THE SHRUG THAT SAYS, ‘I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT’

— When silence dresses itself in gesture.

It doesn’t come with tears. Or explanations. Just a quick lift of the shoulders, sometimes accompanied by a tight-lipped smile or eyes that dart elsewhere. A shrug. Barely a second long. And yet, somehow, it says everything.

“I’m fine.”
“Don’t ask.”
“Please drop it.”
All folded into one simple, quiet movement.

In a world that insists on articulation—say what you feel, share your truth, talk it out—the shrug stands in quiet rebellion. Especially in cultures like ours, where not talking is often the default, not the exception. In Nepali households, emotional restraint is learned early. You don’t complain too much. You don’t make a scene. You carry what you’re going through quietly, like a bag of rice balanced on your back—visible in shape, invisible in sound.

The shrug is part of that grammar. A gesture passed between siblings when one comes home quieter than usual. Between friends walking back from school, when the silence feels heavier than the sky. Between spouses in the kitchen, when something’s wrong but the rice still needs to be stirred.

It's not always an act of avoidance. Sometimes, it’s the only way to hold pain without letting it spill. Words can feel too sharp, too exposing. But the body? The body knows how to speak in riddles. A shrug gives just enough to say, “There’s something here,” but not enough to ask for help. It protects and reveals, all at once.

There’s also a quiet generosity in it. Because to shrug instead of speak is sometimes a way of saying, “Don’t worry about me.” It’s the emotional version of cleaning up your own mess so others don’t have to see it. It asks for space, not attention.

And yet, for those who know how to listen, the shrug is deafening. Parents often miss it in teenagers, reading it as attitude when it’s actually exhaustion. Friends sometimes misread it as indifference, not knowing how much it took for the person to just show up that day. In relationships, it can go unnoticed entirely—just another non-response in a week full of distractions.

But to recognize the shrug is to acknowledge what it costs someone to not say what they’re feeling. It’s to know that inside that simple movement might be a storm of emotion, held back by a thread.

What would happen if we responded to the shrug differently? Not with pressure—“Just say it, what’s wrong?”—but with presence. A cup of tea placed quietly next to someone. A message later that says, “I saw your silence. I'm here.” Not every pain needs pulling out. Some just need space to settle.

In the end, the shrug isn’t a failure of communication. It’s a form of it. One that relies not on language, but on the hope that someone, somewhere, will understand the weight behind what’s not being said.

And sometimes, that’s all we really want—to be understood, even in silence.