This is a style difference. I recognize “silent because I don’t want to be a bother” in myself, and I’ve had “silent to see if you’ll reach out” applied to me. Thing is, people can learn other relationship styles or have fallbacks (like, I’m from guess culture, but if someone’s not picking up on my hints, I’ll go to a direct ask). It sounds like neither of these folks wants to do that, at least not with each other right now.