There are moments when I do not want someone to tell me what to do.

I do not want a five-step plan. I do not want the situation reframed into a lesson. I do not particularly want to discover what the experience is “trying to teach me.”

Sometimes I just want another person there.

Not necessarily doing anything remarkable. Maybe talking. Maybe listening. Maybe laughing with me when the whole thing has become so ridiculous that laughter is the only reasonable response left.

Maybe simply staying on the other end of the line while I make tea, sort through paperwork, fold laundry, stare at the thing I have been avoiding, or try to gather myself enough to begin.

There is something very ordinary about this kind of company. And perhaps that is exactly why it matters.

We have become very good at trying to fix each other

We live in a culture overflowing with advice.

There is a podcast for almost every problem, a programme for every goal, a book for every season, a coach for every transition and an endless stream of people explaining how we might become healthier, happier, more productive, more organised, more healed or more evolved.

Some of those things are genuinely helpful.

But somewhere along the way, I think we have begun to assume that if another person brings us something difficult, we are supposed to do something with it.

Solve it. Interpret it. Cheer them up. Find the silver lining. Offer the resource. Tell them what worked for us.

Sometimes we are so busy preparing our response that we forget the person sitting in front of us may not be asking for an answer at all.

They may simply be saying: Will you stay with me for a little while?

Some things are easier when someone else is there

We already understand this instinctively.

A child asks you to sit nearby while they fall asleep.

Someone calls a friend before opening a difficult email.

You stay on the telephone while somebody drives home after a frightening day.

Two people sit at a kitchen table long after the tea has gone cold because neither is quite ready for the conversation to end.

A friend comes over after a loss and does not say anything particularly profound. She makes coffee. She sits down. She remains.

Nothing has been solved.

And yet something has changed.

The room feels different because you are no longer carrying it entirely by yourself.

I think there are many adults who miss this kind of uncomplicated company.

Not necessarily friendship in the traditional sense. Not therapy. Not coaching. Not a formal helping relationship.

Just the experience of another human being being present and not demanding that the moment become something else.

Loneliness does not always look lonely

Sometimes loneliness looks like an empty house.

Sometimes it looks like a house full of people who need something from you.

It can happen after children leave home, after retirement, after a relationship changes, after illness, after bereavement, after moving to a new city, or while caring for someone else.

It can also happen in the middle of an otherwise perfectly ordinary life.

You may be surrounded by people and still think, I wish I had someone I could just talk to right now.

Or perhaps you do not even want to talk.

Maybe you simply want someone there while you begin the paperwork that has been sitting unopened for three weeks.

Maybe you want company while you tidy a room that has become overwhelming.

Maybe there is something you have been thinking about for days and you need to hear yourself say it aloud before you know what you actually think.

Maybe it has simply been a long day.

None of this means something is wrong with you.

It means you are human.

We are relational creatures. We have always done life beside one another.

Conversation without an agenda

One of the things I value most in conversation is the moment when somebody realises they do not need to perform.

They do not have to be interesting.

They do not need to arrive with a carefully organised story.

They do not have to know what the point is.

They can wander a little.

They can change their mind halfway through a sentence.

They can say, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”

They can laugh.

They can cry.

They can sit quietly for a minute without somebody immediately rushing in to fill the silence.

Good conversation has room in it.

And sometimes the most useful thing another person can offer is not an answer, but enough room for you to hear yourself.

And sometimes you can just fold the laundry

I mean that quite literally.

Not every hour of human connection needs to become deep.

There is a kind of companionship in simply doing ordinary life alongside another person.

You make tea.

You organise the drawer.

You work on the project you have been avoiding.

You sit with the dog.

You talk about your mother, your garden, something you saw on television, the thing that has been bothering you, or absolutely nothing of consequence.

There can be great comfort in having no requirement for the moment to become profound.

That may be one of the things we have lost as so much of our connection has become scheduled around purpose.

Meetings have agendas. Appointments have outcomes. Programmes have objectives. Even time with friends can become difficult to arrange because everyone is so busy.

But sometimes company can simply be company.

That is why I created Quiet Company

I kept thinking about this very simple human need.

What would it look like to make space for someone who does not necessarily need a session, a healing modality, coaching or advice?

What if they simply wanted an hour of conversation and company?

So I created Quiet Company.

We meet privately on Zoom with our cameras off, as I do with my other private sessions.

You can talk something through. You can think aloud. You can sit quietly. You can make tea, fold laundry, work on something, cry, laugh, tell me about your day, or simply have another person present for a while.

There is nothing to prepare.

There is no homework afterwards.

And there is no expectation that we need to arrive at some grand conclusion before the hour ends.

Quiet Company is not therapy, counselling, coaching, crisis support, caregiving, dating or a Unity Field Healing session.

The company itself is the offering.

I have made a few different lengths available because sometimes half an hour is enough, while other days need a little more room.

• 30 minutes · $55 CAD
• 60 minutes · $88 CAD
• 90 minutes · $125 CAD
• Regular Company · four 60-minute sessions each month · $333 CAD

And if what you need today is simply another human voice on the other end of the line, that is enough reason to book.

Sometimes you do not need advice.

Sometimes you just do not want to be alone with it.