Indifference also hurts because it is not clear; it is confusing. Silence both leaves a door open and, very loudly, says multitudes. Ignoring her calls very loudly said that you didn't want to hear from her/talk to her, yet at the same time left the opportunity: maybe you would pick up the next time she called. Maybe you would call her back. Maybe you were just busy. Silence leaves so many what-ifs open that if you really like someone who just ignores you, sometimes you'll be tempted to carry the torch longer because you haven't been given a hard shut-down. I've learned this and I've also learned that, for me, if someone ignores me or I don't hear back from them, to take it as a cold, hard, clear "no/not interested." But it is especially hard when you kind of like someone. I had a guy in my life I'd been involved with and I recently texted him and told him that I felt things were cooling off and if that was the case just to let me know; then I would stop bothering him.

I heard nothing back. And then I deleted his number. It took me a long time to get to that point and maybe I can be quick with that particular trigger, but the fact of the matter also is that if things weren't cooling off, he would have been quick to correct me on that (no?).

I'm not a big believer in closure but when you go from being involved to ignoring someone, not only is there no closure but there is no clear indication that it's over. There was a different guy (lil will remember; I called him #shawty) that I went cold on and ignored for a month. Drunkenly one night I finally relented and texted him; all I did was tell him that I thought he had been cute - even used the past tense. Well - due to the fact that I'd only gone silent on him and not given him some big talk about why I'd gone silent on him or the fact that I considered myself done with him - he interpreted my month of silence merely as a "holding pattern" sort of thing, and we've seen each other twice recently, and are talking again.

Silence is an interesting weapon/tactic in relationships. It depends on the person of course; if I had been ignored for a month I would have deleted the guy's number, and moved on (*unless* I really liked him!). #Shawty instead intepreted it as me being busy or something. Ultimately we did talk a little bit about why I had stopped talking to him, which I think was good - I had felt he was cold and uncommunicative before and now he's making an effort to communicate better - is that because I'd ignored him for a month or because I finally raised that issue? Not sure. I agree that at any rate it is very powerful and speaks volumes.