To find shy people irritating?

[BuntingForSummer]

My younger cousin is very shy and quiet. She has been like this since as long as I have known her.

She hardly ever speaks. It's not just in social gatherings but even when it's just us with my aunt's family.

Times when I have tried to initiate a conversation, I just receive monosyllabic answers or a very brief answer at best. She just sort of sits there listening and watching everyone. It makes me feel very irritated. I mean I can understand being quiet and shy around strangers but we are family ffs! My aunt says she does speak at home but I literally have never seen her hold a conversation longer than a minute.

AIBU to feel irritated by her behaviour? I have never seen anything like it apart from a colleague at work who is also very very quiet but not to such a degree.

No P00p I wouldn't say someone was selfish for not practicing walking when their legs don't work. But I might say they were selfish if they expected everyone to serve them in bed but they hadn't been to see a doctor to find out how to become as mobile as possible.

YA and YNBR -
You are because (as it may have been said before) there are many things that can cause this including illness and trauma.
You're not because irritated is fine. Just ignore/stay away from them. It's when it gets past irritated that it's problematic and then you will be being unreasonable.

Well, if anyone who thinks that people who lack social skills are inherently lazy, would like to make a little effort of their own to google impaired executive function in the frontal lobe, and how it affects social interaction - it may help provide a valuable insight that would aid future social interactions with conversationally inept people.

This thread has me baffled. All this talk of 'social duty' and being 'forced to talk even though I'm shy too'.....since when was there a law about talking?? If people don't want to talk, why do they have to?
'is it ok to attend a social gathering and not talk then??'
Er, yes. It is.

I'm not shy, but i am socially anxious and really introverted to boot. I go to gatherings because its expected of me, but they exhaust me and I will leave early/find somewhere to hide if I can.

What's with all this focus on small talk? I'm not even shy or introverted but i mostly hate it. It's mostly boring and excruciating and tbh i don't mind "uncomfortable"(uncomfortable for whom?) silence. I talk if i want to and if i have something to say. That's one reason why i hate bday parties so many parents going out of their way to find a topic...to just say something. Parents that otherwise wouldn't socialise or even like each other. Just WHYYYY?

I have a adult nephew who hardly speaks in company but is a very talented musician - he also shows symptoms of aspergers too but is undiagnosed. Could she be unable to socialise? Just a thought?

Kate well today i said hello and how are you(that i always do,it's the chatting i avoid) and i got rewarded with being asked a favour and way too many details about a csection,including how many docs and hand where in the mum's belly and what went where. Followed by questions about how i had my baby,at which point i was already halfway down the road or i pretended to be. Hello,bye,thank you,please polite and more than fair enough to be expected,but small talk can go fuck itself

As someone with social anxiety and a hatred of small talk, I'm worse with family than with strangers. With strangers I know I won't have to see them again or, if I will, it's normally in a situation with clear boundaries (like a professional setting) where I know I won't be asked personal questions and can keep the conversation within comfortable parameters.

With family I'm not only linked to them for life but I'm expected to have some sort of bond with them because we share genetics. Of course this doesn't mean we're going to have shared interests, click, or actually like each other.

Anyway the OP sounds horrible so I'm not surprised this woman doesn't want to talk to her...

I don't think the op is horrible.

I can be like this with certain people and it's often with people I know whom I don't quite know and extended family is a good example of this.

I equally find overly quiet people hard work because I can sometimes be like that . I need someone to bring me out. If I'm with someone really quiet, it's really difficult when I run out of stuff to say too. No one says anything so it's excruciating and I would be irritated if I were really trying but failing and the other person was giving one word answers