I ask this bc my (26F) boyfriend (24M) always has to eat with background noise. We’re at the dinner table and he has his iPad with YouTube. Or in other instances where we’re falling asleep and he has YT playing. I’m so use to quiet and silence. Especially my sleep and he calls me weird 😂 I’m curious to everyone else why this is the case
Comments
❝always has to eat with background noise❞
yes, and it drives me nuts!
I’ve always wondered how these sort of people expect others to sit and be with them if they can’t even sit and be with themselves?
needless to say, I found my answer— never trust someone that can’t sit alone in silence with themself.
edit: formatting
A lot of the time, the question isn’t “why can’t they sit in silence?”, it’s “what thoughts come to the surface in silence that they’d do anything to drown out?”
The most likely cause is uncomfortable thoughts or feelings when there is silence. If correct, this may go way back and he’s not even aware that this is why. You might need to sit in separate spaces occasionally so you can get your fix of peace 🙂
Because people are just fashioned the way they are. Different folks, different strokes.
I work with people who have had a trauma, they are unable to sit in quiet and need a constant distraction to keep going from moment to moment.
I have ADHD and OCD, and even with medication my brain does tend to race and wander. it makes me feel restless if I don’t get enough stimulation into it. I don’t need noise, per se, but I need some sort of sensory input.
Not every reason for it is bad, sometimes it can be that they’re used to a lot of noise because they grew in a loud family that always talked a lot and always had the TV on
I have ADHD and sometimes I find it easier to fall asleep by focusing on a noise like listening to someone talk in a YouTube video because my brain is too hyperactive and that’s not conducive to sleep
…. the lack of ability to embrace boredom may be a sign of lack of intelligence :/
I’m with you. My wife can’t sleep without the tv on in the background. Thankfully I can sleep with or without sound.
Trauma, social anxiety, bad social ques, stimming etc. I find it annoying as well, but I suck it up or avoid those situations when I need it.
Silent treatment was once used as a form of punishment. So silence in convo or the room feels more dramatic.
Cue awkward fast talking randomness to compensate for the dead air. Otherwise self blame and loathing set it. At least for me anyways. (Silence alone tho, is fine).
It’s like the brain’s way of avoiding its own thoughts. We’re so used to being online 24/7 that when it’s quiet, minds are like, what do we do now?
Sometimes I turn on music because I don’t like hearing other people eat.
for me the tinnitus might be the core cause
listen to car radio by twenty one pilots, this reminds me of the lyrics
or read the lyrics
For me, it’s just what I’m used to. I grew up in a house where we always had the radio or other music playing all day. Total silence is unnerving to me. I always have music or the TV on in the background.
My freshman year of college I lucked out and had a single… But my need for noise started then. Being away from home and completely alone for the first time… Combined with noise from dorm housing… I can’t sleep now without the TV on… As for meals, if I’m alone I put tv on but when I’m with someone I don’t. I don’t love silence unless I’m reading something.
Silence is his boss fight, background noise is his power-up
My mind is too loud and I also get distracted by background noise.
Maybe he has misophonia or tinnitus, those can make “silence” unbearable
I lived most of my life at different main roads in cities. When i was a kid and would go on vacation in rural areas i would get anxious because it was so eerily quiet at night. So even today i always like some background noise, no matter where i am or what i do.
a lot of amateur psychologists in here
I only want to sit in silence without noise. Constant noise makes me feel like my head might explode. I want an unending supply of headphones and the strength to hand them to people who are creating noise around me.
Also, the sleeping with YouTube would be a deal breaker. Headphones or the street man.
I’ve got misophonia and bad tinnitus. I cannot stand being around people eating when it’s otherwise quiet, the sound drives me fucking nuts.
Otherwise I can do silence sometimes, but often I much, much prefer having background noise to drown out tinnitus. I cannot sleep without a fan (though I’ve found some earbuds specifically meant for sleep that play nature sound, which is absolutely rad)
I know for myself I normally cannot fall asleep in the quiet of my bedroom. My 113 year old house makes way too many random noises that capture my attention when trying to fall asleep. To counteract this i always have a fan on in the warmer months and noise machine in the winter.
My mind starts racing and then I start overthinking everything. Having music/white noise gives me something to focus on and that helps a bit
Well I could explain why I cant but it will involve a lot of medical jargon and acronyms.
Long story short, brain born weird.
I’ve noticed that a lot in my neurodivergent friends
ADHD
I love music. Almost everything is better with music. Why would i choose to sit in silence if i could be listening to music? Doesn’t make any sense to me.
I’ve got tinnitus. Without some kind of sound playing, it’s a non-stop noise in my head. It can drive one mad.
