Can You Hear Me Now?

[intothewoods]

I'm composing a blog post on the art of listening (really listening). This is not a skill I possess in abundance, by the way. It's taken me a number of years to figure this out and I'm working at being a better listener.

What about you? Are you a good listener? Why or why not? How does it make you feel when you know the person you're speaking to is not really listening? How do you deal with that?

I am a pretty good listener, and I can remember a lot of weird details. On the other hand, I'm terrible with numbers, names and things that seem sort of abstract to me, I suppose. Also, if I'm feeling uneasy for some reason, I will sometimes not be able to listen because I'm preoccupied with whatever is making me uneasy. That stinks. But generally I remember a lot of details and it will drive me nuts when someone goes to tell me the same story again. Not that I don't do that too...lol. But I will think - I remember that you told me that, how could you forget??

If someone is not listening to me or isn't interested, I stop talking. I feel bad that I'm boring them, keeping them or whatever. I also hate the feeling that I'm talking too much about myself. I'm sort of terrible with small talk so I'm not very good at prompting people to tell me about themselves. And yet if I meet someone who has a lot to say and is interesting to any degree, I'm in! I'm listening! I think it's basically an introvert hanging out with an introvert problem. Some introverts have a lot of questions to ask and I totally freak out because I feel like I'm being so rude by not asking them the same questions in return. But they're asking me so many questions that I don't have a chance to stop and think about what I want to ask them! I'm trying to hard to give them a correct answer. It's hilarious - my brain is so bonkers.