Relationships: In Praise of Men Who Don’t Listen

On our first date, my boyfriend won me over by memorizing the names of my four brothers and sisters. This was above and beyond the call of duty. It showed that he could tell family was important to me; it also indicated that he wanted to stick around to meet mine. It proved that our date was different from the many I had had before. Good thing I have this beautiful memory to hold on to, because I don’t think he’s paid attention to a word I’ve said since.

We’ve been together for seven months now, and things are going great. But to G., verbal communication isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Granted, when you spend a lot of time with someone, you say many inconsequential things just to exercise your jaw when you’re not using it to chew, but still. Here’s a simplified example of what happens on a typical evening on my couch. G. and I will be watching “24” and I’ll say: “It looks like Chloe lost ten pounds between hours seven and eight.” Three minutes later, G. will remark: “Does Chloe seem skinnier to you?” Some play on this happens just about every night; I’ll mention a trivial thing I noticed, and he’ll point out the very same thing moments after I’ve said it. Come to think of it, maybe he is listening, it’s just that whatever I say goes directly to his subconscious with no pit stop at his conscious. Whatever it is, it proves what we already know – men don’t listen, at least not the way we do. But I don’t take it personally.

They can remember where the Dow closed last Wednesday, the value of the Euro, and all kinds of baseball stats, but they will never memorize your bra size – so forget about a gift from Agent Provocateur without any prompting from you. Movies are my boyfriend’s passion. He’ll see a listing for a film by a director six people have heard of and the date, time, and place of the screening will penetrate his head indelibly. If I tell him I made us a dinner reservation at my favorite restaurant for some special occasion, he’ll ask me three or four times where we’re going to eat.

Still, we somehow manage to communicate. By listening to (and this is an optimistic estimate) 70% of my proclamations, G. seems to understand what is important to me. His actions speak louder than even my loudest, unheeded word. He may not remember the name of the restaurant, but he’s there across from me feigning interest in the news of my day. And there are some upsides to being ignored. If G. gets angry at me for writing this post, I can just say I told him about it. He’ll have to believe me.

How do you get your significant other to listen to you? Leave your comment below and you may be one of five Blisstree readers to win a copy of Giulia’s book, I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti!