I have not always been quiet.
In sixth grade, at the end of the school year, our teacher at Silver Spring Elementary handed out a mimeographed mini-yearbook. Under my name: Most Talkative. I remember being a class clown, quick with a joke, eager to be noticed. In elementary school I had the confidence to act in school plays and sing in the chorus. I had a voice, and I used it.
Then seventh grade arrived, and something shifted.
Perhaps it was entering a larger middle school where several grade schools merged into one.
Familiar faces disappeared, replaced by hallways full of strangers. My confidence evaporated. From seventh through eleventh grade, I carried a sense of inferiority. In ninth grade, I was bullied by seniors. I stopped trying out for sports. I stopped singing. In gym class, I waited — always one of the last chosen for a team, if not the last.
I hated school so much that I became truant more times than I can count. Ironically, I was creative only in forging excuse slips for the Attendance Principal.
Creativity — misapplied.
I never once succeeded in asking a girl out during my first three years of high school at Cumberland Valley. For school dances, I went alone and stood against the wall, watching everyone else laugh, touch, lean in close — participating in relationships that seemed so effortless to them. With each passing year, I saw myself as more invisible. More shy.
I remember asking girls to the Junior-Senior Prom and being met with open laughter:
“What? Me go out with you?”
Why would they?
It brands.
I do not need to dominate a conversation.
I only want to feel that my voice has a place at the table.
What I have not yet learned is how to live fully in speech.
My mother took me to therapists from time to time to address my anxiety and depression. I don’t remember dramatic breakthroughs — only the quiet acknowledgment that something inside me had tightened.
It wasn’t until I moved to Arizona that something loosened. Perhaps there is truth in the advantage of being the “new kid in town.” For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I began receiving attention.
Acceptance. I wasn’t accustomed to it. I often wondered what they saw in me, because I certainly didn’t see it in myself.
I even attracted a girlfriend now and then.
But inexperience showed. I was naïve — about girls, about affection, about how to demonstrate feelings I barely understood myself. Some expected more from me than I knew how to give. There was one instance in March 1974 where a girl I took to a John Denver concert had interpreted my lack of affection afterwards as an indication I was gay – and she made sure to spread the rumors. Others likely misread my hesitation as indifference. They did not know who I had been in Pennsylvania. They did not know how deeply that silence had set in.
I remember once standing somewhere — music playing overhead — when a girl said, “Hey, Rick, there’s your song!” It was the You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' by The Righteous Brothers.
At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant.
Later, it became clear. It hurt.
When I look at my sons and the ease with which they navigate affection and intimacy, I am mesmerized. “Geez,” I think, “I never had that kind of affection and intimacy. They make it seem so easy.”
Over time, doubt became a companion. Doubt about my abilities — not just socially, but fundamentally. As a person. As a man.
My girlfriend of 1973/1974 wrote me a letter stating we were through because, in her words, “You’re not macho enough.” She then began to date my cousin. He treated her like shit — but she accepted it.
It felt easier to withdraw than to risk exposure.
Easier to become a loner.
Eventually, solitude became familiar. Comfortable, even.
To this day, I could count my close friends on one hand. My wife sometimes asks, “Aren’t you lonely?”
I answer honestly: “No. I’m used to it.”
But being used to something and preferring it are not the same.
I suspect I disappoint her in this way — that I cannot “hold my own” socially, that I cannot move fluidly through conversations the way others seem to.
I often feel I have little to contribute to everyday conversation. I know nothing about sports. Little about auto mechanics, investments, real estate, hunting, fishing, or politics. When conversations drift in those directions, I stand or sit nearby, listening, absorbing, trying to learn what I can, and hoping there will be a topic I do know something about.
But that’s all it is — hope.
Sometimes I scan the room and wonder, Do they think I’m a freak?
There are, however, places where I do have a voice.
My years in the military. Being stationed overseas. Traveling. I can talk for hours about how much I love Korea, and Asia in general. I have often been treated kindly there — especially by women who saw me simply as a potential friend, or even boyfriend — without the preloaded judgment I so often anticipate elsewhere.
