My Blog

Am I boring you?

June 14, 2011

I’m sure that many of you have encountered the following situation once or twice.

You are in the middle of telling some people an interesting story. Suddenly another person enters the room. Within a second that person gets the focus and you have stop talking because nobody is listening to you anymore. And it gets worse. After the attention for the newcomer has died, no one in the group asks you to resume, or even wants to find out how it ends.

Suddenly you have the feeling that none of them were interested in the first place and you have just been wasting your breath.

Here’s a variation. You are talking to someone face to face. Then his, or hers, phone rings and without even saying “excuse me” your conversationalist starts talking on the phone and keeps it going for a long time, totally ignoring the fact that you are still there.

My dear mother (God bless her soul) had a habit that often make me really mad. While I was busy talking about something I could tell by the look on her face that she was not paying any attention. Then, without any warning, she would interrupt me and make a remark that was totally unrelated. I could be talking about what happened at work that day and she would come up with a question like: “Do you think it’s going to rain tonight?”

I like to have at least the impression that the person I’m trying to talk to is actually listening and trying to understand what I’m saying. If someone is texting on his phone, or has the eyes glued to the TV, I have no desire to keep a conversation going since there is clearly no real interest from the other party.

I don’t like to waste money, energy and resources. I don’t like to waste a lot of words either.