16. Every Quiet Kid Dance Now
I live in Canada. We had this kid at my school who was a new immigrant from Korea, and was extremely quiet and shy. He was socially awkward, didn’t speak English very well, and was not physically coordinated very well for playing any sport, including running. Everyone just kind of thought of him as your typical introverted and non-athletic guy.
Or at least, that’s what they did think of him until the day of our big field trip. We were all sitting down for lunch at a place that had the game Dance Dance Revolution. All of a sudden, this quiet kid gets up and starts dancing like there’s no tomorrow, blowing everyone else out at this game. He had the entire leaderboard before we left, and it was the first time I had ever seen him smile.
It remains one of the most impressive things I have ever seen.
17. Delivery by Airmail
My friend was the quiet kid in my school. In our high school drafting class, back when drafting was done on paper, there was another kid harassing him from across the room. After a while, my friend took his t-square (about two feet long, made of wood, and with sharp edges) and whipped it across the room, hitting his harasser square on the side of the head.
The resulting head wound required several stitches.
18. If I Had Known You Were Coming I’d Have Baked a Cake!
I am a very quiet and reserved guy. Many years ago, I lived with a roommate who had absolutely no tact whatsoever. Just zero tact. If you would tell him, "Hey, I just started dating so-and-so," he would respond with, "Oh yeah, she totally had a thing for me last year." He would constantly think that he was just joking around, but he was actually just being rude; and most of the time, he was the only person in the room who couldn't see it.
So anyways, after a long semester of living together, and after I had had a crush on this girl who ended up choosing him over me (all the while telling me that she liked me better than him, in a classic "glad I escaped THAT one" situation for the ages), he beats me in this board game one night. It was a game that we would play fairly frequently with our friends, and it had become a nightly ritual.
We all got super competitive over it and, after a long and stressful semester, losing to this guy was the last thing I had wanted to do. So that helped to put me in a bad mood, but I still wasn't quite in my "quiet guy rage" mode just yet. After a little while, everyone had either left or gone to bed after the game except for me, my roommate, and my best friend, Ben.
I just sat on the couch in a half sarcastic and half frustrated kind of mood. Just keep in mind that my roommate was the kind of guy who was good at everything, and was always super productive. So while I was sitting on the couch, this guy starts baking a freaking chocolate cake in the kitchen. He made one of his classic, "I don't know how to be funny, so I'll do the best I can by slandering my roommate" remarks.
To everyone’s utter shock, I immediately retorted with a quick and witty smart-aleck comeback. It was the first time in the entire semester that I had ever talked back to him. I guess I had left him speechless with that retort, and so the only course of action he had left was to walk over to me and smear chocolate cake batter all over my face.
I couldn't believe that he did that, so I looked over at my friend, Ben, who was just quietly losing his cool and laughing audibly into his hands. I was also quietly losing my cool, but I was not laughing…
19. Choosing Her Words Wisely
There was a girl who went the entirety of middle school never speaking a single word to anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. One day, the class was being rowdy while the teacher was out of the room. All of a sudden, in the raspiest, deepest voice you could ever imagine, this girl just stood up and yelled “SHUT UP!” at the top of her lungs.
We all shut up immediately.
20. You’ve Got a Friend in Me
Scene: Biology class. Teacher: “Now, even though clones are the same genetically, they may come out differently. If we cloned James here, his clone might have more access to—” Quiet Kid: “Friends?” Teacher doesn’t even argue, and just looks back sadly at the kid with no further comment. Not as extreme as some of these other stories, but still completely unexpected at the time.
21. Aunts at a Picnic
My aunt is one of those women who always conducts herself in the most docile and polite way you can imagine. I had never in my life heard her raise her voice except to get the attention of her family members for dinner; and even then, her voice was more melodic and reserved than angry. About 10 years ago, when I was going through an iffy stage of my high school years, I went to visit her and my uncle in California with my mother.
My mom and I weren't getting along too well at the time. She was in the process of punishing me for something or other, and had taken my phone away for a month. Anyway, she caught me using her phone to call my boyfriend at the time behind her back, and we got into a big yelling argument over it in my aunt and uncle's house.
