Unpopular opinion: I used to HATE complete silence until my neighbor called me out

I always worked with background noise like podcasts or TV. My neighbor in the apartment below sent me a polite note saying my bass was rattling her ceiling at midnight. I felt awful so I turned everything off for a week. Now I actually crave quiet time after dinner and my focus on reading has gotten WAY better. Has anyone else had someone force them to change their noise habits?

3 comments

3 Comments

danielnelson14h ago

Wait hold on, you HATED silence? Like actually hated it? That blows my mind because I'm the complete opposite - I can't sleep without a fan running and white noise blasting. But your neighbor sending a polite note about the bass rattling at midnight is SO on point, I had a similar thing happen with my upstairs neighbor stomping around at 2 AM. I think getting called out like that really makes you stop and think about how your habits affect other people. It's wild how you went from needing constant noise to actually craving quiet time after dinner. I wonder if our brains just get addicted to the noise and we don't realize it until someone forces us to break the cycle. Good on you for actually listening to your neighbor though. Most people just get defensive and keep doing it.

holly_reed5511h ago

I lived in a college dorm my first year and everyone had music or TV going constantly. I was the same as you, I thought people who liked silence were strange. But after that neighbor note I started paying attention to how much noise I was actually surrounded by. It was kind of shocking when I realized I had background noise going from the moment I woke up until I fell asleep. The first few nights were rough honestly, my brain kept waiting for something to listen to. But after maybe a week I started noticing things I never heard before, like the rain or just the sound of my own breathing. It's like my brain finally got a chance to rest for once.

hill.margaret11h agoMost Upvoted

But here's what I keep circling back to - do you think it was the actual silence that changed things, or was it more about finally NOT having your brain trying to process noise AND whatever you're doing at the SAME time? Because I had a similar wake-up call when my roommate called me out for having talk radio on while I was trying to study, and looking back I think I was using noise to avoid actually focusing. It's like our brains get so used to multitasking that we forget what single-tasking feels like. Was it hard at first, that first night with zero noise?