LOUD

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My household is quiet.

Sometimes there's talking and laughter and sometimes there's music or movies or video games, but most of the time, it's quiet. I am not a big fan of talking, honestly.

My kids also like quiet. I don't know whether that's through conditioning or if it's just natural for them. My youngest will go play in the back yard silently by herself for hours. My oldest has a lot of opinions but only starts talking around midnight. My son can get loud if he's playing a video game... and god, if he has a friend over sometimes I have to go hide in my room to get away from the noise... but I've had visitors tell me it's creepy being in a house with three silent, well-behaved children.

I always explain that it's because I beat them.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I can do quiet. Sometimes you have to listen for stuff, like the UPS guy, who might leave your shit on the porch instead of taking it back to New Braunfels if you don't answer the door, but then somebody will steal it. Or if somebody's sick, or if I'm at the house of a friend who prefers quiet.
But the default is LOUD.  When the kids were home we'd all crank our music to keep from being drowned out by the others. Then we'D yell over it:
"MOMMMMM!"
"WHAT?"
"COME HERE!"
"WHY? WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
"BRING ME AN ORANGE!"
"NO! YOU WANT IT, YOU COME GET IT!"
"MOMMMMMMM!"
etc.

[Freeky]

I sometimes feel like I act like a mirror.  If I'm around loud people, I get loud and raucous.  When I'm by myself, or around someone who isn't talking, I don't say anything at all.  There's a peacefulness in quiet in a world otherwise dominated by static and meaningless noise.

[trippinprincezz13]

My household is quiet.

Sometimes there's talking and laughter and sometimes there's music or movies or video games, but most of the time, it's quiet. I am not a big fan of talking, honestly.

This. I've always been pretty quiet, and while a good portion of it for the past decade or so has also been horrible social anxiety, a lot of it is the fact that unless I feel like I have something to say, I'm just fine not talking. It's "small talk"/talking for the sake of talking that I usually don't like and will trip me up. Not that I won't talk ever about anything but I DON'T CARE about the weather/some sports team/that TV show and would rather just not talk in all those miscellaneous public or situations where there's the pressure to talk about SOMETHING. Or the steady stream of just being talked AT about absolutely nothing.

Regardless, there are times I would like to be LOUD. I feel LOUD but...I then I usually sit and smile politely - whatever may be going behind that smile, for better or worse, the loud gets stuck. It makes it's wait out now and again, unfortunately often not without the help of deal ol' alcohol. Even then, it's a reserved LOUD, a polite LOUD. It's not quite caring about what others think - I'm perfectly comfortable speaking my mind, everyone else be damned - though that's essentially what it boils down to. Something about stepping out of quiet into LOUD. I could be the last person on Earth and wouldn't find it in me to shout for fear there was someone waiting just behind the nearest tree to hear me do it. I might make a snide remark about it though.

I might look at LOUD people (verbally, but even just personality-wise) with amusement because it looks fun, but there may also be a tint of envy in there. LOUD is a bit of a confusing concept. So simple and free-flowing for those it seems to come naturally to, but a puzzle just out of my grasp most of the time.

There's nothing terribly wrong with being quiet. Works wonders for people watching and observing social situations and interactions. Can learn a lot from it. But sometimes it looks fun to be LOUD. Sometimes you need LOUD. I just need to find that balance and bring a little more LOUD into my life.

[Sir Bearington]

Im quiet and everybody else in my family is loud.

What gives?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I might look at LOUD people (verbally, but even just personality-wise) with amusement because it looks fun, but there may also be a tint of envy in there. LOUD is a bit of a confusing concept. So simple and free-flowing for those it seems to come naturally to, but a puzzle just out of my grasp most of the time.

There's nothing terribly wrong with being quiet. Works wonders for people watching and observing social situations and interactions. Can learn a lot from it. But sometimes it looks fun to be LOUD. Sometimes you need LOUD. I just need to find that balance and bring a little more LOUD into my life.

It IS fun.  It gets the blood pumping.

But again, it's definitely NOT the ONLY way to run a railroad.  It's just the way I've chosen, or rather learned.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I sometimes feel like I act like a mirror.  If I'm around loud people, I get loud and raucous.  When I'm by myself, or around someone who isn't talking, I don't say anything at all.  There's a peacefulness in quiet in a world otherwise dominated by static and meaningless noise.

