{circa 2006)
Today I was reading one of my regular blogs and it was on the topic of silent dinners. The blogger mentioned that she often saw couples eating dinner at a restaurant and not saying anything to each other and she thought it was sad. She interpreted it as the couples had communication problems or they had run out of things to say. She viewed it as a bad thing. Many of the commenters agreed.
It really got me thinking. Hubs and I have lots of quiet time. Sometimes we eat at the dinner table in silence or we just sit on the couch together, not saying anything. I actually love these times. Often I am exhausted from work and so is he and it's so nice to just sit in each others company without feeling like we have to have a conversation. To tell you the truth, hubs doesn't really care about my day to day dealing of the office - not in a bad way, but he just doesn't understand the office culture and what I do on a daily basis. And to tell you the truth again, I don't enjoy reliving my life at the office for an entire hour after getting home, no do I need to hear about his day at the golf course in detail. But I never feel like it's because we don't care about each others life. If something out of the ordinary happens we definitely share, but I try really hard not to bring work home or complain about work to him and he does the same. We talk about lots of other things - the future, what's happening in the news, our families, etc. However, we also enjoy just being in each others company, without having to say anything.
I distinctly remember a time we went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant and we ate the majority of our meal in silence. Neither minded at all. We stared at each other and smiled a lot, but we didn't have a very long drawn out conversation. However, I wonder how many observers thought it was strange, thought we were fighting, or thought we we had some communication problems. Hopefully they could see the love that eminated from both of us, even if it was verbalized.
What about you? Do you enjoy the quiet times or find it awkward?
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Yours is so sweet! I'm hankering to know the story of how you and your husband met...!
ReplyDeleteAnd I do like quiet times, too, but when we sit down to eat, we just talk about everything and anything. I guess it's time where we have just to ourselves for a few minutes. I can appreciate the quiet, though!
That's funny - I will say that sometimes we talk for hours right before we fall asleep. It's like you can't shut us up and we constantly say - ok - be quiet, I wanna sleep and then continue to talk for another hour. Maybe it's because we're sooooo hungry we can't stop to say anything. This could actually be true because I have been known to shovel my food down at marathon pace - without stopping to breathe!
ReplyDeleteI don't think quiet times between people who love each other are bad at all. On the contrary, I think they're a sign of a love strong enough to withstand the need to be constantly entertaining each other. If you can just sit and enjoy each other's company, I think that's a sign of a good, content relationship. If there was nothing but silence all the time, that might be a problem. It's really up to the individual couple, though.
ReplyDeleteI used to think it looked sad, until I was happily married. Now I understand how nice it is to have a comfortable silence. Especially since my husband is a quiet guy who enjoys silence - I give him that because I love him. :-) I'm glad you found someone who makes you happy during those long talks and in quiet. :-)
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