Are you listening?
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ameera
01:40:27 Wed
Mar 3 2004
Are you listening?
I'm really frustrated with people's inability to answer a question that's posed. I experience this a lot at work (I work in the Court system). The judge or the lawyer will ask a specific question, and the person will start talking about something totally irrelevant.
With an N, I think this very common human trait is exaggerated to the extreme. There seems to be no ability to address anything other than what the N wants to talk about, the N's feelings, the N's dissappointments - it is very frustrating :grindteeth:.
In general, I think human beings have problems stepping outside of their own personal issues to really relate to what another is saying, and then respond. Try answering the "How are you?" question truthfully next time, and see how interested the other person is in the truth.
It creates such a boxed in feeling, a feeling that the person is not hearing a word that you're saying:fuming:
Mlashtok
02:22:52 Wed
Mar 3 2004
Re: Are you listening?
The detachment that we really live with is amazing you're right, we just don't see it most of the time... we close our eyes to it, or rather our minds. This is after all, the culture of narcissism I have lied so many times when responding to the "how are you?" question that it has become second nature - and in reality it hurts me more than it saves my face. My narcissistic father does exactly what you described and it infuriates me, makes me want to walk away and not talk to such an out-of-touch idiot, someone who doesn't even know himself, etc.

Emotional involvement is dangerous and many people just can't stomach it, including my Dad and oftentimes myself also. It is amazing to me though that so much of what passes for reality is just a social facade... a seeming computer program run by humans who walk and talk in the way they're conditioned and programmed to. It's disheartening on a deep level. I am often thinking of a way to try and break through this facade, both in terms of inside myself and in the world of other people. It's not easy though, and I just do not have a great answer for it yet. Life can be so frustrating sometimes...

Matt
Balbrenny
04:01:15 Wed
Mar 3 2004
Re: Are you listening?
My ex was really good at that too - changing the subject or deflecting the question by asking another question. Like you said, Ameera, it is very frustrating.

As to people asking you how you are as a greeting, about 16 months ago, just after my ex left, I started answering people honestly - even the cashiers in the bank. The responses I have had have been amazing. Some people that I hardly knew have been very supportive and people that I expected to be supportive who turned out not to be. Like my son's godfather, somebody I thought was a good friend. He asked me how I was and I started to talk about how stressed I was feeling over going to Court. He stopped me saying that he didn't want to hear about it. I just replied that he shouldn't ask me how I was if he didn't want to know what was going on in my life.

Anyway, my answering honestly to the 'How are you?' is now a habit - I figure that I would rather have honest answers from people rather than not know about the stuff that's going on for them. And I am finding that there are people out there who seem to appreciate the honesty and who then open up about their own lives. Sometimes its good to find out that all these people whom you thought had it all together are really suffering problems in their own way.
hestia
15:28:51 Wed
Mar 3 2004
Re: Are you listening?
I have found answering "How are you?" with a white lie to be fine wtih me for most social interactions. However, when I'm really feeling raw and would like to talk about it, I'll say, "Do you really want to know?" If the person says no, I just smile and say, "Ok" because I think people have the right to engage in social plesantries withtout hearing all my stuff, and it's often easy enough to turn into a comfortable thing-- I'll say something like, "You can ask me again next time you see me; I'm sure I'll be feeling better by then!" Anyway, I am surprised how often they'll say, "Yes, I really do." It's like they start out asking a small talk question because they care about me, and then discover I really need something, and tune in to listen. Then there are the times I'm just grumpy and don't want to talk about anything-- which i'm sure is a big surprise to people in this community. At those times, I'll just say, "Thanks for asking, but it's one of those days, and you probably really don't want to know. How are you doing?" At the very least it allows for some shared grumbling about the weather or whatever!

My husband does the change the subject thing like a master. He will go into long drawn out analogies that are close to the subject but bear no deep realtionship to it. This works especially well with counselors who are also into analogies. I watch our marriage counselor listen to him with rapt attention, and think, "Well he's doing it again, approaching the issue at hand intellectually but using emotion-laden images so that he sounds like he's in touch with his feelings." How do I know this so well? Cause I'm a master at it too. Now, when I start to talk in too many images, I try to pull myself back into what I'm feeling. But he and I used to be able to gone on for hours without really saying anything.

I think we avoid being honest with one another because we're all in so much pain. I wonder if someone could wave a magic wand so that we'd all open up and be honest, if it wouldn't hurt terribly for a day or so and then we'd all start to heal. Like the whole damn world. Wouldn't it be beautiful?
ameera
17:31:42 Wed
Mar 3 2004
Re: Are you listening?
Hestia, intellectual, philisophical discussions, I can just go on and on, never realizing, in the past that nothing was being solved, nothing was being addressed, we were just admiring how smart we were.
Boy oh boy, if the world could be honest, I'd love to live in it.
Balbrenny, I like your answer. It supports the theory that when you give love you get love. In this case, you gave honest, and received honesty as well.
Matt, it feels so good when someone really listens to what you say and answers. Thanks for that. And thanks everyone else, as well, I feel a lot better now.


Are you listening?
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