I like the silent accord thing, it's kind of amazing. You know, the thing where you only need a couple of words here and there, almost like mind reading. You have to know somebody a long time, though, and go through a bunch of shit with them, and even then it's rare. I don't really have it with anybody right now, but it's happened with a couple of people. Both dead. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Interesting note:  When I don't want it LOUD, I want it utterly, completely silent.

There's no in-between.

[Freeky]

Interesting note:  When I don't want it LOUD, I want it utterly, completely silent.

There's no in-between.

Oh yes, definitely. 

[Sir Bearington]

Interesting note:  When I don't want it LOUD, I want it utterly, completely silent.

There's no in-between.

Oh yes, definitely.

That is very true.

[Suu]

There have been times when I've gotten in the car with my mom or my dad, mind you, both in their 50s, and they forget to turn off the radio or turn down the knob before turning off the car last, so you get in, you sit down, strap in and BOOM, you're hit with whatever gunk is playing on whatever station or CD at that time.

My mom is worse than my dad about this. I've actually screamed at her, not just because of the freaking volume or being startled, but because of the freaking physical pain that too many decibels suddenly can inflict on a person. To which the usual response is, "Man, musta been a good fuckin' tune."

What makes this even more ridiculous, is that my mom's taste in music is significantly mellower than my dad's, so when you get in the car and Phil Lesh's bass drops like a bad habit on China Cat Sunflower....

My sister has taken this tolerance of loud to the next level. As one of the few remaining Jethro Tull fans in existence, she has, in her car, a CD that says, "For Emergency Use Only." This is a collective of classic rock and oddly, Marilyn Manson, that she uses to scare passers-by and bass-driven hoopies. The last time I was with her in which we had to deploy such tactics, a beater blasting Lil' Wayne comes up next to her cute fully-loaded Civic, with it so loud it's shaking our windows. Sister, not to be outdone, pops in the CD, and puts it on Locomotive Breath. We both sit there, dramatically turning ourselves into Ian Anderson wearing our Betsey Johnson sunglasses and girly bathing suit tops, as the guys next to us just stare like we've lost our minds.

[The Dark Monk]

Odd thing: I am loud over Ventrilo, quiet on the phone. Quiet at Amusement Parks yet loud when I am home alone.

I remember as a child my parents constantly fighting which this thread has made me realize, as I have quite honestly never thought about it, it being loud yet behind closed doors, with almost the illusion of quiet. My brothers always screamed at me and locked me in closets as well as grabbing belts when my parents were working and smacking me with them, all the while screaming about wanting a better brother as I got depressed even then, but at the time I had no idea how to handle it. Yelling and aggression make me nervous as a person as I tend to be extremely quiet until it reaches a point where my logic shuts off and I become a demonlike beast and every insult in the world designed to inflict as much pain, ignorance, racism, and depression possible. I tend to remove myself from loud situations because I simply cannot handle it. I can't filter what is good and bad, and it makes me want to cover my ears. I believe this to be why I can communicate better via interwebs than in person, because I can use a volume button inside of my head.

When I got angry as a younger man, it tended to resort to fisticuffs, and generally over stupid disagreements or girls or the fact being made fun of 24/7 finally got on my nerves. Bigger people tended to think they could throw their weight around on a 100 pound 6 foot tall 6th grader and regretted it as they held their broken bleeding nose and burst eardrums. Admittedly sent a few to the hospital which I honestly am not proud of simply for the fact during those times I completely lost my mind. It tended to be a situation where I myself escalated it after the opponent was on the ground and out of the fight as my brain simply turned into a central nervous system.

So I tend to avoid louder people in person, not because I don't particularly like them as people, but it's something I as a person cannot handle and am working on. Best solution is immediately removing myself which I hope people don't take offense to because it has nothing to do with them, it's my own problem.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I like quiet. I also like LOUD.

Sometimes I'm so into what I'm doing that the city could be burning down around me and I wouldn't notice.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Sometimes I hate loud. Like at karaoke bars.
Turn it down a little so I can talk shit about these idiots.

[Lenin McCarthy]

My family is divided:
Me and older sister like silent.
Older brother and younger sister like LOUD.

This has indeed led to conflicts in the past.