The Silent Treatment

I am smiling while I am writing this as I realise that you are using my most powerful weapon against me: the silent treatment. I am an expert in using the silent treatment on people whom I no longer like. I only fall out of my role if and when you make me laugh and make me realise its silliness. Perhaps I can now use that same counter tactic against you. I think it worked in the past.

The silent treatment is like psychological warfare. Similar to any other war, starting it is easy but ending it is difficult. It may not even be clear if there will be a winner. Actually, it does not even matter if there is a winner as the silent treatment is about power. The balance of power in any relationship: husband-wife, father-daughter, employer-employee. Using the silent treatment in that delicate balance does not indicate the existence of a healthy relationship.

Between former lovers the silent treatment makes sense but only when it is based on indifference. Not when it is deliberately used for payback or revenge. I just realise that the opposite is also true. It is conceivable that communicating to a former lover could also be an intentional (conscious) – or even subconscious – act of revenge. It prevents the other lover from forgetting about you. Latter realisation is a little worrisome as I may have applied it on someone else – albeit subconsciously.

Although I now receive the silent treatment from you, it was still good to notice that yesterday evening’s blog was read 4 times in your country and shortly after publishing. I wrote that blog in a flow and its words were still lingering on my mind while I was trying to catch the night train. My sadness resulted in taking the last available ride to the great oblivion of sleep.

Apart from receiving the silent treatment, I am also giving it to others: some out of sheer indifference, and some for reciprocity. I do realise that reciprocity may not be the best reason but every other tactic has failed. They hurt me with their silence and now they get what they give. Seems fair to me. The only danger that I do notice in myself is that I am moving towards indifference. Indifference is only great when you no longer care about someone.

For the record, the silent treatment is not equal to a lapse in communication. Any communication benefits from silence. It makes a new conversation only more joyful. You just know when you are getting the silent treatment. It is hard to miss unless you lack any social intelligence.

There is another danger in the silent treatment apart from growing indifference. It’s quite well worded in the famous Simon & Garfunkel song – The Sound Of Silence: “Silence like a cancer grows”. Wiki: Garfunkel once summed up the song’s meaning as “the inability of people to communicate with each other, not particularly internationally but especially emotionally, so what you see around you are people unable to love each other”.

I think Art Garfunkel is referring to couples whom you often notice in public but who have nothing to say to each other anymore. The Sound Of Silence may even be worse than the silent treatment. The silent treatment may be overcome but the sound of silence is to stay.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence.

Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound Of Silence (1964) – artists, lyrics, Wiki-1, Wiki-2