I especially love being on the road alone. A cross-country drive clears my head in ways nothing else can.
Even today, people do not understand my preference to drive over flying. They assume it's about money. They don’t understand my attraction to just being ‘solo’.
It gives me control — when to drive, when to stop, where to turn, whether to deviate.
As Bob Seger sings in Roll Me Away:
“Stood alone on a mountain top, starin’ out at the Great Divide;
I could go east, I could go west, it was all up to me to decide.”
I repeat those words every time I set out on a long drive. Alone, yes — but free.
Free to keep my options open.
The truth is, I enjoy conversing. I enjoy sharing thoughts and feelings with those close to me. When something excites me, I want to talk about it. I want to connect.
But too often, when I speak — or when I post something on social media — my words are met with correction, criticism, or suspicion. As though I must be mistaken. As though my feelings are controversial by default.
I tell myself: You need to stop talking.
It has gotten to the point where I became so hurt at the misunderstandings of my social media words that I deleted every post I had ever made – including graduations, marriages, births.
Why say anything at all?
It is difficult when I am happy. When I am enthusiastic. I reveal myself anyway, and sometimes I regret it. Withdrawal feels safer. I don’t like that instinct — especially when it involves family — but if no one is interested in what I think or feel, I tell myself I should oblige and stay silent.
Rarely do I offer unsolicited advice, even when I might do things differently. I do not feel it is my place to critique others’ decisions. Yet it often feels as though others — including my own sons — feel compelled to critique or condemn nearly every utterance that comes out of my mouth, or even a simple revelation of what I’ve been up to. Even sharing happiness feels risky, as though it may be dismantled or dismissed.
And so silence becomes easier.
Photography became a refuge. Some have told me I capture feeling and mood well. I once considered portrait photography. I have the equipment. And, technically, I know what to do.
But when placed in front of a subject and expected to direct, guide, engage — I falter. Other photographers seem to possess effortless social ease. I do not.
So I rely on distance. A super-zoom lens. I capture authentic expressions when people don’t realize I’m focused on them. It is easier to observe humanity than to orchestrate it.
There was a time I thought I could be a teacher. In the military, I delivered speeches and briefings and won awards. If I could prepare, write, and stand behind a podium, I was confident — commanding, even. When I know my material, I can communicate clearly and persuasively.
But remove the script, require spontaneous conversation, and anxiety creeps in. I am far more articulate in writing than in unscripted speech. The page does not interrupt. The page does not laugh.
When I travel to Korea — or anywhere in Asia — something unexpected happens. Because no one knows me there, no one assumes who I am. No one has a history with me. I am given a chance. People engage. They listen. I open up easily.
All it takes is the sense that someone sees me — that my words will not judged before they're finished.
I have said, “I’m used to it.”
But that does not mean it does not still weigh on me.
Being accustomed to silence is not the same as being free from it. It means the quiet has become familiar — humming in rooms where I measure my words before speaking, in moments when I swallow enthusiasm before it can be dismissed.
I tell myself I am fine. That I prefer solitude. That I do not need what others seem to need.
And yet.
There remains a part of me that still wants to walk into a room and feel relaxed. To speak without rehearsing. To share something joyful without bracing for correction. To be met not with suspicion or analysis, but with simple curiosity.
I do not crave attention.
Sometimes I wonder what became of that sixth-grade boy who was voted Most Talkative.
He is still somewhere inside me.
I hear him occasionally — when I am on a long drive, when I am writing, when I am halfway around the world and no one knows who I have been.
He is not gone.
He is just careful now.
I have learned how to survive in silence.
Perhaps that is why I am writing this now.
I wanted people to understand how I became who I am — and that the silence was not emptiness, but survival.
Perhaps this is my way of practicing a voice I have too often kept contained.
And perhaps, at this stage of my life, the switch I wish I could flip is not somewhere outside of me — but within.
