Advice Archive: No One Listens To Me!

March 7, 2020

Name/Age: Dessi Woods

Message:
*vent*
For a very long time now it seems like everyone in my life or circle of friends doesn’t want to hear what I have to say. I listen to everyone, I allow them to talk to me. I let them tell me about their day, their personal life, their problems..everything. It seems like whenever it’s time to talk about me, I get backhanded. Sometimes I have things to say, sometimes I want to talk about my day or my problems but nobody wants to hear my shit. Whenever I begin to talk about me they get quite and I’m met with an “ohhh” and they would jump to something else pertaining themselves. ITS EVERYONE that I talk to on a daily basis. What am I doing wrong? I kinda feel like what’s wrong with me and what I’m saying? I know I don’t talk about dumb things. It saddens me honestly. It makes me feel so lonely. I have tried to talk to some about it and it didn’t help a thing. I need some serious advice.

Hey Dessi Woods,

You definitely aren’t doing anything wrong, love. Sometimes it takes some time to determine who in your life you can or cannot confide in and on what levels. It sucks to not feel heard and I’ve gone through that myself. For me, I had to do a couple of things. For one I had to figure out who had the strongest potential to be a true confidant in my life. The person literally with the best listening skills. Someone I felt I could connect with if we both took the time to develop that real connection. It does take a bit of time to lay that foundation because some people take “how are you?” super lightly like a “good morning” not thinking twice about your actual reply and on the other hand people take that same question and either want to dive deeper than “I’m fine” or if they’re the one who asked, they are prepared to listen and expound into the conversation pass the “ohhh” that you say you’ve been met with. Some people are super quick to keep a conversation going and talk about themselves or some other topic, that they don’t take the time to really dive into topics, they just keep going and going. Refocus the conversation back onto you if you feel like someone isn’t allowing you the opportunity to really speak your mind. I had to do that too and also bring it to someone’s attention that they barely ever let me talk, and they didn’t even realize it. People be wrapped up in themselves you’d be surprised how many people aren’t aware of the shit they do. Make it about you just as they do. I had to realize that within myself because I’m always the listener and people get so used to me listening, that that’s what they expect from me. They don’t even ask how I am, they just start talking about themselves. I set that tone and they got used to it. So, I had to set another tone. I had to make people listen to ME. Some people stopped to listen when I brought it to their attention or circled back to myself in conversation, then there were also others who still re-shifted the conversation back to themselves because apparently they didn’t care to listen. And those people, I stopped talking to and even stopped listening to. Communication is a two-way street unless you’re talking to a therapist. Some days I’m cool with that because I do have an advice column lol and I’m used to being an ear, BUT if I’m going to have friends and family and not "clients” because in that case, I need to send an invoice, I made sure they knew they needed to listen to me as much as I did them. And not just listen, RESPOND and deep dive, as I do them.

Not everyone is that person so it’s normal if you aren’t really surrounded by many. Weed out the people who you think you can develop that communication with and make them aware of how you’re feeling to see if they change. If they do, wonderful, but if they don’t, don’t waste your time and words. And also determine if you don’t feel listened to if that’s a friendship deal-breaker to you. For me it is. Your words hold value, take the floor and demand to be listened to. If they refuse, cut em off. You will meet more people in life and as you go on, get more use to talking and expressing yourself no matter what and the people who truly value you, that want to hear what you have to say, will listen.

I hope this advice helps you. -K