have. because if the mask slips, or you intentionally pull it off, you might get reactions like this. we have held onto, in my opinion, a childish idea that being a capable adult essentially means you’re an extrovert. just look at how much easier it is to climb the career ladder as an extrovert.

there is a sense of shock when we find out that people like rosa parks, marvin gaye, maya angelou and lupita nyong’o were and are people who are more reserved. it’s a fun and surprising fact that some of the greatest minds in history were shy and preferred their own company. i’ve simply lost count of how many times someone assumed i was less intelligent than i am, some kind of alien or straight up rude just because i was quiet, and this is because we assume the loudest person in the room is the one who knows what they’re doing, and we disregard those of us who are more quiet in nature as less capable or even juvenile.

shyness is a trait we associate mostly with children, something they’ll probably just grow out of. i thought the same as a child. i thought i would magically understand how bills worked, suddenly like the taste of coffee and how to change a tyre. and although there are some traits you should acquire as an adult —someone who is responsible, knows how to take accountability, seeks wisdom, someone who is kind and empathetic—being loud, over-confident and forcing yourself to be something you are not should certainly not be one them.

in the same way some people found it difficult to understand how summer walker could struggle with social anxiety but appear to be the most confident person on stage, while, keyword here, performing, i think we subconsciously think quiet people are less than. you can’t be a quiet responsible adult. you can’t be a quiet, intelligent adult. if you’re a quiet adult, it must mean you still behave and think like a child.

there are things we must teach ourselves in order to be capable adults, but changing our personality to fit societal expectations is not one of them. in the same way i can’t teach myself to be a cat (unfortunately), i cannot teach myself how not to be shy. and i don’t want to.

i think i quite like that i am one of those people who seem one way when you meet them and almost a completely different one once you get to know them. where’s the fun in showing all your cards at once? (sorry extroverts, still love you though.) i love when people turn around to me after a month or so and say how different i appeared on first meeting. i also feel like being a little reserved is like you’re own secret superpower. it’s much easier to find people who genuinely care about getting to know you because some people simply won’t put in the effort, and it’s usually those people i won’t get along too well with. i can find solace in knowing the ones that stick around truly care about the person i am, because it meant you had to reach a little further, turn a couple more pages, wander a little deeper into the garden to find out what lies at the centre of it.

while i was on the phone to my mum telling her about how difficult i was finding my new job, she said something that cleared all the clouds in my head. she said, your father would have hated a job like that. and she was absolutely right. my father, who passed away when i was twelve, was a very, very reserved man. he loved his job as a technician because it meant he didn’t have to interact with many people. he preferred his own company, as do i. i like to think i get my shyness from him. was he less of an adult because he didn’t feel the need to say anything if there was nothing useful to say? was he less of an adult because he found parents’ evenings a little daunting? was he less of an adult because he probably wouldn’t want to open the door to trick-or-treaters either? of course not.

i might still put the pumpkin outside our door this year because it would be a good way to show our face around our new neighbourhood, but next time i start to feel inferior about being a person who prefers the quieter side of the tracks, i think i’ll just think of my father—a more than capable man who wasn’t afraid to be himself.

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thank you for reading today’s post, the first of many on a sunday! to be honest, i think a newsletter called finding quiet is much better suited to be sent on a sunday—the sacred day of slowness and cosiness. i hope you don’t mind the change in scheduling.

i would love to hear your thoughts on this week’s topic. have i just made this all up in my head? is it actually perfectly fine to be a shy adult? perhaps there is something deeper at play here. maybe i’ve internalised the many years of being the quiet one that made many people assume there isn’t much to me. maybe it’s just a lack of confidence. either way, i like the conclusion i came to here. have you come to any conclusions of your own about this?

i hope you have a lovely rest of your sunday. rest well. take things a little slower. i’ll see you next week <3