Monday, February 8, 2010

Silence

I once went to a silent dance party.

When you walked in, someone gave you a pair of headphones to wear - the funny, ear-muff looking kind.  Each pair came with a little remote control allowing you to choose to listen to one of three stations.  So, you could go up to someone, start dancing with them and tell pretty much right away if they were on the same wavelength as you (pun intended).  It was pretty amazing.  You had so much control!  If you got sick of a song, you could change the station.  You could decide how loud you wanted the music to be so you didn't have to go home with your ears were ringing (unless you wanted to).  But soon enough the novelty wore off.  The headphones were uncomfortable. It was even harder than usual to talk to people.  And you weren't actually in control of what music you listened to since your choices were limited to three stations.  After about five minutes, it was just weird.

This is kind of how I've come to feel about silence from an ex. At first it's great. There are no reminders of them in your inbox or your call log. You don't have to talk to them or see them if you don't want to. Out of sight, out of mind.  But soon enough, you realize that you're not actually in control.  The silence becomes uncomfortable. And then it just becomes weird.

Take 'C' for instance. 'C' is an old flame who I haven't heard from since December 2008.  It is February 2010!  It is driving me a little crazy.  I just want to email him and say, "Are you alive?" Yes? Good. Okay, bye.  'C' and I never talked on a regularly basis to begin with; we'd email randomly maybe every two to three months.  Actually, I used to hate it when he contacted me.  I swear he had this sixth sense.  I wouldn't hear from him and then boom.  Completely out of the blue, he'd email or call me at a moment when I was feeling down or when something significant was going on in my life.  So naturally, when all this happened, I almost expected him to pop back into my life.  But no.  All is quiet on the western front.

What's funny is that I think I should probably be more bothered by the radio silence coming from 'D'.  'D' is my most recent disappointment and I haven't heard from him at all since things ended.  Sure, I may have said something along the lines of "don't bother" when he said he'd call me.  And sure, I guess it's not that crazy that I haven't heard from him, since it's not as thought I ever contact boys after I end things with them, but still!  I can't help but think things should have played out differently with 'D'.

Okay, I know, I could break the silence.  It's mostly pride (and gmail's mail goggles) that's stopping me from emailing 'C' and 'D' myself.  Maybe one day I'll give in, but for now, I'm okay with dancing around in the silence, and maybe I'm just not quite ready for those funny-looking ear-muff headphones to come off.

1 comment:

  1. youre a really good writer. I look forward to reading more :)

    ReplyDelete