Everyday Canvas

Dealing with Non-Listeners

Prompt: "If the person you have been talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear." Winnie The Pooh Write about a time you have felt this way about a person you were talking to.

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Yes, of course. That type of behavior occurs with some people once in a while, and such a quote is why I love Winnie the Pooh so much. By the way, don’t some spouses (take notice that I didn’t use a gender) have that kind of fluff in their ears?

The thing is, we can’t get inside people’s heads and make them listen, so we don’t feel like inanimate objects who make sounds that are lost in the great beyond. Then, what can we do?

Sometimes, extremely talkative people bore others to death and cause them to tune out. In addition, there is that person who, instead of listening to what we are saying at that very minute, is formulating his or her next answer because what she says is more important to her than the topic in question. When that happens, what usually comes out of her mouth is a side issue, which can be titled as But She Digresses.

When this happens, I usually tell myself that others’ behaviors have nothing to do with me and the other person is just distracted or uninterested or has his own problems. Also, the other person can be hearing-impaired. Some hearing-impaired people deny their lack of hearing and they act as if they are hearing us.

Then, it might be me. I ask always myself if I am informed enough to carry that specific topic well enough in a conversation if the others are tuning me out.

I don’t know what would work to make people listen to what we say, just maybe: educating ourselves in a person’s thinking and learning style; trying to speak more clearly and explaining things the way they can understand; not being repetitious; giving them a chance to talk; asking them questions; trying to create a meaningful relationship with them so they give more importance to what we say.

Also, trying to talk to a person who is raging or overly emotional doesn’t work. In which case, we can let them blow off steam and calm down before they can listen to what we say.