If a person has been in close touch with you virtually every single day, if he or she suddenly ceases this pattern and becomes elusive, evasive, reluctant to answer questions or simply becomes difficult to reach, you are, as a typical Human Being, going to feel this change -- your intuition (perhaps even to extent of paranoia) will begin sending warning signals to you that either something negative has happened to the relationship or that something negative is going to happen to the relationship. The uncharacteristic discontinuance of communications sends signals of its own.
A failure to maintain at least a fair amount of communication with those whom you care about, either socially or from the standpoint of conducting business will be perceived by the usual recipient of either your attentions, confidences or affections as a strong negative. In the sudden absence of communications, suspicion and even anger tend to grow. It is simply a function of the way our hard-wired and sensitive intuition "pushes us."
If a time-honored companion suddenly breaks with tradition and leaves us wandering in the darkness of the unknown -- to speculate in silence -- when and if we emerge, we will be much less trusting than we were before.
The action to avoid the worst consequences associated with these periodic episodes of going undercover, silent or being hard to reach can be mitigated on the part of either party by doing one or more of the following:
1) Make an effort to reach out periodically and to keep in touch with everyone in your address book or registry;
2) If you must "go silent" for a brief period, be certain to offer an explanation without your even being asked to do this;
3) If an associate or colleague has "gone silent," use the telephone (email is too cold, and is always appropriate for heart-to-heart discussions about sensitive issues), call up and ask to be "brought up to date," or mention (my favorite), "I hadn't heard from you in a while. I was concerned that you might have gotten ill, or might need help with something. What can I do?"
4) Forward articles which may be of interest to your comrade with a personal email note of transmittal (if you've been too busy to speak), mentioning how busy you've been and how you intend to get around to actually being in touch by telephone;
5) If you hear of a colleague's or friend's achievement through a third party, send the achiever a congratulatory email, containing a promise to be in touch soon.
Remember: Silence creates a vacuum that becomes filled with frustration, fear or even forgetfulness.
Douglas E. Castle
p.s. Remember the eerie, telling lyrics to Simon and Garfunkel's hit song (now an oldie from the 1960s), "The Sound Of Silence."
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