I’m a poor listener.
I don’t give the other person my full attention.
I allow my mind to wander.
Rather than focus on the message being conveyed, I instead begin to formulate responses in my head while the other person is still speaking.
And those responses are usually pretty terrific.
To me.
But I often miss the speaker’s point, sometimes entirely.
And that causes him or her to think I’m a rude, insensitive, conceited prick.
Yes, I am a regular violator of every rule of good listening.
I am aware of this.
Sometimes I care.
Often, I don’t.
And, on some occasions, I deliberately leverage my poor listening habits to better manage unpleasant situations.
Like when I’m in a car with my wife and daughter, and they’re discussing, at length, some topic in which I have zero interest.
Like country music.
Then, I actively force my mind to wander to remove myself from the environment.
I start watching Seinfeld reruns in my head.
Or I imagine myself catching a wave.
And I usually get away with it.
Until my wife or daughter tries to include me in the conversation.
And if I don’t get off the wave and return to the car fast enough, I get in trouble.
“Dan . . . Dan . . . Dan!” my wife yells at me.
She quickly recognizes my condition.
“He’s doing it again,” she says to my daughter.
And then they’re both pissed off at me for the rest of the night.
For sure, I’m a bad listener.
Probably even a terrible one.
But I’m an expert anti-listener.
Which is a skill.
Maybe even a gift.
Which came in handy the other day when I had to get a new driver’s license.
The unpleasantness of the DMV experience has been well documented, arguably to the point of being cliché.
So I won’t get into that here.
My experience began with confronting a long line of people that snaked from the entry door all the way to the service desk, where one—only one—person was processing requests for new driver’s licenses.
I estimated that I’d be there for an hour.
The people standing in line with me were unremarkable.
And that was a good thing.
They either stared at their phones or quietly conversed with one another.
The whole place was calm and orderly, like a doctor’s office.
Which was about as good as anyone could hope for in such a situation.
About thirty minutes in, another guy walked through the door.
He was about seventy-five and disheveled.
He had unkempt, gray hair, over which sat a Kansas City Chiefs ball cap.
Strangely, he also wore a yellow reflective vest over a red flannel shirt and was carrying one of those plastic lobster-claw things attached to a long handle that workers at Disney World use to pick up trash.
Had he recently been released from a prison work detail? I wondered.
Immediately upon walking in and sizing up the line in front of him, he strode straight to the front.
“I need to get a new license,” he said to the clerk processing the applications. “Am I in the right place?”
There were signs everywhere suggesting he was, which the man either failed to notice or disbelieved.
The clerk patiently informed him that he was indeed in the right place and then told him the various documents he’d need to get the license.
Upon hearing this, the old man turned around and remarked, to no one in particular, “I have no idea what he just said . . .”
And then he laughed as though this were some kind of rare, insightful, hilarious observation.
He looked at the others standing in line for approval.
Most just continued to stare at their phones.
I immediately categorized the man as harmless, yet someone to be ignored.
He decided otherwise.
He would not be ignored.
The next person to walk in and join the line was a tall, athletic-looking guy, about thirty years old.
“Well, I guess we should call you ‘Shorty,’” the old man said upon noticing him.
And he again looked around the room, seeking approval for his witticism.
None was to be had.
After a few moments of awkward silence, he continued, undeterred.
“You know why your nose can never be twelve inches long?” he asked the tall guy.
Shit. Here we go.
“Because then it would be a foot!” he said, delivering the punchline.
In other words, your nose would cease to be a facial appendage and would instead become another body part, attached to your leg, not to your face.
And, of course, this was impossible.
Which was an observation a kindergartner might have found clever.
The old man laughed hysterically to himself and again glanced about the room for approval.
Some people looked up from their phones and shot each other glances that said, Is this guy for real?
Unfortunately, he was.
He continued to crack the lamest, corniest, old-man jokes I’d ever heard in my life.
To his credit, the tall guy who’d walked in behind him played along with the jokes, politely smiling, nodding, and saying things like, “Yeah, I suppose that’s true.”
But he quickly reached his limit.
And then he pulled out his phone and gave every outward indication he was engrossed in whatever was on it.
The old man eventually took the hint.
And then he began to harass the lady in front of him.
“What’s the fastest dairy product?” he asked her.
The woman also politely played along.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What is the fastest dairy product?”
The old man, basking in the lady’s attention, replied, triumphantly, “Well, it has to be milk!”
Milk?
“That’s right—milk,” he said. “It’s pasteurized before you even know it!”
That was pasteurized, as in, “past your eyes,” suggesting the milk was somehow moving rapidly from point A to point B.
“Oh.” the woman said, lamely. “That’s funny.”
But it wasn’t funny.
It was wrong.
Just plain wrong.
The driver’s license line continued to progress, winding back and forth across the office.
And the old man continued, unabated, with his lame-ass jokes.
And thereby added significantly to the general discomfort of the entire experience.
The ceiling started to seem lower.
The walls seemed to be closing in.
All this, even as I kicked my anti-listening skills into overdrive.
I did everything I could to mentally remove myself from the place.
I took myself to Hawaii. I reviewed the day’s headlines. I checked items off my to-do list.
All in my head.
But it was to no avail.
The old man was overpowering me.
Eventually, the back-and-forth-weaving line progressed to the point at which I found myself shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
Oh, shit, I thought.
He’s going to try to talk to me.
What should I do?
What’s my obligation here? I wondered.
The truth could have been that he was just lonely, harbored no ill intent, and simply sought a little social interaction.
Yes, his methods were clumsy.
But he intended no harm.
Even though that was exactly what he was inflicting upon my ears.
And my brain.
And those of everyone else standing in line.
It was just too damn painful.
So, I turned my shoulders to a forty-five-degree angle from the man and stared intently ahead of me.
I didn’t turn my back on him entirely.
But I tried to make it clear that I had no desire to engage with him.
It worked.
Ten minutes later, I departed the office with my new license.
I doubt the old man was equally successful.
He probably lacked the necessary documents to get his new license.
And he would have to return to the DMV another day.
Which may have been fine for him.
But not for those with whom he would have to stand in line.
Those people were screwed.
Because I’m sure the old man would launch into his act.
Undeterred.
With all the same material.
And unless the others in line had anti-listening skills superior to mine,
They would suffer.
Oh, how they would suffer.
Poor bastards.