Listening Skills is crucial, yup NO doubt. But sometimes it does not go as we expect.
It’s a matter of last summer. One of my cousin brothers who was in Germany since last 10 years returned home. Once he was back home, he called me to have dinner together. It was a fine evening with other family members and excellent ambience. We started having chit chat in various issues though I was bit uncomfortable as the conversation was not sinking.
Still, I started talking about my last years experiences, ups and downs, joys and sorrows. I found him curious and he was nodding head while I was speaking. He was even saying OK, Fine and was using fillers to make the conversation moving.
I started talking about my mom’s demise as she died of cancer on September 2024. I said my mom was suffering from Ovarian cancer since last five year. We did our every bit to save her life but couldn’t. He said oh yaa, sounds good. I was bit surprised – What? But I didn’t react and moved on explaining him how this hampered my health and career as I was unable to focus on the work and personal health. He says “It’s fine, absolutely”, Ok. Hmm, it’s good. He nodded his head pretending to be a good listener. I was curious whether the guy is actually listening me or not.
In the meantime, our food was served on the table. And we started eating. During the supper we did not speak a single word. In our culture speaking while eating is thought out to be uncivilized. We had an excellent dinner. Thanked the family for the dinner and got back to home. I shared the whole story with my wife. She says “your cousin brother has hearing disability. He could not listen properly. You should have spoken bit louder and should have asked him some confirming questions to make sure that he is getting you properly.” I got into deep shock as I was bit uncomfortable as the conversation was not sinking that well.
He was nodding the head in between the conversation.
He was maintaining eye contact.
He was using the conforming words like OK, Fine, Hmm.
He didn’t interrupt me while I was on the go.
I felt like he was serious as he was bit uncomfortable while I was explaining my mother’s fate.
Basically, he was fulfilling the requirement of good listening skills yet he was unable to make sense of what I was saying to him. The lesion here is that it’s not always the listening skills that matter, it’s about the internal factors like physical and psychological well being of the listener as well. It is the fact that listener doesn’t want to introduce his listening disability as it hampers his self-image and confidence. It is the role of opposite one to ask conforming questions and figure out whether the message was received as intended.
It’s unfortunate that I cannot even say to him “I am sorry, I didn’t know that you have hearing impairment”. If I would have said this to him, he could have felt bad about himself which I do not want absolutely. In this way, the matter is still on the air and have not settled with each other.
