Thursday, August 21, 2008

Silent Treatment

Have you ever given silent treatment to anyone? Or has anyone given it to you?

I do know someone who does it to their spouse on regular basis for every single time they both disagree on some point, which is in fact almost on weekly basis.

What makes people do it? What makes them not express their feelings?

Does silent treatment resolve the problem at hand, if at all you'd call it a problem?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, believe me that is an excellent way to deal with real nasty people... when I have an irritating person around, I prefer keeping silent, not at all responding to their wierd comments or taunts...And that is what irriates them...
But when u do it with ppl u love or care for, it's different...As far as I am concerned... It is more like, "What can I say?"...

aneri_masi said...

Agree with silencekilled on treating annoying folks.

As for people we care about...lots of reasons
1) To get some attention, get the other person to say sorry?
2) You really don't want to take the conversation/discussion further
3) Silence will help you cool down

I hate it when this happens though. Totally kills me! Makes me feel such a small, insignificant, worthless person when someone does that to me.

Sayesha said...

Hmm... I've done the silent treatment. When you don't care anymore, sometimes you just need to have silence before you cut off completely.

JD said...

Yupp .. I have done it ... But I do it so frequently that people interprets in its own way ..
And ya I was used to get this treatment from my parents when I was a kid... Those golden days ..

chinmai said...

silent treatment meaning .. not speaking out wats there in mind just to avoid undue hassles or trying to avoid someone ? is it what u mean ?

Unknown said...

i am usually silent. but that doesn't mean i am hurting somebody or dealing with somebody for some reasons. it might be the very nature of a person.
anyways as u said silent treatment works best for you sometimes when you have so much to say but don't know what. we should speak intelligently in these situations and inevitably we are not in state of mind to say the apt thing. so better keep quite.

Unknown said...

I pretty much agree with everyone's thoughts here. Silence doesn't work if you are trying to resolve something.

On the other hand when resolution isn't what you have in mind, then it can have its uses.

Funnily enough the judges on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa chose to do that on the show this weekend. And it was obvious it was an ego play.

Pitu said...

I do it ALL the time hehe. Mostly when I am mad, I get so mad I don't want to say a word for fear I'll explode.

Kanan said...

Sheetal, hmm interesting point you make. Do you think their irritation will make them change eventually? I would like to know what you think of when it comes to people we care for.

Kashmira, say if they said sorry to you. Have you thought about what they could be thinking about you after they apologized to you? I know sometimes it doesn't matter but still it makes us wonder how they have changed their thinking about us after the silent treatment.

Sayesha, I can understand. Do you think that relationships that like would ever improve?

Jaydip, I remember, but I think parents do it for very little while and eventually they do end up explaining what we did wrong so it's not so bad.

Chinmai, more like avoiding someone or avoiding talking to them (e.g. not returning calls, emails, or if you're in same home, just ignore them altogether as if they don't exist).

Kumar, I agree with you on that. :)

Aspi, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Does it take us towards resolution? Ego - laakh rupiye ki baat, right there.

Pitu, true, it doesn't make sense to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts.