Do You Even Talk? And Other Hilarious Jokes

“Boy, Elyse is talking so loud, I can’t even hear anybody else.”

       It was my friend’s mom who said this, in a rare moment of jocularity for a middle-aged mother of two. I looked up just in time to see her gentle eyes smiling at me in the rearview mirror. And, in response to her unexpected cleverness, the minivan went quiet for a moment… but only for a moment. In no time, the racket resumed, as a group of manic teenagers fought for the cleverest counter-joke:

       “Yeah, Elyse, geez!”

       “Be quiet, Elyse!”

       “Yeah, shut up, Elyse, you’re hurting our ears.”

       I laughed – an achievement: it was the first sound I had made during that entire car trip. And it would probably also be the last. I’ve always been the quiet kid. Growing up, I routinely had to deal with well-meaning adults who put their hands on my shoulders and announced loudly to groups of my peers, “She’s shy,” which instantly made me feel ten times shyer than I actually was; and, of course, there were those hilarious individuals of all ages who liked to get up in my face and ask me point blank, in booming voices, “Do you even talk?” My mind would empty out. I don’t know… do I? Suddenly I was questioning everything. My usual reaction was to plead the fifth and say nothing to my cross-examiner, and that, my friends, is a great example of how myths are perpetuated.

My parents knew I could talk. From an early age, I talked plenty inside the safety of my home compound. Of course, at first, I would only talk with my mouth closed. Minor detail there. My mother was a little concerned about that. She would ask two-year-old Elyse what I wanted to drink, and I’d say, “Myymmh.” 

       “Juice?” she’d say. (She was just guessing.)

       “Mmt-mm” (shaking my head).

       “Milk?” she’d try again.

       “Mm-hm” (this time nodding).

       It was kind of a scary situation, if you think about it. My ability to communicate my needs and desires was limited to a set of virtually indistinguishable syllables. What if one day I decided I wanted something more extravagant than milk or juice – say, a chocolate-covered ice-cream sundae with a cherry on top? How long would it have taken my caregivers to figure that one out?

       Luckily, I did eventually open my mouth and start talking like a normal person. When I finally did this, I actually spoke quite articulately for my age. I never did go through a "baby talk" stage. It was almost as if that whole season of talking with my mouth shut had just been one long practice run, occurring within the nonjudgmental confines of my oral cavity.

Once I started talking, I talked a lot, particularly when I thought no one else was listening. At three or four years old, I liked to pace around in my backyard, babbling incessantly. Occasionally my mom would stick her head out the door and try to hear what I was saying. Whatever it was, there was a lot of exciting inflection and dynamics, she noted. Then it hit her: I was quoting movie scenes, more or less verbatim, from memory. Scene after scene of Winnie-the-Pooh, Barney… you know, the classics of preschool filmography. At night I would lie in bed and quote more movie scenes, tell myself stories, sing myself songs, while the light through the window glowed cerulean, cadet blue, periwinkle – colors from the blue section of my crayon box. My mom would come in and kindly shush me. I was keeping everyone awake.

       Yes, at home, I managed to keep up a constant stream of sound; but under the public eye, that stream would dry up, evaporate. It’s not that I was afraid of people. I never felt shy in the conventional sense – you know, batting my eyelashes, hiding my eyes, a quivering creature cowed by the presence of humans. I didn’t feel shy. I just felt quiet. I felt like my mind was a castle, flanked by a moat, and when I went out among strangers, without my volition, the drawbridge would fold up. I would be safe inside, observing the world from the remote turrets of my inmost consciousness.

These days, as an “adult,” I still get the old familiar descriptive labels thrown at me: quiet, shy, reserved, soft-spoken. I’m definitely what they call an introvert. In public, at least, I listen more than I talk, and the more talkative the crowd around me, the less I have to say. Noisy groups don’t make me nervous; on the contrary, they make me feel like I’m lying in a bed with two dozen heavy thermal blankets piled on top of me. I’m safe and warm, protected by my introversion, but I’m also buried, submerged in muted calm. Fighting to the surface of the blanket sea requires a great deal of kicking, pushing, and general struggle. It’s easier just to stay under. 
       Speaking requires concentrated effort; speaking loudly is almost a physical impossibility. I hate drive-thrus for this reason. You can’t order your food quietly. Vocal projection is a must. If I want to be heard, I have to take a deep breath – one of those whopping inhalations that sucks all the energy out of your brain cells and leaves you dizzy for thirty seconds afterward. “ONE FILET-O-FISH,” I yell, hating every syllable. “WITH A SMALL FRY. AND A SMALL WATER.” Honestly, they need to provide a handheld microphone option for customers at drive-thrus. Imagine if I could order my filet-o-fish in my favorite seductive Johnny Depp stoner voice. “Yeah... yeah, one filet-o-fish... and fries, fries would be beautiful. And water… water is everything, man… water is life.”

No, I like being a quiet person, really. It’s cool because you automatically have secrets, and having secrets makes you seem mysterious, even if your only secrets are that you own a Labrador and you don’t like blue cheese. This information isn’t exactly confidential, but it may as well be, because you’ll never tell anyone. Being an introvert is empowering because you can walk around feeling like classified documents, like government passcodes, and no one will ever know just how amazing it is, or isn’t, inside the locked briefcase of your mind.

       And oh, as a final note. I’m not actually one of those introverts who hates extraverts. I love them. Their energy and enthusiasm about everything, from grapes to world peace, is truly inspiring to me. Plus, they make the best jokes about whether I can even talk, or how I’m talking so loud, they can’t even hear anyone else.