Blogging Has Made Me a Better Listener

The other day I had a meeting with someone I know fairly well and see semi-often. After the normal middle-aged woman greeting of hugs and air kisses we sat down and before I could ask her a question she said, “ I read your blog every day so I know everything that has been going on with you. Let me tell you EVERYTHING that is going on with ME.”

For the next thirty minutes she talked, almost without taking a breath. Although I was listening I got to counting how words I was able to interject in the way of questions, but mostly exclamations, like oohs, and ahhs. The total in the whole half an hour was twelve.

Before I knew it, our time together was up and she was off in a dash, practically in midsentence, but she had to run off to see her next victim, oh I mean friend. I stayed in my seat and enjoyed another glass of iced tea and thought about what I had just experienced. I like this woman, so it was not that I was not interested, but I think I had just experienced a live blog show.

Now I am a big time talker from way back when. When I was in school I used to say that my only talent was talking, I could not sing, was not really great at critical analysis, my reading comprehension was fair, scientific theories did not come easy to me, I had no athletic ability, but give me a topic, something I may or may not know anything about and I could talk about it convincingly. Given that history it is very unusual for me to just sit and listen for a big block of time and not get a chance to ask questions.

Here is the thing about writing a daily blog, people feel like they know everything that is going on with me. Of course, you are reading a story I write everyday. What I think this friend does not realize is that my blog is usually a snap shot of one small thing that happens in my day. People are free to read it if they want, but I don’t assume anyone is reading it religiously everyday and if it is boring you can just stop reading in the middle, and it will make no difference to your life.

The difference between the “Live Blog” I had just been enrolled into was I was captive. I could not stop “reading it.” As is the case in many one-way conversations I get into my mind started to wander. The major theme I came away with is that now that I write a blog I get to spend a lot more time listening to other people, but I am not as active a listener if the conversation is a data dump.

I actually learned quite a bit about how to be a better listener as well as a more generous talker in that one half an hour than I have in many years. Face-to-face human contact needs to be a give and take. Story time is for little children you are trying to put to sleep. The best conversations are between two people. I think that blogging has made me a better listener because by blogging about anything important to me I have already told that story and don’t feel the need to retell it in person. I wish I had learn to blog when I was younger, I probably would not have bored so many people with my story telling.