In sixth grade, at the end of the school year, our teacher at Silver Spring Elementary handed out a mimeographed mini-yearbook. Under my name: Most Talkative. I remember being a class clown, quick with a joke, eager to be noticed. In elementary school I had the confidence to act in school plays and sing in the chorus. I had a voice, and I used it.
Then seventh grade arrived, and something shifted.
Perhaps it was entering a larger middle school where several grade schools merged into one.
Familiar faces disappeared, replaced by hallways full of strangers. My confidence evaporated. From seventh through eleventh grade, I carried a sense of inferiority. In ninth grade, I was bullied by seniors. I stopped trying out for sports. I stopped singing. In gym class, I waited — always one of the last chosen for a team, if not the last.
I hated school so much that I became truant more times than I can count. Ironically, I was creative only in forging excuse slips for the Attendance Principal.
Creativity — misapplied.
I never once succeeded in asking a girl out during my first three years of high school at Cumberland Valley. For school dances, I went alone and stood against the wall, watching everyone else laugh, touch, lean in close — participating in relationships that seemed so effortless to them. With each passing year, I saw myself as more invisible. More shy.
I remember asking girls to the Junior-Senior Prom and being met with open laughter:
“What? Me go out with you?”
Why would they?
It brands.
I do not need to dominate a conversation.
I only want to feel that my voice has a place at the table.
What I have not yet learned is how to live fully in speech.
My mother took me to therapists from time to time to address my anxiety and depression. I don’t remember dramatic breakthroughs — only the quiet acknowledgment that something inside me had tightened.
It wasn’t until I moved to Arizona that something loosened. Perhaps there is truth in the advantage of being the “new kid in town.” For reasons I still don’t fully understand, I began receiving attention.
Acceptance. I wasn’t accustomed to it. I often wondered what they saw in me, because I certainly didn’t see it in myself.
I even attracted a girlfriend now and then.
But inexperience showed. I was naïve — about girls, about affection, about how to demonstrate feelings I barely understood myself. Some expected more from me than I knew how to give. There was one instance in March 1974 where a girl I took to a John Denver concert had interpreted my lack of affection afterwards as an indication I was gay – and she made sure to spread the rumors. Others likely misread my hesitation as indifference. They did not know who I had been in Pennsylvania. They did not know how deeply that silence had set in.
I remember once standing somewhere — music playing overhead — when a girl said, “Hey, Rick, there’s your song!” It was the You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' by The Righteous Brothers.
At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant.
Later, it became clear. It hurt.
When I look at my sons and the ease with which they navigate affection and intimacy, I am mesmerized. “Geez,” I think, “I never had that kind of affection and intimacy. They make it seem so easy.”
Over time, doubt became a companion. Doubt about my abilities — not just socially, but fundamentally. As a person. As a man.
My girlfriend of 1973/1974 wrote me a letter stating we were through because, in her words, “You’re not macho enough.” She then began to date my cousin. He treated her like shit — but she accepted it.
It felt easier to withdraw than to risk exposure.
Easier to become a loner.
Eventually, solitude became familiar. Comfortable, even.
To this day, I could count my close friends on one hand. My wife sometimes asks, “Aren’t you lonely?”
I answer honestly: “No. I’m used to it.”
But being used to something and preferring it are not the same.
I suspect I disappoint her in this way — that I cannot “hold my own” socially, that I cannot move fluidly through conversations the way others seem to.
I often feel I have little to contribute to everyday conversation. I know nothing about sports. Little about auto mechanics, investments, real estate, hunting, fishing, or politics. When conversations drift in those directions, I stand or sit nearby, listening, absorbing, trying to learn what I can, and hoping there will be a topic I do know something about.
But that’s all it is — hope.
Sometimes I scan the room and wonder, Do they think I’m a freak?
There are, however, places where I do have a voice.
My years in the military. Being stationed overseas. Traveling. I can talk for hours about how much I love Korea, and Asia in general. I have often been treated kindly there — especially by women who saw me simply as a potential friend, or even boyfriend — without the preloaded judgment I so often anticipate elsewhere.
