You know those moments when you have been talking to someone and it becomes blatantly clear that they aren’t listening to you? This has been occurring with some regularity when I am conversing with my nearest and dearest. He hasn’t yet figured out how to give the illusion that he so interested in what I am saying, when in reality , he is miles away. He is too honest and too transparent for that. Instead, his eyes start wandering and in his case, he will interrupt what I am saying because he has been thinking about what he wants to say next without listening to me first. He sometimes denies this because he is so into his own thought processes that he doesn’t even realise that I am verbalising anything – even the drone of my voice is blocked out.
It is when you have expectations that what is said in response to what you have just uttered, will be a continuation along , if not the same theme, then at the very least a theme that could even loosely be connected to the subject you were expounding, that you are severely jolted into the realisation that not a word you said was heard, let alone digested. If the recipient of your conversation responds with a retort that has absolutely zero to do with what you have just said, this is the proven confirmation that they weren’t listening.
My quandary is this: Firstly, does also this happen more often than I pick up on it when I am talking to others? And secondly, do I get offended because they weren’t listening or do I develop a hang-up because I am just a boring, old motormouth ?
