The Complainer or Kvetcher

Many conversations are an exchange of complaints or a one-way dosage. I kvetch, you kvetch, everyone’s happy to have been heard. Jobs, spouses, children, other family members, service organizations, neighbours, slights, rejections, love life, law suits, he said/she said, you name it, we can all find something to complain about. It’s the basis of many a talk show today. You know, the old “You think you got it bad; listen to this!” It sells TV shows, products, newspapers and keeps the internet alive.

In a conversational context, I believe listening to some complaints isn’t a bad thing so long as you can be helpful to the complainant, assuming that person wants help or advice. More frequently, however, the complainer doesn’t want resolution, or help or even pity. It’s simply become a habit to complain and often the speaker is unaware s/he has turned into a whiner. Or s/he's made it part of their conversational shtick. Such can always be counted on to depart a delicious tidbit – “Listen to this!” about the horrors of their life to which they present a “this can’t keep me down!” or relay it in a comical perspective. While this can be wonderfully entertaining, for – let’s face it – it can give the listener a sense of “Well, at least my life isn’t THAT bad!” it becomes a drag if it’s a persistent conversational pattern.

Some listeners live vicariously through the talker’s experience; others can be judgemental and wonder why the kvetcher doesn’t take positive steps to remedy their situation. So what to do? Lisa R. Van Wagner has a wonderful page on kvetching in which she relays parts of Barbara Held’s "Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching: A 5-Step Guide to Creative Complaining. Check it out: http://www.recoveryroadmap.com/Inspiration/Kvetching.html In the meantime, monitor your own conversations. Are you still re-hashing some old hurt, regurgitating some past slight? Are you addicted to the negative because of the attention it gains you? Has it – horrors! – become part of your personality? Is this how you want to be seen or known…as the whiner?

From the listener point of view, absorbing a whiner’s download can be, amongst many other things: fun, disturbing, entertaining or worrisome or boring. Just bear in mind, you don’t want to become too much of an enabler. Some relationships are built on I whine, you listen. Sometimes it’s worth asking yourself what you’re getting out of lending a kvetcher your ears. Who is listening to you?

The Verbal Diarrhoea-ist

Another acqaintance, Jobe, a notorious long-talker, pauses frequently when speaking at length, apparently to re-marshall his thoughts. When this happens the others in the conversation often mistake the pause as a full stop and verbally jump in only to be immediately and archly informed he is not done! Being polite, everyone is forced to continue in the listener role. I’ve noticed some listeners simply walk away in the middle of Jobe’s discourses as they cannot tolerate what to them is his rudeness. I’ve also noticed at parties that no one cares to be caught alone in an aside with Jobe for it is akin to being caught in a spider-web of “conversation” from which there is no escape. Of course, if anyone persists in breaking away or interjecting themselves into Jobe’s conversation, he thinks they are rude! I have made efforts to sustain my attention span and continue to listen well past my own tolerance level as I’m a kind and optimistic person, and believe I just might learn something. But even kind optimists have their limits.

So what is really going on here? Is Jobe trying to shift the “power” while he holds the floor? Do we the listeners allow ourselves to become passive out of politeness while he is holding forth? Is there any way to signal him that he’s surpassed the listener’s capacity? One solution is to state as soon as you discern you're enmeshed in a monologue, “I’ve only got 5 minutes.” Definitely worth a try! Or stick with the those who don't give a damn what Jobe thinks and...walk away.

Jobe does seem aware of his problem (or is it our's?) but can't seem to fix it. He suffers from a lack of awareness of "conversational limits". I really don't know how to solve Jobe's problem for indeed it is his. My problem is simple. I need only ask myself, "How much of my time am I willing to give this guy?" then act on it. But remember: everyone needs a little attention even if it's only (to quote the old Brownie vow) to lend an ear.