I especially love being on the road alone. A cross-country drive clears my head in ways nothing else can.
Even today, people do not understand my preference to drive over flying. They assume it's about money. They don’t understand my attraction to just being ‘solo’.
It gives me control — when to drive, when to stop, where to turn, whether to deviate.
As Bob Seger sings in Roll Me Away:
“Stood alone on a mountain top, starin’ out at the Great Divide;
I could go east, I could go west, it was all up to me to decide.”
I repeat those words every time I set out on a long drive. Alone, yes — but free.
Free to keep my options open.
The truth is, I enjoy conversing. I enjoy sharing thoughts and feelings with those close to me. When something excites me, I want to talk about it. I want to connect.
But too often, when I speak — or when I post something on social media — my words are met with correction, criticism, or suspicion. As though I must be mistaken. As though my feelings are controversial by default.
I tell myself: You need to stop talking.
It has gotten to the point where I became so hurt at the misunderstandings of my social media words that I deleted every post I had ever made – including graduations, marriages, births.
Why say anything at all?
It is difficult when I am happy. When I am enthusiastic. I reveal myself anyway, and sometimes I regret it. Withdrawal feels safer. I don’t like that instinct — especially when it involves family — but if no one is interested in what I think or feel, I tell myself I should oblige and stay silent.
Rarely do I offer unsolicited advice, even when I might do things differently. I do not feel it is my place to critique others’ decisions. Yet it often feels as though others — including my own sons — feel compelled to critique or condemn nearly every utterance that comes out of my mouth, or even a simple revelation of what I’ve been up to. Even sharing happiness feels risky, as though it may be dismantled or dismissed.
And so silence becomes easier.
Photography became a refuge. Some have told me I capture feeling and mood well. I once considered portrait photography. I have the equipment. And, technically, I know what to do.
But when placed in front of a subject and expected to direct, guide, engage — I falter. Other photographers seem to possess effortless social ease. I do not.
So I rely on distance. A super-zoom lens. I capture authentic expressions when people don’t realize I’m focused on them. It is easier to observe humanity than to orchestrate it.
There was a time I thought I could be a teacher. In the military, I delivered speeches and briefings and won awards. If I could prepare, write, and stand behind a podium, I was confident — commanding, even. When I know my material, I can communicate clearly and persuasively.
But remove the script, require spontaneous conversation, and anxiety creeps in. I am far more articulate in writing than in unscripted speech. The page does not interrupt. The page does not laugh.
When I travel to Korea — or anywhere in Asia — something unexpected happens. Because no one knows me there, no one assumes who I am. No one has a history with me. I am given a chance. People engage. They listen. I open up easily.
All it takes is the sense that someone sees me — that my words will not judged before they're finished.
I have said, “I’m used to it.”
But that does not mean it does not still weigh on me.
Being accustomed to silence is not the same as being free from it. It means the quiet has become familiar — humming in rooms where I measure my words before speaking, in moments when I swallow enthusiasm before it can be dismissed.
I tell myself I am fine. That I prefer solitude. That I do not need what others seem to need.
And yet.
There remains a part of me that still wants to walk into a room and feel relaxed. To speak without rehearsing. To share something joyful without bracing for correction. To be met not with suspicion or analysis, but with simple curiosity.
I do not crave attention.
Sometimes I wonder what became of that sixth-grade boy who was voted Most Talkative.
He is still somewhere inside me.
I hear him occasionally — when I am on a long drive, when I am writing, when I am halfway around the world and no one knows who I have been.
He is not gone.
He is just careful now.
I have learned how to survive in silence.
Perhaps that is why I am writing this now.
I wanted people to understand how I became who I am — and that the silence was not emptiness, but survival.
Perhaps this is my way of practicing a voice I have too often kept contained.
And perhaps, at this stage of my life, the switch I wish I could flip is not somewhere outside of me — but within.
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