Do you sometimes just not want to use your voice?

TDT wrote:I'd actually be very curious, Slugger, if you find a strategy for dealing with this.

My strategy is "alone time". If I'm with others, I leave and find the quietest place and stay there. If this is going home, that's best..but not always possible. I went to the mall of america with my father, for example, and had to take multiple "time outs" to be able to handle the trip..and 80+% of the time him and I were in different areas of the mall (I was hanging out by myself, in other words).

I'm OK being around people, it's just when it get so crowded that there are people in my "space" (say, a few feet) that I get really uncomfortable. I can even go to concerts (actually my husband and I go to a lot of them!) as long as we have assigned seats. I've been places where it's so crowded I have to push my way through and that freaks me out. But, those situations are easy enough to avoid so it's not a problem in daily life.

If I go to a party or gathering with my husband's friends or family, I use alcohol. I have found that I am good at staying the level of drunkenness (i.e. just enough) that I want to be. I used to be afraid that if I drank I would get stupid like I see others doing and not stop when I ought to, but I seem to have the ability to follow whatever I plan for in the beginning.

anagram wrote:As a child, my family always poked fun at me (or complained) that I was "too grumpy". I guess it never really changed... People usually know me as either "extremely quiet" or "extremely talkative" (probably depending on the specific situation when I most struck them as odd). I don't have much of an in-between.

I was never labelled as "grumpy", and if anything I'd talk TOO much at home (made up for that with my quietness outside the home!), but I'm with you on being either one or the other, with not much in-between.

anagram wrote:Come to think of it, this is a type of situation that most people will face in their everyday lives (at home, at work, etc. — basically everywhere where there's people). Except, most people (i.e. NT's) will effortlessly and automatically "hide" it by adding complexity to their speech even when it's not technically necessary.

Good point anagram. I tend to be overly formal in certain situations too. I'll have to think about that one!

All the time especially in the mornings. I purposely wear earphones almost all the time (very often without the music playing) hoping people will get the point that I do not wish to engage in conversation. It seems to work only 50% of the time for some strange reason. My new strategy is to ignore that 50% who is adamant in wanting to force conversation. Yes, Ive been told I am being rude or get called some nasty remark but it really doesn't phase me. I could really care less.

If there was one feature I could give up it would be the ability to talk...

I hate talking. In fact it is common for me to get so overwhelmed that I literally cannot talk.

Mornings are really, really bad for me, but it doesn't get much better unless I've had alcohol. Back when I was working a position that actually required me to talk to people throughout the day, I counted how many words I said in a full day of work, and it came to just about 230. Now I work with computers and am not forced to talk to people as much.