The Ongoing Battle of the Sexes

("Listen!" continued)
Garth and Sarah (pseudonyms) are friends of mine. As Sarah and I are very verbal, and of course, women, when we get together with Garth, it often falls to him to be the almost silent (male) listener. No doubt this frustrates him, for I admit it would me, were the tables reversed.

When Garth speaks, it’s often to educate us (for instance, how to do something technical or esoteric) or to relate his perspective which he presents with authority. Garth lacks awareness of conversational “time” so although he is a good listener, he is also a long talker having no sense of how long he’s been holding the floor. So two things are happening: one is his topic; the other is his timing.

He loses listeners’ attention as he goes on too long usually on a topic that holds little interest after the initial 2 minutes. Tip to the conversationalist: monitor your listener(s). Ask yourself: Am I boring them? Have I lost them (too technical a topic, too indepth, too informative)? Have I spoken too long? Is it time to let someone else speak? There's nothing to be lost by granting another the floor.

As for the women in this “three-way” conversation, remind yourselves to be inclusive. No one likes to be left out. Remember what you learned in kindergarten: be aware and share!

The Usurper

No doubt in the course of a conversation you’ve run into the usurper: this person tells the punch line to the joke you’re in the process of telling, s/he steals your thunder by jumping in with the latest news you had started to impart or steals your stories or ideas and retells them as his or her own.

Again, I believe usurpers need attention, need to increase their feelings of self-worth to feel one-up or better than the person upon whom they practice their one-up-manship. Right or wrong, I try to call them on it when they do it if only to help bring about some self-awareness of what they are doing. I’ve learned it better serves the purpose to discuss this with the usurper in private. Often the usurper expresses surprise at what they’ve done, seemingly totally unaware. Don’t be fooled. Usurpers know exactly what they’re doing.

Are you an ITWP?

Now for a confession: I’m an insert-the-word person or ITWP. Yes, guilty! You’ve all met me. I’m the person who, when you pause in your conversation seeking the right word, jumps in and supplies it. Yes, I’m right up there with the usurper! I hereby state, reader, that I’m aware of it and working on it because it is unpleasant conversational trait. Although in my own defense, I am becoming less and less of an ITWP because my own "word" memory is becoming so bad, I too often can't find the right word. Also, I'm starting to actually like ITWPs as their word insertion help often facilitates the conversation since charades (my alternative when I seek a word) takes so long.

The Over-talker

We’ve all met the over-talker, someone who in the midst of conversation will talk over - and take over - the conversation of others to assert his or her point of view. They do this loudly, do not stop, and don’t want to be stopped. They’re either rude or needy of everyone’s immediate attention. In my opinion it's a 2-choice solution: either give them that attention OR, depending on the context of the conversation, interrupt and tell them to wait their turn if what you’re listening to or were saying was important enough to warrant that feedback. I admit I’ve been an over-talker on occasion and am not proud of the fact. I try to recognize it when I do it, stop and take the time to think about why I’m doing it. No one has ever put me in my place but I wince when I do it because it is just plain wrong (unless there's some kind of urgency to a situation but that's rare) in a conversational context.

Helluva life

"My life was hell." Yup, there's always someone whose life was hell and they just have to tell you about it and not just once or twice. Let’s face it: we’ve all had personal hells of one sort or another. Possibly some of us live it daily. For the more fortunate, their hell is behind them. But there is a type who feels obliged to revisit their personal hell. It is almost as though they have become attached to their hell and must continue to relive it verbally. They haven't used the experience to gain insight, further develop themselves or to move on.

Now I don’t mind hearing it once, or even, I’ll admit, twice. I’m curious, I’m concerned and it helps me to know a person better to know what kind of baggage they’ve carried (or have worked to let go of) but I don’t need to hear about it repetitively. If such experiences become a conversational crutch, it says to me this person hasn’t moved on. Hasn’t learned anything from their experience. This person is getting some kind of emotional pay out in replaying their hell. Is it pity, victimization, how brave they were, how much they had to suffer, blaming? I wish these people would stop and reflect on exactly what that life lesson their hell imparted to them. How did it make them a better person? Or are they stuck? Stuck in the past and the drama of that past?

