communication
8 traits that will tell you what a bad listener is
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Listening is an art few people truly master. How do you recognize listening dilettantes?
Listening properly takes a lot from a person: You need a certain level of self-confidence, empathy, emotional intelligence, interest, patience, and ideally you shouldn’t be dead tired or stressed either. In fact, all of these things come together in only a few people, so communicating is often less fruitful and satisfying than it could be. Characteristics that tell you that your:e conversation partner:in you listens poorly at best …
8 traits you can use to identify bad listeners
1. They interrupt you before you’ve finished.
Thinking for a moment or taking a breath and – BÄM! – your counterpart suddenly has the floor. Bad listeners rarely let their interlocutors speak in peace. Understandable: If you don’t follow the content, you won’t notice that something is missing…
2. They complete your sentence.
They themselves may think they are showing how well they know you, but the truth is that people who complete other people’s sentences come out as bad listeners. After all, whoever thinks they know what others want to say before they can say it, in most cases also believes that they no longer have to listen because, in their opinion, they already know what follows. Sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple.
3. You answer like a shot.
If you react like lightning in conversation and can always answer immediately without thinking, you are probably already thinking about what you are saying while you are still talking. This in turn means this person is only listening to you with divided attention.
4. They always draw the conversation to themselves.
Arrogant, insecure people are almost always poor listeners because most of their thoughts revolve around them. This becomes noticeable in a conversation as soon as they express their thoughts – i.e. talk about themselves.
5. They don’t notice when you say “covfefe”.
US President Donald Trump coined the term “covfefe” on Twitter, and it stands for meaningless nonsense. What is meant by this point: If the other person isn’t listening to you properly, you can tell them any nonsense you want without them noticing. You can even use made-up words like covfefe, banaffe or affane, and it won’t even bother your interlocutor.
6. You don’t remember what moved you.
No one can remember everything you tell them. However, if you listen and follow others carefully, you will feel when they are talking about something that touches or moves you deeply – and will also feel something about it (as I said, good listeners are empathetic). What we, in turn, associate with emotions, we do not easily forget. So if you complain to your girlfriend about your back pain and two weeks later she has no idea what to look for in physical therapy, she is obviously a bad listener.
7. You answer with standard sentences.
“Others are even worse”, “Time heals all wounds”, “Life is always up and down” – everyone knows that such phrases are only there to get people to shut up and talk about their problems in silence deal with yourself and not annoy anyone with it. That’s why bad listeners use them relatively often. Responding to their interlocutors in a targeted and individual way overwhelms them, since they ultimately have to listen to do so. And so they skilfully and routinely pull themselves out of the affair with the help of various horrible proverbs and platitudes.
8. They don’t ask questions.
Bad listeners don’t care about understanding you, so they don’t ask you questions. They interpret what you say in a way that suits them and use it to say something themselves.