The Silence Isn’t Awkward. You Are.

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

on the absence of inhabited silence in modern intimacy — and how to return to presence

In contemporary relationships, silence has become a void to be filled.
A glitch in the performance of connection.
People do not fall silent because they are at ease — they fall silent because they have run out of content.

And so, in a scene now common:
two bodies lie side by side in a bedroom,
each absorbed in a different screen,
and they say they’re “spending time together.”
They call it calm. But it isn’t.
It’s not intimacy. It’s parallel distraction.

This kind of silence is not inhabited.
It is background noise in human form.
A shared avoidance.
A bypassing of presence.

True silence is different.
It isn’t passive. It’s full.
It has weight, breath, tension.

It is felt in the body —
when two people exist in the same space without needing to perform for each other.
Not because they’re bored.
But because they are entirely present.

It is the silence between two aware beings.
The kind of silence that says:
I’m here. You’re here. Nothing is missing.

Most people can’t hold that silence.
They squirm. They giggle. They scroll.
Because to be fully present with another being, without distraction,
means you must also be fully present with yourself.

And that is terrifying.

So what does it take to inhabit silence?
Not techniques. Not breathing exercises.
Just three things:

1. Stability of presence
   You exist without needing noise to justify your being.

2. Absence of demand
   You’re not waiting for the other to do something. You’re already with them.

3. Relational awareness
   You know the silence is not empty — it’s shared. You are both inside it.

This is not the silence of boredom.
It’s the silence of recognition.
Of listening with the whole body.
Of not needing to escape.

Silence is not what happens when we stop speaking.
It’s what happens when we dare to stay.
Together. Awake.
Without distraction. Without projection.
Just the real —
breathing.