This one
goes out to all the teenage girls at the sushi train hopping on the Bitch-fest
Express, the lawyers escaping the workplace for a coffee and a whinge outside
the courthouse, and that couple at the Italian restaurant who are quite
possibly on a first date thanks to Tinder (which explains a lot) – for god’s
sake, enunciate.
How am I
expected to know why Missy is a “totes whore-bag”, how you can tell the witness
was drunk or whether you’re star sign compatible if you mumble? It’s like only watching the first 10 minutes
of Gossip Girl, or the last 5 minutes of Law & Order or any of The Bachelor
– frustrating in the extreme.
I know I’m a
stranger, but have you considered using fewer incomprehensible verbal acronyms
so I have time to google the ones you do toss around? I realise I’m tuning in to a private
conversation, but would it kill you to lay in a bit more exposition?
So goes the
internal monologue of anyone who has ever enjoyed the high art of Eavesdropping
in Public Places.
There’s a
real skill required to pull off a successful Tune In to the Radio of
Randoms. Dare I say it (spoiler alert: I
dare), there are in fact some unofficial rules to the jig.
1. Do not make
eye contact with the Talkers. That’s
just rude.
2. Avoid
audible responses (laughter, gasps, snorts of judgmental derision) to the
Talkers. In the Best of circumstances it
will play like an odd tick, in the Worst it will appear you are reacting to an
invisible friend, in the Middle the jig will indeed be up and they will accuse
you of being rude.
3. If your
friend gestures sideways with their head, and a well-placed eyebrow raise, for
god’s sake Shut Up – there’s a vastly more interesting conversation happening
within your vicinity. Take a hint, don’t
be rude.
4. When with friends,
and thus Listening as a Team, avoid any quick analytical breakdowns of which
one of the high schooler Talkers is Gretchen Wieners, and which one’s Regina
George, while they’re still beside you.
Listening is a two-way street. Also,
it’s rude to sully the legacy of Mean Girls with anything less than half an
hour of heated discussion on the topic.
5. For the
truly skilled Team Listeners, develop a generic, meaningless patter you are
capable of keeping up while really Listening, in order to better throw the
Talkers off your scent. Sample patter:
A: I’m not really sure.
B: Did you check the velocity of the object?
A: No.
B: Strange.
A: Very.
B: Allergic to mangoes.
A: That’s what they all said…
And so
forth.
6. Under no
circumstances should you become so swept in the Listening, that you find
yourself blurting out the answer to a random question. That’s less rude, and more disconcerting (and
in the case of the man who blew his Listening cover to give me rapid,
un-requested directions to the café bathroom yesterday, incorrect… so not worth
blowing one’s cover for really).
Painefull
Out
