The Quiet Game

There is a strange game we have all started playing.

Nobody announced the rules. There is no referee, no winner, and certainly no trophy waiting at the end. Yet somehow, we all seem to know how to play it.

The quiet game.

I’m no stranger to people. I’ve always been around them, and I’ve never needed much encouragement to start a conversation. But I’m also guilty of something most of us probably are: walking past people without really looking.

You see someone. You register them. Then you keep moving.

I did it too.

Until I started noticing the people I had been walking past.

Orphans. Insure talent. Personalities that seemed to have deliberately built walls around themselves. People who, for one reason or another, had become incredibly good at making themselves smaller than they actually were.

So I tried to connect.

And, for the most part, it worked.

Conversations happened. Doors opened. People started talking. There was something there—an exchange that felt genuine enough to make you wonder why the distance existed in the first place.

Then I flipped back to Facebook.

And suddenly, I saw the same people through the eyes they had chosen to present to the world.

That was the disconnect.

Not necessarily between me and them, but between the person standing in front of me and the person being displayed online.

And lately, I’ve been sniffing around some of those same people again.

Something has changed.

They put themselves out there considerably less. You can see it. The photographs disappear. The opinions become quieter. The personality that once slipped through the cracks becomes harder to find.

Maybe that’s growth.

Maybe it’s exhaustion.

Maybe people simply learned that being seen comes with a price.

And I really did try.

There comes a point, however, where you realize there are only so many times you can extend an olive branch.

You can extend it.

You can leave it three feet away and wait.

Or, metaphorically speaking, you can try to beat some sense into people until they finally understand that you’re standing there trying to reach them.

But I’m tired of both strategies.

Because eventually you have to accept the disconnect.

And strangely enough, I like the disconnect.

Not because I don’t care.

Because I finally understand that the distance itself says something.

The choices we’ve made are reflected in the views we receive.

Who we allow close.

Who we keep at arm’s length.

What we post.

What we hide.

Who gets to know the real version of us and who only gets the version that survives the algorithm.

Maybe the quiet game isn’t about ignoring people at all.

Maybe it’s about watching.

Watching who notices when you stop talking.

Watching who reaches back when you stop reaching first.

Watching who only exists in your life when you’re the one making the effort.

And perhaps that’s the uncomfortable truth about our disconnect:

Sometimes the distance isn’t something that happened to us.

Sometimes we built it.

Brick by brick.

Post by post.

Choice by choice.

And eventually, somebody on the other side of the wall decides they’re tired of knocking.

That’s where I am now.

Not angry.

Not chasing.

Not disappearing.

Just watching.

And for once, I’m perfectly comfortable with the silence.