No Response Is a Response

when silence became its own language

I can’t remember exactly what I was spiraling about…a boy? A friend? Something at work that probably felt more dramatic than it actually was? But in a moment of needing advice, as a naive twenty-something, an older coworker gave me some I’ll never forget:

“No response is a response.”

Boom! There it was.

She said it so calmly and sternly but also almost casually with the confidence people have when they’ve already lived through the lesson you’re still learning the hard way.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Was it cold? A little passive? Passive aggressive? Or just straight up bitchy? I was deep in my “clear communication” era, the queen of “talking things through,” and drafting Pulitzer-worthy texts and essays to convince someone to understand me, or to care.