You Need a Good Listening To

Men, I’m going to tell you something that could upgrade your dating life, and possibly your entire life.

Ask more questions. Then really listen to the answers.

In more than 30 years as a dating coach, I cannot remember even one straight man complaining to me that women don’t ask him questions or listen to what he has to say.

Not one.

Women? Nearly every straight woman I’ve coached has made some version of that complaint about men. In fact, it may be the single most common reason women in my practice give for deciding not to put any more energy into a new connection:

“He didn’t ask me any questions. He just talked about himself.”

Sometimes that means no second date, or no second call, or even no call at all, as in: he didn’t ask questions online.

But before anyone concludes that men are inherently self-centered or simply don’t care what women have to say, I don’t think that’s what’s happening.

I think a lot of men are hungry for someone to listen to them.

Many straight men simply don’t have enough people in their lives with whom they regularly have meaningful, emotionally engaged conversations. For some, a romantic partner is the only person who has ever consistently filled that role. And now, these guys are single and starved for a good listening-to. 

Women tend to have more practice. They talk extensively with friends—often other women. From very early in life, girls are also given much more practice noticing other people’s feelings, asking questions, listening carefully, and responding in ways that show they’ve understood.

So put a man who’s been longing for somebody to really talk to across the table from an attractive woman who’s been practicing attentive conversation most of her life, and something understandable can happen.

He talks…and talks.

And she listens and asks questions.

He walks away thinking:

“Wow. What a fantastic conversation! We really connected.”

She walks away thinking:

“He doesn’t know one thing about me.”

And in a nutshell, there’s the issue. Because many women don’t experience good conversational skills as merely good conversational skills. They experience them as evidence of good relationship skills:

Does this person notice me?

Is he curious about me?

Can he make room for my thoughts and feelings as well as his own?

Does he remember what I said?

If I tell him something important, does he follow up?

Do I feel understood, cared about, and attended to when I’m with him?

Those are relationship questions.

They’re the listening version of holding the door open for her, and without it, the door to any further interaction swings shut. 

Which brings me to a former client I’ll call KC. At one point after we’d worked on this, he texted me:

“Duana, you have given me a superpower.”

His superpower?

It wasn’t a pickup line, or a clever way to impress women. It was learning to do three things well: 

*ask questions that showed genuine interest, 

*listen closely to the answers, and then 

*make comments or ask follow-up questions that kept the focus on the other person.

Simple? Yes.

Easy, if you’ve spent decades communicating differently? Not necessarily.

Powerful? KC certainly thought so.

And it didn’t just help him with women. He began noticing the difference it made with people throughout his life. Everything, from his work life to his life with friends to finding his life partner—all were majorly enhanced just by listening well instead of listening until he could get to telling his own story.

So, men, here’s an experiment I’d like you to try: 

On your next online exchange, or call, or date, don’t concentrate on being interesting.

Instead, get interested.

Ask her something you genuinely want to know. Listen to the answer without preparing the story you’re going to tell next. Notice something she says and follow it:

“What was that like for you?”

“How did you get interested in that?”

“You mentioned your daughter earlier—how is she doing now?”

The more you stop worrying about whether you’re interesting enough and start discovering what is interesting about her, the more interesting you’ll become. 

Because the people we remember aren’t always the people who impressed us most. They’re very often the people who made us feel:

You see me.
You hear me.
You want to know me.

And isn’t that what most of us are looking for in love?

If you’re over 50 and want to get better at recognizing—and becoming—the kind of partner who can create lasting love, I’ve created a free 15-minute training to help you think differently about finding and choosing the right person.

You can watch it here:
coaching.lovesciencemedia.com/freebie

Photo by Thomas Leblanc on Unsplash