The art of listening

I had dinner with an acquaintance last night. I’ve known him for several years and we meet occasionally when he’s in town. He has lived in Dubai for a long time and is about to retire in Australia with his family. A well traveled man in his 60s, he’s a fine storyteller, and boy he has lots of stories to tell.

When I am out with him, I don’t have to rack my brain to think of anything interesting to say. Take last night for example. I wasn’t given much opportunity to open my mouth anyway because this man can certainly go on and on, in his slow monotonous tone. Sometimes, the stories get complicated like when he's talking about his friend A, who is married to B and how their domestic maid was found sleeping with C, who is a friend of A and relative of D… you know what I mean?

But that’s fine by me, I hear (but not really listening) and chew blissfully on my sashimi as his voice droned in the background. I zone in and out… I mean do I really want to know if A is sleeping with C or D? Just as I was about to put in my 2 cents worth, he began raving about his trip to Copenhagen the day before Prince Albert got married and how the people lined the streets in anticipation of the big do, and how he met so and so… Seeing how quiet I was, he asked “So, have you been to Copenhagen? You've heard of the wedding?”

“Huh? Oh, Yes... So how many days will you be in Singapore this time?”, unaware that my innocuous questions had given him another signal to start…

“I leave on Thursday night. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be going to an office at Marina House for a meeting, then Mr X will pick me up from the hotel for lunch at my favourite Thanying Thai Restaurant. After that, I’ll be meeting Mr Y for a drink at the lounge followed by dinner at the club. Wednesday morning, I have a round of golf at Laguna with Mr Z….and on Thursday morning, I’ll drop into the office for a couple of hours, check out of the hotel at noon, have lunch with Ms A, then I have nothing to do until I take a taxi to the airport for my flight at 11pm. Then I’ll fly to Sydney, stay for a month and go back to Dubai on 15 June. On 10 July, I will fly to Toronto to attend my niece’s wedding. You know Air Canada has a direct flight now from Sydney to Canada which means I don’t have to transit…..On October 10, I’ll fly in to Copenhagen, stay for 2 days, then fly to Bremen where Ms T promised to drive all the way from Hamburg to pick me up and bring us to the meeting at this place that’s about 3 hour drive away……”

As you can imagine, I had already zoned out, focusing my attention on the grilled salmon cheek that had appeared before us. Sensing that he had paused, I said “Oh wow, you’ve got your schedule planned out so far ahead.”

Encouraged by my respond, he launched into another segment of his itinerary… “After Germany, I will fly back to Sydney and stay there for one year and then I’ll…”

I looked up and found that the restaurant had gone very quiet. The waitress told us they’re closing in 10 minutes. Wow, has it been so long? But our friend wasn’t quite done yet. He said, “Can you bring us some green tea ice cream before you close?”

As we were eating ice cream, he started talking about the political situation in Sri Lanka and how he had almost invested in some properties there which would have been a big mistake compared to the fantastic investments he had made in Dubai....blah blah blah

I looked at my watch and exclaimed, “Oh wow, I’m sorry to interrupt but how time flies. I really have to go home quickly or my kids will be late for school tomorrow morning! It's so nice to see you again. Have a safe trip. Ciao!”