Let’s face it. Many of us have lived a hell that is dramatic, and drama isn’t that easy to come by daily unless you’re a doctor, an actor or maybe a police constable. So maybe we’re hooked on the drama of the moment or minutes of our personal hell which is why we don’t want to let it go. I tend to ask these Hell-on-earthers why they are telling me this. Sometimes it works as they reflect on why they continue to bathe in the waters of the past. It begs the question: why are they so comfortable there and not here in the moment? I too have fallen prey to repeating history. But I’ve found little satisfaction in it. The satisfaction I have found, though, is when I move on, when I make peace, when I feel free of the “ties that bind”. I hope you, reader, will keep that in mind too if you find yourself stuck in a past moment or dwelling on a bad incident without finding forgiveness or some other kind of resolution.

Blah-blah-blah

To work at resolving my own listening inadequacies, I’ll relate some conversational no-no’s. I hope in addressing these, I may determine my own foibles or strategies or perspectives which in turn, may improve my listening skills or yours. I place no blame on those speakers and scenarios I describe but outline them only to better see how I can change my own reaction. If you see yourself in any description or scenario, then rest assured I too see myself there. In other words, we're all guilty!

Blah, Blah, Blah
Some people are just naturally chatty (I know I am!). They natter on about their families, their problems, their opinions, their activities. They want an audience, they don’t really want commentary, advice or solutions. They want attention. They might be nervous and just filling in the open air (some people can’t tolerate the silence that occurs occasionally). Sometimes verbalizing out loud enables them to actually figure out what is actually on their minds as we often don’t recognize an issue or problem or situation until we verbalize it.

When I encounter people like this, I just tend to listen. Who or what does it hurt? Is it that important that I speak? I make a conscious decision to listen, to actively listen. When I find it hard to listen, then I work at determining what it is that is impeding my ability to listen. Do I want to solve their problem? Have I had a similar experience? Do I know of a similar situation that might help them? Are they boring me?

Yet I try not to internalize as it inhibits my attention span. I work at this type of listening, and offer up my ears in the name of friendship and good relationships. If the blah-blah-ber is always in blubber mode, then I tend to avoid them for, in keeping with Desiderata advice: “avoid loud and aggressive spirits for they are vexatious to the spirit.”

Listen!!!!

One of my challenges this past year was learning how to listen. On second thought, ignore the “learning how to” part; I should just say “listening.” I’ve always tried to be a good listener but now I’m not so sure I am. My need to be heard sometimes overrides the politesse of listening to others. Funny how I see one thing as a need, the other as a duty.

In typical conversation, one person talks, the other listens. Then in due course, the listener may comment or add or query or encourage but to do so, the listener momentarily becomes the speaker while the former talker becomes the listener. And so it goes, typically like a game of tennis, serve, bounce, return, bounce, return. It is an enjoyable thing, this exchange.

In my experience, many people no longer know how or want to play this conversational “tennis”. They simply want to be heard: “Listen to ME!!!” Sometimes, it’s recounting an experience, sometimes it’s a long-winded complaint, sometimes it’s a rant against some perceived injustice or fault or event from the past which must be rehashed, and sometimes it’s just verbal diarrhea along the lines of my life is more interesting than yours or allow smart ME to inform ignorant YOU! As Milton Wright wrote: “A monologue is not a conversation.”

But as a listener, do I share the blame of a monologuist conversation? Am I too busy trying to put forth a solution to the problem? Have I been there, done that? Have I not given the speaker enough time? Have I read the body language? Perhaps the speaker simply needs a listener, needs to “vent” as we like to call it today. Or maybe I, as listener, am bored and can no longer track the so-called conversation. Am I patient enough? Am I reading a pause as a finish and thus jumping in before the other's done? I’ve been guilty of the all the above.

What to do? I’ll discuss this in upcoming blogs.