One of my oldest friends told me about one of her fondest memories in life. I brought her to the beach one night. We talked for a bit and then we sat there in silence for a long while., doing nothing but feeling the salty breeze and sand between our toes, hearing the crash of the waves, and noticing the moment. She said I gave her a profound gift, just when she needed it. She told me this at least twenty five years after the fact, and I new exactly what night she meant.

Enjoy the silence.

To me that is an indication of a well established relationship. You can enjoy spending time with someone without feeling compelled to a performative kind of interaction. You can just both exist together and that is enough.

As a "neurotypical", if I understand that term correctly, I can enjoy a conversation and silence alike without awkwardness. I'd rather have silence than to sit with someone who insists on filling every pause with meaningless chatter.

This doesn’t really track. Being able to sit in companiable silence is a classic goalpost for any good relationship.

Neurotypical here: in my experience it's mostly people with anxiety or ADHD that can't handle long silences.

An old boss of mine couldn't make it 5.2 seconds of silence on a call without blurting out something including the phrase "awkward silence" and then being the only one to laugh at it

Sweet, sweet silence.

ITT: Spock-types: as a non Spock-type, I can say that I am exactly like Spock. Here is a graduated list of why I think I'm a non Spock-type, in order of severity of overt presentation. This is followed by a list in the same format and spacing, of why I think everyone is a Spock-type.

Thank you. I shall now resume my focused studies. Conversation concluded.

I teach, and if I need to get students to speak up and answer to statistics practice problems, I just let us go silent for extended periods. It's enough to crack them.

Funny enough, it's usually the neurodivergent who answer in my other class, though (which is about neurodivergent children, lol).

Me and the cabbie each and every time.