We grew up without TV until I was 6, in 1978. I have no need or desire to have noise, or constant chatter, plus my job involves people needing me, so I’m drained when I get home. I love peace, my other half has tinnitus so talks aaaaaaaalllllll the time to drain it out. I could smother him sometimes lol, but I tend to sit in the garden rather than commit murder!
Hes the weird one, brain rotted out, dopamine junk monkey
I had a phase where I couldn’t sit with my thoughts. I’d think all sorts of horrible things and spiral, so I’d constantly have some kind of music going, or be on my phone. Problem with that is then I’d constantly be on high alert, and easily overstimulated, since I had a continuous baseline of stimulus. I think a lot of people are dealing with that.
It wasn’t until I started treating my thoughts as clouds passing over instead of rain falling down, that I could bear to sit in silence and let everything go quiet.
I have tinnitus and if I sit in silence I will literally go insane.
For me, it’s because I’m easily distracted. A steady stream of background noise helps me filter out incidental noises.
Because i can hear electricity bro. It gets uncomfortable. I need something to cover the weird “edge of hearing” noises.
I need silence. Almost all of the time. In my car, in my home. At work I play music about half of the time for my students.
It is usually trauma based. The silence allows thoughts and can mean the unknown. Or if your boyfriend has ADHD could also be that his brain races too much in silence and he needs sounds in the background to have his brain focus on one thing.
Because the voices in my head will get louder if there’s no noise to drown then out
[removed]
I have anxiety and adhd, I find this hard most of the time, but recently, with my treatment, i have been trying to get into just sitting in silence. When Im walking my dog or eating a quick meal, its nice to just be quiet. But sometimes, when my anxiety is really going off, the silence is just a soundboard for more anxious thoughts, so focusing on a podcast or calming music really helps.
I used to want a totally black and silent room to fall asleep in. Now I turn a loud fan on when I sleep. It’s like my brain can’t shut off, every notice, gust of wind, tree breach outside my window that makes noise just pulls my attention and won’t let me sleep. If I have a big loud fan going, I can’t hear any of that anymore. It’s almost like the fan going is my silence.
I can do everything else in silence though, just sleep I have the issue with.
I’m an only child and I m very comfortable in silence whether I’m relaxing or doing chores. My fiancée grew up with 5 siblings, and always has to have some background noise on.
I can also just sit there in silence like in a waiting room. I drift off in my mind, whereas my partner has to be on his phone or fidgeting with whatever is around. Too much effort for me
If I don’t have some kind of background noise, I can’t focus on tasks (or even hobbies) or quiet my brain enough to sleep. ADHD is a bitch, especially unmedicated.
Everyone is different. I fall asleep watching tv most nights.
For me it’s related to trauma and ADHD. If there’s a podcast or music playing it helps kind of turn the volume down on the absolute chaos that is going on in my mind 24/7 and also distracts me from the hypervigilence.
Is your silence enjoyable? That’s a totally foreign concept to me haha. People with ADHD often feel like we have 100 tabs open in our brain, an assignment due in an hour and 3 different songs playing in there. It’s overwhelming.
Maybe you’re a loud eater and sleeper and he doesn’t want to seem rude by telling you.
Parents that never let their children entertain themselves. Dinner eaten in front of tv. Parents that don’t have conversations with kids but stick a device in their hands.
I love silence, and so many people I know can’t go 5 minutes without stimulation. Drives me friggin bananas.
I get there may be some circumstances where it’s unavoidable, but for damn near most people it’s a poor coping mechanism and I wish they’d seek therapy instead. Or use headphones. Either way, stop subjecting everyone else to their problem.
I don’t like to eat in silence when other people are around, simply because I extremely hate the sound of chewing
I grew up with trauma. A violent parent. I always need a night light and usually white noise to sleep
Right!? I LOVE silence. It feels like a nice hug.
I need to watch something (or have company) if I’m eating a meal, but if I’m just doing things around the house I’m always in silence. So I don’t have a problem with silence at all, I need it and appreciate it, but I don’t eat much if I’m only focused on the food while eating.
Do you have an inside voice in your head? Like when you’re thinking about doing something, do you hear your voice say, “okay we’ll get the dog to the boarding house, drop the kids off with Ma, and take our weekend vacation to AC”? Or do you think in words and pictures? I know that not everyone has an inside voice and it is my untested hypothesis that it’s much harder to sit in silence doing nothing when you don’t have an inside voice. Cases like eating are different. Sometimes I want to be efficient and catch up with a TV show while I eat. Sometimes I just want to focus on a good meal. Doing specific activities in silence will change the answer for why people choose to do it in silence or not
They’re weak minded individuals
Understimulation or heightened survival instincts from trauma, know how the birds go quiet when a predator is nearby? Its natural for that level of silence to make you feel uneasy
Probably ADHD and has sound sensitivity. It’s easier to just play music rather than ask everyone to chew more quietly.