The Dangers of Listening Too Well

A few months ago, while visiting our friends Ben and Danny, I was assigned a label.

It was a lovely evening. Dinner at a hip joint, then a treat of frozen yogurt during a starry night. There I was, recounting a party of theirs I’d attended in the past, trying to place a particular guest’s name. This led to a chat about past jobs, and I asked Danny how he came to be part of that circle.

“I’m not telling you.”

I was baffled. “Why not?”

“Because you collect information on people.” 

Um….. what now? 

I was a bit stunned, thinking he was joking. It wasn’t said in a mean or accusatory way. It wasn’t said angrily – just with a smile, stated as a simple fact.

I’d heard a variation on this before. Since high school people have joked, “Well, Joe has a memory like a trap, so be careful what you say around him.” Now here we were again – with Danny perceiving me as someone to watch out for, to put your guard up around.

What led to this statement? I recalled another meal with them a few months earlier, when we were trying to discern the first time we’d met. I scrolled through my Google Photo library and found a picture from that 2007 first-time meeting and showed it to them. “Look, see, that’s when we met.” And we laughed and commented on how, yes indeed, we’d all aged since then. 

And I now remember him saying, “You just had that photo waiting there, on your phone?” And the answer is, yes, I knew I had a photo of the event somewhere, so I went to find it, to aid in the discussion. But to him it maybe seemed like a setup, something premeditated. And maybe that’s when this label was ascribed to me. 

But here’s the thing – yes, I do have a good memory, but that’s not what’s going on. I pay attention.

In conversation, I actually listen to people, have an interest in them, and care what they have to say. Is this collecting evidence? I think it just stands out as unique, for it’s certainly not the norm in everyday life.

My friend, Stephen, is similar. He has a rapid-fire way of asking people questions about their lives, to just seek clarity. But the detail he asks – details, baby, details!! Heads spin. People’s eyes stop being glazed over as they realize, oh, this guy’s actually engaging with me, and why do I feel like I’m being interviewed? He leans in, “You went to London? Did ya love it? What airline? How much was the fare? And where did you stay? And why there? Was it a deal? Did you check a bag? Ever been there before? What did you think? Oh, and have you screened the latest Oscar pic?!?” all in one breath. 

So I get it, to the uninitiated, Stephen and I may seem overly-interested.

I, however, stop to breathe, whereas Stephen sometimes doesn’t.

But I think this all stems from everyone’s affinity towards – and my disdain for – small talk. When I worked as a cater waiter, I witnessed how I seemed to be wired differently, socially. Every single time there was a 30-second lull in work or a pause in the scramble to prep an event – every, single, time – my fellow waiters couldn’t help themselves and turned to the person next to them – really, any breathing person would do – to shoot the shit, pass the time, jabber on and on about something generic. Oh we’ve stopped a task? Oh, I MUST start lip-flapping!! They had to fill the moment, the brief respite, the silence.  I tended to stand apart because I didn’t have this need or anxiousness to talk about last night’s American Idol episode or how my date went last night. I’m sure I seemed a snob, or deliberately antisocial in that context. 

It’s not that I have some stellar memory (Don’t be so mystified!) It’s about where I put my focus. I’ve come to realize about 80 percent of people just chat on autopilot, never really listening to what the other person is saying – just to fill the silence in a social setting. Or maybe they’re too worried about what to say next and are busy crafting a response for the moment they can interrupt and bring the conversation back to them and their experience. 

I pay attention. I give people the gift of my attention. Is that so unusual? I’m not saying I’m right and this is the way to be. Who knows? Others may get more done because they focus on themselves and their goals, while my brain is overcrowded with musings on how so and so is doing. But, I do seem to stick out in a crowd like I’m an ambushing Barbara Walters, bringing up a musical they worked on 16 years ago they forgot about, or recalling the name of an old flame they had in the ’90s. “Gosh, you have such a great memory. What the hell?” they exclaim.

Maybe this is just proof that I’ve had a writer’s mind and sensibility all along, though never putting it to use in that way. In her pivotal book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, author Anne Lamott opens a chapter saying,” Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on… we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift.” 

I can now suddenly recall, on more than one occasion when I was a teen, my mother shaking her finger with a tinge of worry, saying, “Don’t ever write about us. Don’t ever embarrass us.” 

Say what? Where did this come from? I wasn’t writing much then or pursuing writing. I was all about acting and the theatre. But even as a teenager or young man, something seemed threatening to her. She sensed the catching-all-the-details mind in her son, and that maybe one day he’d become one of those dreaded things…. a writer… airing perceived dirty secrets, to a worldwide audience.

I don’t have a file folder on people, in case you’re wondering. It’s just how my mind works – I remember details so I have something to bring up the next time I see that person, because small talk ain’t for me. I reflect on conversations many days or weeks after the fact. Yet now that I’m a wicked writer, with a writer’s brain… am I to be trusted?  

Human interactions would be much more authentic if people paid others their attention.

Try it.

But be warned; it’s not the norm. And the first time you do it, someone may mistake you for a search engine collecting personal data.