Some time past, an acquaintance told me that I was a good listener. At the time, I was unmoved by her words as I wasn’t really listening to what she had to say. As is my habit, I was simply going through the motions of a good listener. I nodded as she spoke, offered a slight smile of encouragement when she glanced at me for affirmation, and strove to maintain constant eye contact. Yet, my mind was elsewhere.
In truth, every word she spoke offended me deeply, not because of what she said, but more, it was how she said it. As she rattled on, her story became more droll and unlovely, the constant drone of words sounding less like the King’s English and more like the harsh bleat of an alarm clock trying to wake a deaf man. Every sentence she uttered started with the pronoun “I”. There seemed to be no room in her small mind for anyone but her. She carried the burden of a one way conversation for an incredible length of time, unaided by the briefest pause. I wondered if she must either hesitate at some point to allow new breath into her lungs or suffer a bout of hypoxia, but I was wrong. She didn’t need to breath in, she just went on like a boxer in the ring who refused to admit defeat.
Some days and weeks after I sat helplessly in her evil circle of conversation, pretending to care about her chittering verbiage, I attempted to recall the topic of her story, but in this I failed, except for the part where she told me that I was a good listener. After some brief contemplation, I must now say that I disagree with her assertion.
I have spent the last years and decades pretending to listen when acquaintances prattle in my direction. I pretend to care about their stories, their thoughts and imperfect opinions, even though I find it painful, I do this constantly. I nod and I smile and stare into the eyes of the speaker, but I don’t listen. Oddly, the question of why I do this isn’t easy to answer. At least, it wasn’t plain to me until I recently stumbled upon some semblance of an answer when I was walking in the woods.
I realized that I am unable to offer meaningful content to conversation that can be consumed in a three second zinger. I have no original thought to utter since my thoughts aren't easily understood without preamble. I have no pithy argument to make because my arguments run contrary to the main. In short, I have nothing of note to tell others that they would understand.
So I defer. I pretend to listen, and I judge, and I hide my thoughts behind that judgement. It is somewhat like the children's game, "hide and seek." I can hide in the laundry room behind the door with the light out and nobody can find me there.
