Think Out Loud: Listening is not easy

This is Think out Loud. It’s a weekly meme created to help bloggers break out from the blogging bubble. The rules are simple. We post whatever we want and let people know what’s in our mind. Visit the creator on Thinks Books and join too. It’s so cool to share your random thoughts.

I’m a listener. I’m a focused and a good listener. Hell, I’m the definition of listener! Really sometimes I think I should have followed another career. I should have been a psychiatrist.  

I don’t know why this is happening but people around me talk to me about stuff and I listen. I say my opinion, I try to help and I listen more. Every time I go for coffee with a friend I hardly talk. They have so much to tell me and I let them. I like to share my opinion, to give one or two advices if I can, but lately I realized that I hardly talk. I like listening, but what about the things I want to share?

The times I try to say something about me, I end up talking about five minutes, because then the other person wants to talk and I let her. I guess they have to say it out loud to feel better.

Through this listening process I realized I that I don’t really want to talk about my stuff. I talk only to a handful of people and that’s enough. I talk only to my closest friends and that is all I need. But I wasn’t always like that.

In high school I was completely different. I had two best friends that I shared everything. We even talked on the phone about the clothes we were going to wear before we meet for coffee. I used to spend all day with them at school, out for walks, for coffees, and then at home studying, and we only parted for sleep. We went on holidays together, we traveled with each other’s family. We were a family. And then some pretty shitty things happened and I lost the earth under my feet.

That was the moment something changed inside me. Something cracked and I changed. It wasn’t an instant change, but it was radical. I realized that some people are just not worth sharing your deepest thoughts and desires. So I learned to pick my friends better, but even after that I can’t call someone best friend. Friend yeah, but best friend like those years, I don’t have.

I like to talk to people who really care to listen to me and not pretend to listen, or listen just to make fun of me. 

So I’m a listener. A dearly devoted listener to those I care and a talker to a few people that have a special place in my heart. To those who really deserve it.

How about you? Are you a listener?