Try not to do this at home!

By Sean Thackeray

Task: to take part in something I had never done before, no matter how stupid or dangerous and then reflect. This is what was said to us in an email by the Journalism Department of Rhodes University. Somehow I achieved placing the two guidelines (stupid and dangerous) into one momentous feet... Inviting myself to my handbrake/girlfriends house and ignoring her in every possible way for two hours. This neglect I am speaking of, involved looking her in the eye (this was extremely important), without showing a hint of emotion, flinching at the idea or efforts of any physical contact or collisions, and lastly not opening my mouth after almost uttering a disconcerting hello.

The results of my experiment/stupidity were quite astonishing, as my palms started to sweat whilst in the car with her on the way to her house, somehow she did not pick up at all that I had not said a word in ten minutes, this probably was due to the fact that over the 5km driven to get to her "pad" she had probably spewed out in the region of 1000 sentences. My plan was going perfectly until we were sitting on the couch watching MTV, she reached for my hand and my body jerked as if I had stuck my hand into a boiling kettle. This did not work in my favour and I presumed things would go down hill from here. Surprisingly this was not the case... and what happened next proved that the silent treatment always works, ALWAYS!!!

If I placed myself in her shoes, I would imagine that the person ignoring me was hiding something and was too scared to let it out. Well clearly that is not what most people think, my ears started to be pounded with confessions, "I am sorry for whatever I have done" and "why do you hate me so much?" (I am not sure how this last cannon ball dropped from the sky?)

After another hour of bombardment it was time for the young lass to give me a lift back to my residence, on the drive home after still not having uttered a word I was given an ultimatum: "if you do not tell me what I have done to make you this way then I am taking this silence as you breaking up with me." Needless to say I stuck to my guns and remained silent and started to think how I would make it up to her later. this escapade of mine proved that silence is the most lethal weapon of character destruction. But I do not recommend the flinching and please remember that if one should even consider trying this, make sure you have a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers ready for the end of this dangerously stupid test.