I ask a person if I can stay in his place, there is no reply, and I have to guess that it is “no”.
I see it as a pretty standard polite answer: you’re asking for a favour, the lack of an affirmative “yes” surely means “no” and the absence of a clear rejection de-escalates and allows you to save some face.
Not Tell Culture, certainly, but the usual garden-variety Guess Culture.
The problem for asker is uncertainty in this case. Did they read my letter? Do they ignore only this request or decided to ban me forever because of my impolite request? Do they think that my status is so low that they even don’t bother reply anything?
But for the receiver of the request there are several benefits: no emotional energy is invested in making communication, and he could always change his mind, and said that he didn’t see my letter.
In Guess Culture if you didn’t receive an answer, the answer is “no”. You check that the communications are still working by asking about some unrelated minor thing.
I see it as a pretty standard polite answer: you’re asking for a favour, the lack of an affirmative “yes” surely means “no” and the absence of a clear rejection de-escalates and allows you to save some face.
Not Tell Culture, certainly, but the usual garden-variety Guess Culture.
The problem for asker is uncertainty in this case. Did they read my letter? Do they ignore only this request or decided to ban me forever because of my impolite request? Do they think that my status is so low that they even don’t bother reply anything?
But for the receiver of the request there are several benefits: no emotional energy is invested in making communication, and he could always change his mind, and said that he didn’t see my letter.
In Guess Culture if you didn’t receive an answer, the answer is “no”. You check that the communications are still working by asking about some unrelated minor thing.