When Less Is More

I originally intended for this blog post to be me saying “I’m sorry” to my past teachers for all the times I slouched in their classes. If you’ve ever been in a class with me, chances are you would've found that I tend to slouch or lean my head on my arm. Honestly, it's because that’s what feels comfortable- especially when you’re a sleep-deprived student. This week’s lesson on nonverbal communication made me realize how it probably looks like I’m uninterested in what the teachers are saying. So, I’m sorry to all of my teachers and professors who ever had that thought.

I would expand on that apology, but there’s something that happened this week that was way too relevant to the week's lesson that I just can’t not address it. You know what that means... personal story time. I’ll try to tell it in the shortest possible way I can.

So basically, last week I had made plans with a friend (?) - read on and you'll understand the question mark- who I’ll just call Z for the sake of anonymity. (*Z has no relation to the person’s real name.) There’s a place that we’ve been wanting to go to for awhile, so we decided that Tuesday would be a good day, since classes were cancelled for Yom Kippur.

Flash forward to Monday night, I texted Z to make sure that we were still on for Tuesday.

No response.

Okay, it was Monday night. Maybe Z went to bed already? I’ll check my phone again in the morning, I decided. Next morning, can you guess what happened when I checked my phone? If you don't know, I'll let Snape tell you...

No texts. Nothing. I decided to give it a little more time. Maybe Z slept in late? (That's me trying to not panic yet.) However, a few hours pass and still nothing.

All jokes aside and long story short, that’s how the rest of the day went.

Was something wrong? Was Z okay? Did I have the wrong day? Maybe my message didn’t go through? That’s one thing I learned about silence- it leaves a lot to the imagination, a lot of “maybes” and a lot of questions. My mind was spinning with possibilities of what happened. Z was my friend- or at least I thought we were friends- so why was Z not answering all of a sudden (especially when we've been friends for awhile). We never had a fight either, so it was all so strange.

After my initial worry, I became confused, angry, and most of all, sad. Eventually, I had a feeling I was being ignored and Z was trying to tell me that for whatever reason Z didn't want to be friends anymore. I could not think of what I had done to get silence in return. I was hurt because of how much the silence screamed in my ears. How was it that the lack of words were saying more than if one or two had been said? I’ll answer my own question by saying it’s because silence is still communication and let me tell you, it has power.

I wish I could say that this story was made up and that I’ve heard from or seen Z. Unfortunately, I haven’t and I'm still confused beyond belief. You were probably expecting a happy ending to this blog post, but that's something that I don't have for this one. I know I mostly spoke in the past tense in my storytelling, but I most definitely still have all of the confused/sad/angry feelings that I had on Tuesday. I wish I had answers. I am trying to hold onto hope that I may still get an answer, but for now, the silence is still lingering and it’s only getting louder as time goes on.