I read a book called You’re Not Listening, by Kate Murphy, which was designed to make the reader a better listener. It worked. I now listen my socks off. I listen to my girlfriend, I listen to my mum and, yeah, I even listen to my child – and he’s six.
You know when you catch yourself doing something you remember your own parents doing? Mine was a “mmhmm” sort of noise. I made it when my son was wanging on about the height of a spinosaurus’s crest, or something. “Mmhmm.” Out it came. The noise. From me. And I thought: I did that to pretend I’m listening, but I’m not. In that moment, I realised my parents hadn’t really listened to anything I had said until I was about 32.
Fair enough. It’s hard. Apparently, the people who are in our lives every day are the ones we become least curious about, so they are the first people we stop really listening to. To compound that, listening to a child is like visiting a museum: full of fascinating things, yes, but there’s only so much you can absorb before the thought of the gift shop makes your mouth water.
I had been terrible at listening, so I’ve consciously upped my game and will continue to do so. But at what cost? The terrible side-effect of this new effort, which the book fails to mention, is that I’ve realised how few of the people I talk to are paying attention to me. At all. Ever.
People finish my sentences. Everybody is shouting at once. People ask me things, then, as I answer, they get their phones out. It’s awful. Surely life was far sweeter before I noticed these things. Don’t you think? Don’t you dare say “mmhmm”.
• Jessica Fostekew is a comedian, actor and writer. Arwa Mahdawi is away
