During a long car ride, I was listening to a conversation between two friends. The speaker, a person who is almost always quiet and laid back, starting screaming and ranting about her sister.  It was the loudest, most uncensored voice I’d ever heard her use.  She was furious.  I thought to myself, Wow, great opportunity to listen and find out what all the anger was about and maybe clear up an issue that I knew has been bothering her for quite awhile.

Before I could start listening, the speaker’s friend began responding with many of the 14 reactions.  In my opinion, her goal was to get her friend quiet and rational, to move her toward problem solving.  That is always what this speaker’s friends do with her, and always, as evidenced here, the problem does not go away long-term.  The friends’ non-listening  “works,” temporarily as it did here — she calmed down almost immediately and then headed in the direction her friend was taking her, agreeing to have a direct conversation with her sister.

The point of this blog comment:  When they were done, I suggested that listening would have been a better option during the tirade than the logic that was used.  Both defended the process they used:  “We’re friends and we have a special rapport for our communication,” “You don’t always have to listen.” etc.  Those kinds of comments imply that the the non-listening friend consciously chose not to listen in the conversation, and that the speaker was aware that she was not being listened to.  My observation was that neither was true.  The non-listening friend did not say to herself, Well, I could listen here but I don’t think that would work very well in this case. That would have been fine.  There are many reasons to choose not to listen.  That is not the issue.  The issue is that we need to acknowledge our unconsiousness in order to begin being more conscious.  That’s the first step.

Ed