About halfway through the argument, my aunt comes bursting through the door, interrupting us, and sends my mother out of the room. Shocked, my mom complies. As soon as she was gone, my aunt absolutely tore into me for being disrespectful to my mother. I mean, I had never heard a voice get so loud in my entire life.
My mom was quick to raise her voice so I was pretty used to being yelled at, but to have this woman who I had never even seen so much as drop a pin loudly enough to wake a sleeping child now bellowing at me about "how much my mom loves me" and how "I should understand how hard it is to have a girl in high school?"
It worked like a charm. The contrast and surprise of it all is what made me actually care to pay attention. I love my aunt so incredibly much, and we are now able to laugh at how lousy I was for a year back there. Thankfully, I’ve since moved on to bigger and better things—in no small part thanks to role models like her.
22. Dethroned
One time, the dorky short pudgy kid at my school was being bullied by the really popular class jock. The dork lost it, rushed the jock, pulled his shirt over his head, and began beating him pretty good right in the stomach—hockey style. The jock actually transferred schools the next year. I’m not sure if it was because of this or what, but he suddenly wasn't so popular anymore after that incident.
23. Just a Fly on the Wall
One time, in class, there was a fly in the room that was clearly getting on everyone’s nerves. Out of nowhere, the quiet kid threw his pencil straight up in the air and literally SKEWERED the fly in mid-flight. The pencil then got stuck in the ceiling, with parts of the now deceased fly’s carcass still hanging off of it. It was one of those really weak plaster tile ceilings, so the force of the throw was more than enough to get the pencil lodged pretty solidly into it.
This was the coolest thing I had ever seen, hands down. I wish I could go back in time and record it.
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24. That’s What Makes Him Beautiful
We were having a class discussion or game or something, and we needed to come up with hypothetical situations for some reason or other. This was around 2013 or so, when the band One Direction was extremely popular with some, and extremely hated by the others. Teacher: "Name a place where you would never find One Direction."
The class gets quiet for a split second. A moment or two later, the quiet kid murmurs: "The Grammys." It was almost too perfect, and made even more so by the fact that the comment had obviously just been intended for himself. What a legend!
25. The Sound of Silence
I was the quiet kid in high school. One time, a teacher on call was in our class and was not doing a very good job of getting everyone’s attention. There was a lot of shushing and time wasted on trying to motivate people. I was tired. He walked around saying “I can hear silence! I can hear silence!” So, in that monotone voice for which I was famous, I said out loud, to no one in particular: “You can’t hear silence, silence is the absence of sound.”
The person next to me, who heard me say it, lost his mind laughing.
26. Penny for Your Thoughts
A boy threw a penny at a girl in our Latin class. Unsurprisingly, she then yelled out "Why did you just throw a penny at me?" The quiet girl just randomly chimed in and said out loud: "Because that's how much you are worth!"
27. Don’t Mess With My Music
In all honesty, the quiet kid used to be me in middle school. I was usually on my own, just chilling and listening to music at the back of the bus. There was this bratty, stuck-up, total moron of a girl who would also ride the bus, but only on occasion. She was in the pseudo-popular clique at the time. Anyway, all she would do on the bus was yap constantly to the people next to her at a volume level that you'd expect if she were trying to communicate something to someone on the other side of a football field.
One day, I had just freaking had enough. I just wanted to listen to my music without deafening myself or having to hear her obnoxious voice. I stood up from three seats behind her and screamed, "Shut the heck up!" as loud as I think I have ever heard anyone scream in my life. The whole bus went quiet. I quietly went back to jamming to my tunes without hearing a peep from the girl for the rest of the bus ride.
28. Someone Came Prepared
One time, our quiet kid got very mad. He dealt with this anger by pulling a frozen pizza out of his bag and throwing it at a classroom window, shattering it to pieces.
29. Destructive Criticism
A guy in my university class yesterday, who has never spoken a single word all year long, was asked to stop typing so loudly by the lecturer. In response, he stood up, closed his laptop, and threw it at the front of the room where it crashed onto the floor. He then calmly packed up the rest of his things and walked out.
I can assure you that is one lecture I won’t be forgetting any time soon!
