The Lost Art of Listening (11 page)

didn’t convey was: “I’m at home, feeling lonely, and I miss you” and “I’m

busy at work, and I know that I’ll see you this weekend.”

Occasionally—but not as often as most people think—the implicit

message in a communication is a request for the speaker to do something.

The teenage boy who says “I’m hungry” isn’t just making small talk. (A

teenager’s appetite is not an idle thing.) Usually, however, the most impor-

tant implicit message in what people say is the feeling behind the con-

tent.

When we’re little, before we learn to act grown up by masking our

feelings, our communications are full of ill- disguised emotion. You don’t

have to be a linguistics expert to figure out what a child is feeling when

she says “There’s monsters under my bed” or “Nobody wants to play with

me.” The same emotions may be implicit, if less obviously stated, when an

adult says “I’ve got that big meeting coming up tomorrow” or “I called to

see if Fred wanted to go to the movies, but he didn’t call back.” One of the

most effective ways to improve understanding is to listen for the implicit

feelings in what people say.

Much of communication is implicit and—when people are on the

same wavelength— decoded automatically. Often, however, what’s implic-

it—what we take for granted—isn’t obvious to everyone. Much misunder-

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THE YEARNING TO BE UNDERSTOOD

standing could be cleared up if we learned to do two things: appreciate the

other person’s perspective and clarify what remains implicit.

“Is This a Good Time?”

The context of communication is the setting: the time, the place, who else

is present, and, because communication can’t be reduced to the obvious,

people’s expectations. We ordinarily accommodate our talking and listen-

ing to the context without thinking about it. We don’t spring bad news

on people the minute they walk in the door, we don’t talk loudly on cell

phones in public, and we don’t argue in front of the kids. (As you can’t see

by the twinkle in my eye, I’m being ironic.)

No matter how much certain people care about us, there are times

when they don’t have the energy and patience to listen. If a husband calls

his wife at work and starts to talk at length about something that doesn’t

seem terribly important, she may get impatient sooner than she would if

the same conversation occurred at home. By contrast, even though her

husband usually retreats behind the paper at the end of the day, a wife may

succeed in getting his attention by signaling her need for it. “Honey, I need

to talk to you about something.”

Unfortunately, in many relationships people have different preferred

times to talk. He likes to talk when he comes home at the end of the day.

She prefers to talk later, when they’re watching TV or getting ready for

bed. Fishing for understanding at the wrong time is like trying to catch a

trout in the noonday sun.

When to talk: not when your partner needs some space

or time to be alone.

That timing affects the listening we get may be painfully obvious;

unfortunately, when needs collide, the resulting failures of understanding

are obviously painful. The end of the day can be especially difficult. Part-

ners may be frazzled. Worn out from running around all day, trying to make

other people happy, attending mind- deadening meetings, fighting traffic,

or chasing after children and answering endless questions, they have little

energy left over for hearing each other.

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59

The unhappy irony is that the domestic conversation people are too

tired to engage in might provide just the emotional refueling they need.

Talking and listening reinvigorate us. If we take listening for granted, we

may assume that the people we care about will listen to us whenever we

feel like talking. But good listening doesn’t happen automatically. You

have to find the right time to approach people.

Setting has an obvious effect on listening—in terms of privacy and

noise level, for example—and an equally powerful effect in terms of condi-

tioned cues. Familiar settings, like a therapist’s office or a friend’s kitchen,

can be reassuring places in which to open up. Other familiar settings, like

your own kitchen or bedroom, may be anything but conducive to conver-

sation. Memories of misunderstanding and distraction cling to some places

like the smell of wet dog.

Conversation in various settings is governed by unwritten rules, some

of which are obvious (to most people). At cocktail parties, for example,

where conversational subgroups constantly shift, conversations may be

warm, candid, even intimate, but they are also brief (which may explain

the warmth and candor). Anyone who tries to talk too long in a such a

setting may strain a listener’s sense of decorum.

Rules of decorum are based on a shared sense of what’s appropriate

and probably originate from practical considerations, like noninterference

with others and respect for special places. Thus, talking loudly in a cathe-

dral, on a train, or at the movies is frowned on.4 Because rules of decorum

are implicit and widely shared, we tend to take them for granted, not real-

izing that we have done so until we or someone else breaks them.

In addition to general rules of propriety, most of us have personal

preferences for settings in which we’re comfortable talking. Some people

like to talk on the telephone, for example. (Why, I have no idea.) Some

people like to talk when they go for a ride in the car; others prefer to

read or look out the window. And, of course, we may be in the mood for

conversation in a particular setting at one time and not another. Often

the best way to get someone’s attention is to invite him or her away from

4People who get annoyed at those who talk in the movies forget that the advent of DVD

rentals has blurred the distinction between movie theater and living room. They also fail

to consider situational priorities that might make theater conversation understandable. Yes,

even people who talk in the movies deserve consideration, and so they should be shot as

painlessly as possible.

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familiar surroundings—by taking a walk, say, or going out to a restaurant.

