Thursday, October 22, 2009

Reserved vs. Cold

Life can often be looked at as a game of walking a fine line.  There's tardy vs. late, drunk vs. out of hand,  persistent vs. stalker, and quirky vs. crazy, to name a few.  One that I find a lot of my friends (and myself) walking is reserved vs. cold, as it relates to letting people get to know the "real you."  To me, reserved means you are a pleasant person, but you're not going to tell everyone everything about you in the first couple times you hang out.  Cold, to me, means you are not a warm person (ha!  Aren't I good with words?) and after meeting you people are not usually saying "She seems like a lot of fun/nice" because it's possible you came across as a tad bitchy/boring.

My mom likes to remind me that I'm very English (my grandfather, who was my favorite grandparent until he died when I was eight years old, was born in England) therefore I am genetically programmed to not show a lot of emotion to people.  It's not to say I am not emotional...I think I kind of am.  I get excited when I see dogs in my neighborhood and generally show a "Look!  A cute dog!" emotion and I get teary-eyed while reading really great writing or while watching a really touching human interest story.  I just do not really enjoy talking about my feelings or showing any kind of negative emotion.  I also like to vent but then be totally over whatever it was that I just spent ten minutes bitching about.  To me that is therapeutic.  To others, that is weird.  I'm not someone that needs a fix to all my "problems" (in quotes because I know there are a ton of people who would love to have my "problems"), I sometimes just like to voice them.

What do you think is the fine line between being "reserved" and "cold"?  Do you ever get called one or the other?

3 comments:

kam said...

I can totally see you as "reserved", but nowhere need cold. I think its more of a recent phenomenon where we're supposed to "share" with everyone, everything. But I think more often than not, I truly don't care about most of what people share. I tend to think people "share" just to hear themselves talk...I like someone where I get the layers bit by bit. On the other hand, if you're around someone for a long stretch and you still don't know much about them, or you have to pull it out of them constantly, that's cold. On a side note, I've been called quirky a lot lately...does that mean I'm on the verge of crazy? I was voted second most "weird" behind a friend of mine once.

kam said...

Whoops. You're not going to get emotional over my last post...not with those grammatical errors. I meant to say you were nowhere NEAR cold, not need. Carry on!

Lesley said...

Interesting post. You are definitely reserved. Cold, not so much.

But then I don't view myself as cold and have been told I come across as bitchy and unapproachable. Perhaps I need to share more?