30. Premeditated Murder
I once saw the school quiet guy jotting some stuff down in a little black book. Me: "What are you writing, there?" Quiet Guy (With a blank stare on his face): "I'm adding you to my Death List." Thankfully, this was the early 90s and we would chat from time to time, so it never turned out to be anything more than just a strange joke—at least so far!
31. Good First Impression?
One time, the quiet kid farted so damn loud in the middle of class, I could swear that the whole entire room was shaking. Now, years later, we're close friends!
32. It’s a Long Way From Point A to Point B
This is a story about two of my friends, who we’ll just call Friend A and Friend B. Friend A is a relatively big guy; not big as in fat, but rather big as in athletic and strong. Friend B is the stereotypical quiet, nerdy, and awkward type. We all run and bike together, and we try to drink together every couple of weeks or so.
Unfortunately, Friend A tends to be a serious jerk when he gets drunk. He sort of gets funnier and funnier as he goes along until he reaches his peak, and then he just abruptly nosedives into being a complete jerk. Like really, just a huge jerk. So we were having one of those nights, and Friend A had had a few too many to drink. He started out in sort of a bro frame of mind, where he lightly takes some shots at you as the punchline of a joke and shoves you around playfully.
Now, Friend B didn't grow up around bro-ish types of kids, so he didn't understand that the reaction Friend A was looking for was for him to hit him or shove him back. So, Friend B just kind of slouches down and shies away. Naturally, this causes Friend A to double down on what he had been doing; but still with basically no reaction from Friend B.
Eventually, Friend A is just shoving Friend B against a wall and starts screaming "Come on, man! Just hit me already! HIT ME!!!" In response to this, Friend B went absolutely berserk. He let out an indescribable roar and quickly turned into a whirlwind of bent-wrist punches and slaps. Friend A just kind of stood in place without reacting at all while Friend B went to town on him.
It looked like an angry, screaming wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man versus a boulder. After about a minute, Friend B slowed down and eventually stopped. Friend A just smiled and said "Ayyyy! There ya go!" I thought it was a kind of touching moment to witness. The two of them seemed to definitely have been bonding over this.
I also thought that maybe my quiet Friend B might have learned a little something from the experience about how to relate to different types of people—which could only be a good thing for him, right? Nope. He did not enjoy or understand this incident at all, and he still holds a bit of a grudge about it to this day.
33. Trick or Treat
It was Halloween. One of the prettiest girls in our grade comes into school late that day, dressed in all white. Club attire, white leggings, and white top. Again, it’s Halloween. The class is dead silent because she's walking in late. Quiet kid: "What the heck are you supposed to be, a straw?" The entire class, including the teacher, instantly busts out laughing.
I had never seen this girl get embarrassed before. It was pretty well deserved this time!
34. He Knows His Target Audience!
I was in a marketing class once, and the instructor put up a slide with advertisements for Axe body spray. He asked the class "What do you think this product is for?" and the quiet guy jumped up and shouted out "Birth control!" It was hilarious.
35. Turning “Shut Up” Into an Art
I'm friends with one of those kids who's just so quiet that it's almost as if he can turn invisible. People just forget he's there somehow. One time, I was in art class and the stereotypical problem girl of our grade, who we can call Jane, was sitting nearby. In the middle of class, Jane started whining and complaining about a bunch of stupid, petty stuff that no one cares about and just being an overall lousy person, as usual.
I had one earbud in and was just sort of tuning her out, when all of a sudden, the quiet kid suddenly looked up and said: "You know that no one cares about what you're talking about, right? No one is even listening to you, right?" The entire class was SILENT. You could hear a pin drop. I have been friends with the guy ever since!
36. Take Me out to the Paper Ball Game
A bunch of my classmates used to throw crumpled up paper balls at the quiet kid every day because they knew that she would never react. Then, one day, it all changed. She decided to finally start picking them up, spitting on them, and throwing them back at the perpetrators. The teacher just sat back, smiled, and watched in amusement.
For the record, this teacher was a no-nonsense kind of guy, and he regularly yelled at and gave detention to those idiot kids. Nevertheless, being idiots, none of that ever stopped them from continuing their harassment. So, when the quiet girl eventually made her decision to step up and strike back, he just let her do her thing.
