Were you “the quiet kid” in school?
Or maybe you were friends with that person?
Whatever the case, there’s at least one in every school and you know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you?
What was your experience with “the quiet kid”?
AskReddit users shared their stories.
1. A love story.
“I married the quiet kid.
He was the tall dark and quiet type who happened to be a punk with a Mohawk. A lot of people were curious about him, especially girls. But they didn’t peruse him. I did.
He’s amazing and if they had put in some effort they would have discovered the shy guy was the smartest and funniest in the room.
Now I get to spend my life with someone way out of my league.”
2. You never know…
“I helped a scrawny quiet kid find his voice – he is now the biggest loudmouthed, braggart, a**hole I know (32 years later).
We were also friends with the biggest loudmouthed, opinionated, class clown – who married an overbearing shrew and he turned into a mousy shell of his former self.”
3. Struggling.
“I was maybe the 2nd most quiet kid. I tried talking to the most quiet kid. He was fine, just a little less comfortable being included than I was.
I learned later he was struggling with being gay and coming out to his straight friend. Once he was out of the closet, he became much more outgoing.
Now I’m the most antisocial person I know.”
4. A great guy.
“My boyfriend is the quiet kid, we’ve been best friends for several years.
He’s the funniest guy I know, used to be self conscious but with me is confident and happy. Extremely intelligent, independent and creative. Very loving towards me and animals, will cry at puppy videos!
He’s adorable, just needs more alone time to recharge! He’s quiet because he prefers listening to others over talking a lot.”
5. A good artist.
“He was a good artist, but a little weird.
He would draw pictures of mountain tops, with him on top, with a lemon yellow sun. Poor kid. His parents just didn’t care and didn’t give attention.
I moved away after a while. I don’t know what ever became of that kid.”
6. Time to shred.
“I used to sit next to the quiet kid in science class and got pretty friendly with him.
Turned out he was a pretty good skater and this was in the early 2000s when it was super popular.”
7. Gifted.
“He had a recording studio in his house.
My friends and I were sitting in the back of the bus, early 90s and the quiet nerdy kid sat kind of near us. A group of like 6 of us all going over to one kids house to shoot pool and smoke weed and this kid sat near us, wearing headphones and ignoring us.
So my boyfriend at the time ask what he’s listening to, genuinely curious, this kid was so quiet we knew nothing about him, despite our school being pretty small, quiet kid is like, “Oh, it’s a song I made” and hands over the headphones. We couldn’t believe it, drums, guitar and singing, it was all Jim, he would record himself playing each part of the song he wrote, and put it all together.
The quiet kid ended up being a music genius and his parents fully supported him, and since a couple of us were starting a band, we all became friends with the quiet kid.”
8. Terrible.
“He was so incredibly kind. But no one gave him a chance. He ki**ed himself in 11th grade. No one noticed. The school didnt commemorate him. He deserved to live.
A few weeks later a very popular, b**ly jerk d**d suddenly. It was school news. They announced it over an intercom and sent grief counselors across the school during the announcement.
Many of us were victim to this b**ly. Including our d**d friend.
He deserved to live. That’s what I want everyone to know.”
9. Timid.
“They are really nice but they are very self conscious about themselves which is why they dont talk to anyone.”
10. No small talk.
“She was very smart, confident in herself, and generally a great person.
She just doesn’t like small talk or talking to people she already knows doesn’t like or respect her.”
11. Oops.
“Thought It’d be nice to get to know somebody who didn’t talk much, figured he was shy. Nope, huge a**hole.
He would take and then break my s**t on multiple occasions because he thought it was funny. Guess I should have continued to let him enjoy his silence.”
12. Interesting.
“Not so much the quiet kid as just the odd kid, but still. Also this wasn’t in school, however this kid and I graduated from the same high school. I’m not sure how far apart we graduated or even if we graduated the same year but that’s besides the point. So for the rest of the story lets refer to this kid as James.
So anyway, I’m working at a major home improvement store chain and one day I see James working there. I go up and talk to him and that’s when I found out we both graduated from the same high school. He endured quite a bit of b**lying throughout his life, and especially high school due to his odd behavior.
Well, turns out this odd behavior was because of James being on the autism spectrum. To what extent I’m not exactly sure but I know he struggled big time in social settings, so the fact he was able to get a retail job that forced him to interact with people (coworkers and customers) is nothing short of incredible and a wonderful testament to this kid’s tremendous work overcoming various difficulties with autism.
Fast forward a few months after James and I have been working together for some time. I walk into our break room and find him doin some doodling. At first I pay no attention because we’re at work, I’m in work mode, not really minding what anybody else is doing.
After sitting down for a minute I notice James becoming agitated, which he informed me during one of our earlier talks happens from time-to-time and it’s just something he’s learning to deal with. Alright, no biggie. I got his back if need be. I ask him if he’s okay and if he needed help with whatever he was working on since I assumed he was doing maybe school work or something that he may have needed help on.
He says no he doesn’t need help, he just can’t get this thing quite right. So now of course I’m curious, thinking to myself “what thing could he possibly be talking about?”
He finally gets up out of his chair, frustrated beyond belief. He starts walking around and pacing hitting himself in the head (not hard, but kinda as to say to himself “why are you not getting this?”), so my curious a** just has to know what the hell is giving this kid so much trouble.
So I ask James if I could at least take a look at what it is he’s working on so I can maybe offer a suggestion or something. He says sure, I’ll probably be able to do a much better job on it than him anyways. Yeah…f**king…..right. I walk over to where James was working to find the most beautiful, intricate, detailed drawings of several different cars.
No, I don’t mean he looked at a picture on the internet and drew that, which would have been incredibly impressive in itself, to me anyways. Na, this dude drew schematics to these cars, and they were cars that didn’t even exist. He just created these ideas, down to every single washer, lugnut, rod, screw, every…..f**king….thing.
To try to give you perspective, have y’all ever seen the first Iron Man movie, when Tony Stark had been captured by the terrorist organization, and in creating the first “Iron Man” prototype suit, he had the multiple drawings on different pieces of paper, pressed them altogether and when he did that you could see the detailed version of the suit?
Well imagine that, but with a car. A fictional car. A fictional car with every single minute detail drawn to perfection. On top of that, he did this for a total of may be 30-50 cars, I can’t remember exactly but it was ridiculous.
I also tried to urge him to be a graphic designer or something where he could’ve put that talent to good use, even maybe for a major auto manufacturer, although on second thought I’m grateful he didn’t do that because they would’ve just screwed him over and Steve Jobs-ed his a** by taking credit for his work.
Sorry for the long post, but I just wanted to share that this guy that had been bullied and messed with all of his life was not only autistic (again to what extent on the spectrum I’m not sure), but he was the most incredible artist I had ever seen, and oh, he just happened to have written a few novels.”
13. Beautiful!
“When I took a class called Marriage and Family in college, there was a painfully quiet and shy guy that always wore cool band t-shirts. I didn’t sit next to him, but I would compliment his shirts when he walked by.
It grew into a close friendship, and I wish that people realized how intelligent he actually is. That he loves playing guitar and drums and is really good, but he would never admit it. That he has a compassionate and gentle soul and is a hippy at heart.
But you know what, I guess it doesn’t matter that they don’t really know him. It just means that since they never tried, they are unfortunate enough to not have him in their lives.
We are married now, and about to celebrate our third wedding anniversary.”
Did you ever befriend “the quiet kid”?
Or maybe you were that person?
Talk to us in the comments and share your stories. Thanks!
