Do you ever pretend to listen when, in fact, you are not listening at all?

Question

What do you think about in the mean time?

Answer 1

I do this all the time. Its usually when I am talking to my mum on the phone.......or more realistically, I am listening to my mum talk. I am usually watching tv but she has gotten wise to this now and every now and again asks me a question to see if I am paying attention.

Answer 2

sorry , did you say something?

for real I think many of us are guilty of this from time to time, some worse then others. I did have a male friend as a teen who lived next door, we used to stand chatting at the fence between us, but eventually he would start talking about fixing cars and the different parts and I literally don't know what else , because i was switching off. so I suppose I do when the conversation is boring . sorry chris, still love ya.

Answer 3

Sometimes.
Meanwhile, I think about important things such as:
Why has this boring person got gravy stains on his tie?
Why are the gaps between the floor tiles not even?
How did a fool like this get promoted to that level?

..and my favourite, 'If you put a suit on a monkey it is still a monkey, the simian features are quite prominent.'

Answer 4

I do that all the time; in fact, I even have an effective automatic pilot response system. If someone speaks to me and their voice sounds happy or excited, I say ''Yes, sounds good.''
If they sound annoyed or stressed, I say, ''Oh, that sounds bad.''
If they go up at the end of the sentence or sound questioning, I go,
''Ahh, em, I'm not sure. What do you think?''
If a tone is not detected, I say, ''Uh, not sure, hold on a minute'' while my automatic pilot tentatively taps on the door of my blue study to ask if I could spare some time to respond.

Answer 5

yep - i have a really short attention span and get bored of most conversations really quickly. i pretend to still be listening but i'm usually thinking about things i'm going to do/need to do later, anything really - my mind is always on about 100 different things at any one time

Answer 6

God all the time, especially when people talk through my tv programs then i try and nod away at the right places but am really listening to the tv

Answer 7

All the time! Usually in a staff meeting when they're babbling on about stuff that does not pertain to me or the projects I'm working on.

Then I'm usually thinking about other stuff I need to do, whether I should schedule a haircut, what to get my sister for her birthday, do I need my umbrella - you know, just random stuff.

Answer 8

I have such a short attention span that usually I mean to listen but my mind wanders, it can wander off and think about really random things, but usually I am thinking about my b/f

Answer 9

all the time cause people talk too much about stuff i don't want to listen to but, it's not polite to say "SHUT UP STUPID"......i thought i was the only one who did that. i usually think about the things i need to be doing .

Answer 10

yes i am ashamed to say i do pretend to listen if some is talking sh*te i mean who cares but if its important i listen