37. It’s Payback Time
Our school’s quiet kid once lost it and beat the living brains out of the guy who had been constantly poking, touching, and slapping him in class. I think it was around the seventh or eighth punch when the guy started to shout, “Dude, please stop!” just as the first signs of blood were beginning to show up. Unfortunately for the bully, Quiet Kid was just getting started…
38. That Pencil Really Came in Handy!
A quiet kid in summer school was being constantly bullied by the loud and obnoxious kid who sat behind him. The obnoxious guy once called the quiet kid a very uncool name. Without missing a beat and in the flash of a second, the quiet kid spins around, sticks a pencil directly and completely through the bully’s hand, and turns back around to sit front ways again.
It all went down so quickly that we were not even sure if it had even happened. If not for the pencil being physically stuck in the other guy’s hand, the loud screaming, and the pool of blood on the floor, we still might not have been sure!
39. She’s a Poet and We Didn’t Even Know It
A little short blond girl in my class with a really cute high pitched voice was always very quiet, and usually kind of kept to herself. We would often see her sitting alone and writing stuff down while the rest of us were hanging out with our friends during lunch period. One time, someone decided to try and be nice to her. So, he went over and asked the girl what she was writing about.
She proceeded to read us a poem she had just written about how death is inescapable and how everyone will die. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this was not what even a single one of us was expecting to hear her read…
40. It’s Always the Quiet Ones...
Everyone thinks of my boyfriend as just “the quiet one.” Little do they realize that this guy is secretly a brilliant mastermind who is just wrecking everyone else at life while they, for the most part, haven’t even noticed that he exists. Allow me to explain. First of all, he is indeed so, so quiet. You would barely even notice him if you ever happened to cross paths in any kind of social setting.
However, he has quietly committed himself to his DJing hobby and has, without fanfare, becomes one of the hottest and most popular talents in our city over the past couple of years. It also turns out that, when you spend time hanging out with him, he'll take you on all sorts of adventures that you would never have even considered on your own. And, well, it turns out that he can perform quite well when it comes down to the bedroom too, if I do say so myself!
Oh, and don't worry about finances, he's been saving since his first job. He is dedicated and hard-working, too, so you know he will be in an established career by his mid-20s. That quietness? It turns out he just spends most of his time listening to others and actually paying attention so he can retain what they say. He has more empathy and understanding than anyone would expect to find in a single human being.
And all of this is without looking at his dedication to his appearance as well. I guess when you have it all, and you know you have it all, there is no reason to be loud. And that’s the story of how I’m possibly dating an undercover superhero.
41. Selectively Shy
I was best friends with the Quiet Kid back in high school. He spoke to me almost exclusively, and quietly enough that others rarely even noticed. One day, the Loud Girl noticed. "Oh my goodness, he talks? I haven't heard him talk since sixth grade!" Without looking at her, he leaned in real close and whispered something to me.
"He says he only talks to interesting people!" I informed her. I'll always remember this, partly for the ego boost he gave me, but also because of her outraged reaction. "Screw you! I hope I don't hear you for another four years!" she exclaimed. I have a pretty strong feeling that her wish came true.
42. A Piojos By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet
I remember going to junior high in this small hick town in Texas while I was on probation (that’s a long and irrelevant story, don’t ask!). We had a quiet kid who was actually really popular at our school, not bullied at all like many other quiet kids often tend to be. Anyway, I was new and had only been going to the school for about a month when this happened.
We had a substitute teacher for one of our classes. She was doing a quick roll call, and got to his name—"Piojos." She said, "That’s an interesting and beautiful name, what does it mean?" The kid responded "lice." There was dead silence and confused looks all around the room. This kid had been going to this school since kindergarten, as it was a small town, and had been around the same teachers and classmates for all those years.
In all that time, he had ALWAYS gone by Piojos, and none of them had ever realized that it was just his weird childhood nickname. Nobody had ever had a freaking clue what it meant, let alone that it wasn't his real name. Suddenly, all of his paperwork at the school had to be updated and everything to accommodate this new discovery. I thought it was all hilarious.
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