Listening

By Wayne Elise
Most of us listen so poorly to others because we don’t want to hear what they have to say. We want them to be different from who they truly are. We push them to be pawns of our desire so frantically we put words in their mouths:
“How you doing, alright?”
“Did you have a good time at the circus?”
“Oh, you work as a nurse. That’s a noble profession. You’re a good person.”
Those lines are bad. They are representative of our biases and our nervous need to push the conversation. We want a conversational partner so badly we can’t relax and wait for the truth. That’s not sexy. It also causes a disconnect from the other person. When we try to move the relationship forward he or she freaks out. “You don’t really know me. Why do you want to spend time with me alone? You are thinking I’m different than what I am. You are trying to force me to be other than what I am. You are intimating that I have led you on – that I am that person. Apparently I have deceived you or you have deceived yourself. I feel trapped but I guess a little more deception can’t hurt. I’ll just make up a lie to get out of this. I will flake on you. Tell you at the last minute that my cousin is in town and I have to show her around, yeah, that’s a good one. Goodbye.”
Sexy people are never bothered by hearing another person’s truth, good, bad or otherwise.
“How was your night?”
“Are you wanting to go right now? I don’t want to keep you.”
“I want to see you but you can say no.”
“Does that make sense or am I crazy? I might be crazy. There’s no shame in being crazy.”
Subtly, these [...]