Many of these preferences are sufficiently obvious that we adjust to them

automatically. We know not to call certain people at home in the evening,

and we learn the most promising times and places to get the listening we

need. When we don’t, feelings get hurt. We blame others for not hearing

us, or we feel put upon by their lack of consideration in imposing on us at

the wrong time.

Whenever conversation takes place in the presence of others, some

aspects of listening are accentuated while others are suppressed. If a couple

goes out to dinner and the man talks about problems at work, the woman

will probably listen more intently than she does at home because the set-

ting suggests intimacy. If they bring along the children, however, she’s

liable to be less attentive to him and also less likely to talk about her own

concerns. Sometimes that’s
why
people bring the children. Togetherness is

a hedge against intimacy as well as loneliness.

Most of us have had the disconcerting experience of talking to some-

one who seems to be interested until someone else appears. Sometimes

this is unavoidable. If two people are having lunch and a third person joins

them, it’s not reasonable to expect to continue a private conversation. But

in other instances the person talking about something important might

expect the listener not to permit an interruption—to say, for example, to

a telephone caller, “Sorry, I can’t talk now; I’m busy.” Or if two people are

having a confidential conversation in a public place, one might expect the

other to greet a casual acquaintance who happens by, but not to break off

the conversation or encourage the third person to join in.

Third parties are to intimate conversation

what rain is to picnics.

Sometimes the effect of third parties works the other way. An adult

may show more animated interest in a child’s conversation when other

adults are watching. Similarly, a man who often interrupts his wife at home

may show more respect and forbearance when they’re out with another

couple.

I remember once when I was being interviewed on a morning tele-

vision show how the host, an attractive woman in her early forties, was

How Communication Breaks Down
61

intrigued by the book I’d written. She sat very close, kept her eyes on

mine, and asked all the right questions. Here was this radiant woman,

totally engrossed in what I had to say. It was very flattering. Then a com-

mercial break came up, and the light in her face went out like the light

on the camera. I ceased to exist. After the break the interview resumed,

and so did my interviewer’s show of interest. Her pretense, in the face of a

whole audience of third parties (and my susceptibility), was disconcerting;

but after all, it was her job to show interest.

Why Some People Are So Hard to Listen To

Even when you play by the rules, some people are hard to listen to. In some

cases that’s because their accounts run on to Homeric length. They’re gen-

erous with details. You ask about their vacation and they tell you about

packing the car, getting lost on the way, and all the various wrong turns.

They tell you about the weather and who said what and where they ate

lunch and what they had for dinner, and they keep telling you until some-

thing other than tact stops them. Others may not talk at all about them-

selves but instead go on at great windy length about everyone else, all

those inconsiderate others who are such problems in their lives.

It’s also hard to listen to people who talk incessantly about their preoc-

cupations—a mother with a difficult child who talks of little else, a career-

ist who talks constantly about his work, a man who’s always complaining

about his sinus trouble. One person’s headache can become another’s if

she has to hear about it all the time. It isn’t just the repetition that we tire

of; it’s being cast in the helpless role of one who is importuned about a

problem with no solution, or at least no solution the complainer wants to

consider. (If the complainer doesn’t expect a solution, a simple acknowl-

edgment of his feelings—“Gee, that’s too bad”—may give a satisfactory

punctuation to the exchange.)

Some people who talk too much are like that with everybody, but

often, whether we appreciate it or not, some of them talk at such length

with us because they talk so little with anyone else. Who other than his

wife does the man with no friends talk to? Who other than the friend

who seems to have her life together does the overburdened wife talk to?

Some people need our attention, but if the conversation is consistently

one-sided, maybe part of the reason is that we respond too passively.

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THE YEARNING TO BE UNDERSTOOD

Sometimes speakers are hard to listen to because they’re unaware of

what they’ve said—or of its infuriating implications. When the listener

reacts to what is implied, the speaker responds with righteous indignation,

wounded by the listener’s “overreaction.” If a mother says to her teen-

age daughter “Is that what you’re wearing to school?” and the daughter

bursts into tears and says “You’re always criticizing me!” the mother might

protest that the daughter is reacting unreasonably. “All I said was ‘Is that

what you’re wearing to school?’ How come you get so upset about a simple

question?” Such questions are as simple as parents are free of judgment and

children are free of sensitivity to it.

My father has a way of packing what feels like a whole lot of belit-

tling into one little innocent statement that drives me crazy. If I tell him

that something is so, even when it’s not something particularly unusual or

controversial, he’ll often say “It could be.” Arghh!! I think he does this

because he can’t tolerate overt conflict. So if you tell him something he

didn’t know or isn’t convinced is the case, he says “It could be.” To me, this

feels worse than an argument. An argument, you can argue with. “It could

be” makes you feel discounted. One consequence of these interchanges is

that I have become stubborn in my opinions. Having had my fill of being

doubted, I can’t stand not to be believed when I’m stating a fact. Like the

fact that Lake Champlain is one of the five Great Lakes.

In case you think I’ve slid from talking about speakers to complaining

about listeners, you’re right. While it’s possible in the abstract to separate

speakers and listeners, in practice they are inextricably intertwined. Lis-

tening is codetermined.

Some people are hard to listen to because they say so little, or at least

little of a personal nature. If the urge to voice true feelings to sympathetic