A couple days ago, I waved to my neighbor as we were both getting mail. I had to try a few times to casually make eye contact, as I retain persistant fears of calling out, “Hey, Shirley!” instead of her actual name. Eyes met, I yell out about Thanksgiving and have a cross-yard, walking-into-home conversation that I only half understood. But there was smiling and waving, so progress has been made. Even now, however, I can’t shake the feeling that the conversation went like this:
ME: Hey, Sh– … How are you?
NEIGHBOR: Fine. How are you, Kevin? Please note I am confident in knowing your name.
ME: A little tired. (pat answer to the How are you question)
NEIGHBOR: The state of your lawn keeping you up nights, huh?
ME: (oblivious) But the semester is almost over. How was your Thanksgiving?
NEIGHBOR: I’m Native American, as far as you know, Cheif Can’t Rake Your Yard. How about you? Did you get fat?
ME: Great, great. Carter and I went to a basketball game that night.
NEIGHBOR: Another excuse to get out of raking leaves, which I now note have blown into my well-kept yard?
ME: Yeah, he liked it a lot.
NEIGHBOR: Fine, but now I want to ask you something very important to our relationship–
ME: Well, nice talking to you. (waving) Have a nice night.
NEIGHBOR: (gesturing) Creep.
So I guess the moral is, “Active listening only works if you can hear what the other person is saying.”
