On Not Being Able to Listen

We are, most of us, familiar with a particular kind of challenging human: the sort who seems unable to listen to much of what we might have to say to them. Their behaviour can be exasperating – yet it invites a deeper curiosity, one that touches on the psychology of not listening.

We mention we recently went on holiday to Greece … Really, they say, well they went there last year and there was a small hotel, and their friend said that … We explain that we suffered a flood in our house. What a pity, they reply, because here’s something about plumbing and the state of boilers in older properties. We note we have a colleague from Finland in our office. Well, during the Second World War, there was a battle near Helsinki where … There is nothing we might share – however urgent or sincere –that won’t very quickly be subsumed into one of their pre-existing, disconnected imperatives.

The Psychology of Not Listening

We’re used to considering such cases as stemming from a lack of manners. The person who talks relentlessly about themselves and their themes must – first and foremost – be rude. They haven’t been educated to consider others’ feelings. They have forgotten the laws of etiquette. They’re the equivalent, in the conversational domain, of a ruffian who wipes their mouth on the back of their hand or never writes thank-you letters.

But what appears as a lack of consideration may, in reality, stem from something far deeper and more psychological. We’re not dealing with an omission so much as a compulsion, not an excess but a deprivation. The person hasn’t just forgotten to listen; they’re unable to do so.

And the reason is poignant: fear. The non-listener registers an acute sense of danger whenever they are called upon – in company – to attune to another’s reality, as though there was a stark choice: either them or us. They vaunt themselves, circle their pet themes and chatter endlessly to fight off a terror of annihilation. It isn’t egoism or over-confidence, but an extreme feeling of fragility and invisibility. The non-listener must shut others out in order to keep themselves alive. If they were to park their concerns for even a few moments (to ask us about our work, or our sore elbow), they might feel there would be nothing left of them when they returned.

The Roots of Generosity

Inevitably, there will be a sad backstory. They cannot listen because – for a long time, in the early years – they were not the focus of anyone else’s interest or delight. No one was especially charmed by their drawings; no one remembered their smaller sorrows and pains. It wasn’t amazing to anyone else that they existed. They have grown into the over-zealous guardians of a sense of specialness that they should have received from others from the start.

Their behaviour only serves to evoke what an achievement it is to be able, at times, to be the one who asks the questions and takes the back seat. If we can do this sincerely, it will be because someone, somewhere in our past, dropped to our level and tried to imagine the world through our eyes. Amidst their own cares and chores, someone gave us room. We came to them with a drawing (of a buttercup and a giant spider) and they asked us for the origins of our inspiration. They listened carefully when we told them of our plans for an underwater world or our fantasy of a wand that could turn furniture into chocolate. It was such early generosity that now makes it tolerable for us to immerse ourselves in the twists and turns of another’s breakup or a second cousin’s house move. We aren’t so much polite as fortunate.

None of this removes the problem, but it may just give us something a little more interesting to consider the next time we are bored into a claustrophobic stupor by one of our fragile, kind, wounded non-listening acquaintances: a chance to reflect, with compassion, on the psychology of not listening, and on what early absences might have made such behaviour feel like a necessity.