Communication And Listening

Although I like to think of myself as a good listener, I know at times I am a very impatient person and can be somewhat of a bad one. Not everyone can be good listeners all the time, with everything going on in our lives sometimes we just need to nod our heads at the non important things or answer “yes” without even knowing what were answering to. To be honest I probably use all of the negative listening types daily.

When I read the first type of listening “selective” I immediately thought of my mom. As wrong as that sounds, I definitely use selective listening when she calls. Selective listening is when you respond only to the remarks that interest you, rejecting everything else. When my mom usually calls me it is to talk about nonsense and fill me in on little things going on with my family and around the house. Most of the things she tells me really has no point and I’m usually pretty busy at the time of her call so I don’t listen to a lot of it and mostly just listen for key words that interest me and forget everything else she said right after she says it.

This type of listening really works on my side of the phone line except when she calls me a day or two later to ask about something we talked about the day before. I try to bullshit it most of the time but if I don’t remember something she gets pretty mad and says I don’t listen to her and then I feel bad. Yet I can usually get away with this most of the time.

The next type of listening is insulated. I don’t think I use this one as much but if I do use it at all, once again it would be with my parents. When I was little if I would ask my mom for something like a treat or toy at the store and she said no, of course I would ignore that response and go on straight to my dad and ask the same question hoping for a different answer. This got me into trouble. I ignored what my mom had said and gotten what I wanted from my dad which angered her and then angered my dad as well.

I know I’ve been a defensive listener when it comes to some of my classes. We all do differently in different subjects and so when someone says how easy a class was to them and it wasn’t as easy for you, you may take it offensively. I know I have never been good at biology and I didn’t do very well in the class. My friend was bragging how easy his biology test was one day after class and it really pissed me off, I know I was just embarrassed and maybe a little hurt that it didn’t come to me that easy.

Later on he asked me to hang out and I said no, in my mind I was like he is such a jerk. I know he is not a jerk I just took it personally that he thought the class was so easy and maybe felt dumb around him. I should have figured that I might be better at another subject than him and I shouldn’t take it so personally what he said because he should be happy that his test was so easy and he didn’t mean anything by it to me.

The next type of listening is insensitive, if my friend tells a story and I happen to be in a really bad mood or am just not happy with them it’s hard to see their feelings and feel bad. My friend Meghan was sad the other day and starting telling me how she lost her favorite shirt