I’m a pretty good listener. I think most writers are. We’re naturally curious about other people, about the things around us. But unfortunately, there’s a potentially lethal occupational hazard to good listening.
You become a Conversational Target.
Most people, I’ve found, like to talk. They like to talk a whole lot more than they like to listen. They like to talk about things that don’t interest anyone else, like themselves, themselves, , most of all, themselves.
I’m old enough to remember when “conversation” meant a 50/50 give take of information, time spent both talking listening. Now, it’s 97/3. And, not being a particularly aggressive talker in most social situations, I typically become the Conversational Target.
Personally, I blame cell phones for this. (But then again, I blame cell phones for everything bad in life, from rap music to inept politicians to fleas). But as far as cell phones the demise of the civil conversation is concerned, it’s my learned contention that since people A) have to shout into the damn things to be heard B) are paying for their minutes each month whether they use them or not, they’ve simply learned to talk loudly incessantly, no matter who’s listening or who even cares what they’re saying.
As a result, conversation has taken on a battlefield mentality, especially when it’s between two strangers. Take, for example, a typical conversation that I – a Conversational Target – seem to attract when meeting someone for the first time. The other person – the Initial Listener – opens the conversation with a question. He’s not interested in the answer, but is simply firing an opening salvo so he can test my defenses, searching for verbal weaknesses to exploit.
“Nice to meet you Paul. So, what do you do?”
“Well, I’m a freelance writer. I-”
“Really! How interesting. I know a person whose cousin used to write letters to the editor of his school paper all the time, protesting that those little cartons of milk that they served in the cafeteria were two days past the pull date all the time. You remember those little cartons of milk? Seems like all the kids in elementary school smelled like those sour milk cartons, you know? Everywhere you went, you knew there was a kid right around the corner just by the sour milk smell. Couldn’t hardly play Hide ‘n Seek with any of ‘em, wasn’t much of a challenge. Just use your nose, you could find their hiding place right away. Anyway, he used to write those letters all the time. All the time. Probably wrote at least one every six months. We all just knew he was going to grow up to be a famous writer, like old Bill Shakespeare, you know? Turns out he became a dairy farmer instead. How’s that for ironic. So is that how you got started as a farmer?”
Then, of course, there are the ones who use the conversational battlefield as a way to get on top of whatever you just said. Verbal one-upmanship. If you just planted an apple seed, they just planted an orchard. It seems to be another place where that Conversational Target gets enlarged:
“Hey Paul, haven’t seen you in awhile. How’re things?” the person says as an opening shot across the bow.
“Well, not great,” I stupidly reply, offering a gaping hole in my defenses. “I tripped on a rock the other day sprained my ankle. Then this morning, my car had a flat tire, I had to change it in the rain without an umbrella. So you know, things could be better. You?”
“Me? Oh man, don’t even go there. I mean, how much time have you got? It’s probably better if you ask what hasn’t gone wrong, you know? That rock you tripped on? I should be so lucky! I’m hiking last week on one of the toughest trails there is, getting ready for a Triple Ironman competition, when the entire cliff-side above me lets loose. A couple thous boulders come crashing down all around me. I’m pinned in this, like, boulder-cave for two days, living on the marrow that’s left inside the goose feathers in my down jacket, while I slowly work away at the boulders with the h -cranked jackhammer attachment in my Swiss Army knife. I finally break free, have to pull two saplings out of the ground with my bare h s to make a litter for myself because I can’t walk on my two broken ankles. I strap myself to the litter manage to drag myself the 34 miles back to where I parked the World War II Jeep that I restored myself with parts made from old gas cans. When I get there, I find that someone has stolen the axles off the Jeep. So I have to make a couple of new ones using iron ore that I dig up with a plastic spoon then smelt alongside the trail using my h -made pocket blast furnace. But while I’m doing that, a monsoon starts, the torrential rain puts out the fire in the furnace. Luckily, I get hit by lightening – fourth time this month, can you believe it? – right while I’m hanging onto the furnace. The lightening bolt passes though the 12 pins in my arm that they stuck in there after it got shattered when I got it stuck in the blow hole of that blue whale while treasure diving in the Pacific last year, the lightening re-fires the furnace fuses the iron ore I’m able to carve a new axle make it back to town just before the gangrene really took hold. But hey Dude, sorry about your flat tire.”
Yep. They really should make Full-Contact Conversation an Olympic sport.