The Quiet Isn’t Mine to Break

Sitting beside a friend, the sea breeze gushing through our hair, I realised we hadn’t spoken a word for easily five minutes. The moment that awareness settled in, an old, familiar fear flickered awake… the fear that my silence might cost me his interest, that my presence might begin to feel less necessary. Almost reflexively, my mind began sifting through possible topics, rummaging for anything that could stitch the moment back together. I was meeting him after almost a year, and the prospect of running out of things to say felt strangely exposing. The vague, self-imposed expectation that I should be the one holding, guiding, and fine-tuning the delicate tugs and pulls of conversation with any interlocutor made me more anxious than I wanted to admit. Eventually, I did manage to bring something up, and the dialogue that followed settled into an easy rhythm, carrying us comfortably through the rest of the meeting.

I came back home later that night, and even though I had genuinely enjoyed myself, my mind could not help but accentuate the familiar dilemma I often find myself in. This fear of running out of things to say, of appearing dull or somehow banal, is not new. It is a feeling I have been subconsciously suppressing for years. It rarely steps into the spotlight on its own because, more often than not, I manage to reach for something to keep the exchange alive and rescue the moment before it slips into awkward stillness. Yet the effort it demands, and the quiet panic beneath it, always seem to linger long after the conversation has moved on.

Going through some of my private journal entries, I found evidence that hints at what might actually be the seed for the weed of a feeling I have let grow inside me for so many years. For the longest time, I have been obsessed with bonds. I grew up believing, and the formal studies on the subject corroborate it, that surrounding oneself with people one shares quality bonds with helps one cope with stress better, lowering cortisol and boosting immune responses, helps one bounce back from hardships by providing comfort, empathy, and psychological safety, and even slows cognitive decline. I can keep listing the benefits, but that is certainly not the point here.

For me, one of the most essential means to nurture an already formed bond and to create new ones has been the act of having endless conversations with people until I have carved out a space where they feel safe enough to reach out whenever they want to share the smallest, most trite moments of their everyday lives. The quiet competition I subject myself to has always revolved around being the first person who comes to mind when someone thinks of sharing even the most inconsequential detail of their day.

But before I subject myself to all the scrutiny here, I cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that social media often creates the appearance of closeness while the quality of our conversations remains under a quiet siege. Existing in each other’s periphery is one thing... being present in each other’s minds is another. To back this up, I have my cousins to thank, who often tell me how absolutely baffling it is that they know far more about the daily theatrics of some flashy influencer than about their own friends and acquaintances. The shallowness that has begun to slink into our conversations is something everyone feels, yet very few acknowledge aloud. And it would be wrong to blame the world entirely... it does demand real, deliberate effort to mend this rather than immersing oneself in that eternal ocean of reels.

I used to take pride in being the one trying to hold this delicate thread. It began with the realisation that I had far too much to lose. The sort of amazing people I have gradually surrounded myself with would probably stand last on any list of things I could ever take for granted. When conversations would stall, it felt as if the relationship itself was slipping. I carried a constant urge to patch every tiny tear before the whole fabric gave way. I would compensate by knowing more about their lives, paying closer attention, remembering their milestones, and hardly ever offering anything in return... later justifying it by telling myself that it was not important to burden them with details about my own life.

This entire façade I had constructed collapsed the moment resentment began to occupy space. The quiet loneliness I felt at times had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with exhaustion. The ache of being the only one keeping the light on in a room others enter only when convenient soon fused with the fear that without this role, I might simply disappear from their lives.

Reading up on it and doing what I do best i.e., having conversations with people, it has become hard for me to deny that we are living in an age of quiet friendships. Most friendships do not fade because of conflict... they fade because of neglect. With time, I have realised the following two points :-

1. A person who willingly initiates or sustains a conversation with me is choosing connection.

2. A person who does not is not necessarily rejecting me... they are simply not prioritising me and that is completely alright.

I have learned that not every silence is abandonment. Sometimes people are exhausted, overwhelmed or momentarily emotionally unavailable, and it has more often than not got nothing to do with me. The only thing I can do is respect their space and let them be, instead of trying to fill the silence while mistakenly treating it as a gap in the friendship itself.

Clubbing all of this together helped me understand that not every connection is mine to rescue. I am not obligated to be the relationship caretaker for everyone. It is vital for me to recognise and respect my own space and capabilities without holding myself to unrealistic or superhuman expectations. I have begun actively noticing which conversations feel nourishing vs draining and placing my energy accordingly.

The conversations about all this were not as difficult as I imagined. Whenever I have spoken honestly about what I am feeling, I have found the people around me empathising and taking a step forward to bridge whatever gap I sensed. Learning to leave space for others to reciprocate has made me value mutuality over constant effort.

Conversations are both fragile and miraculous. They are technically made of nothing but breath and words, yet they have the power to sustain entire relationships. And when it comes to relationships, I have been teaching myself that silences matter too. If someone cares, they find a way... and if they do not, their silence reveals the truth. There is a subtle power in reminding myself of this whenever I feel people slipping. It is meant to be a constant back and forth that feels comfortable and enjoyable to both sides, and if even the smallest thing feels off, it helps to speak about it openly rather than shying away out of fear of burdening someone.

I still reach out... but no longer out of fear of disappearing. I reach out because conversation is how I honour the relationships that honour me back. I have realised that the only responsibility I should truly carry is to strive toward choosing better conversations.

Not more, but better. Not louder, but genuine. Not constant, but mutual. And the occasional quiet that comes in between… is not mine to break!

And if you’ve made it this far into this little letter of mine, thank you. Truly. Take one more step and tell me what you thought of this article. Whether it’s a single line or a long message… I’d love to know. So yes, your response matters deeply to me.

Find me on Instagram at @ankeshkprasad or drop me an email at [email protected]. I try to read and respond to every message because your words matter to me more than you know.

If you haven’t already, please do check out my debut psychological thriller fiction novel, They Would Die For You!
Available now in both Paperback and Kindle editions.