Last night I was reminded of this subject, as I visited a friend who was busily making dinner.   She bustles and putters and chops and spatters, doesn’t respond, and occasionally ‘shows interest’ by asking a ‘clarifying question’.  Or more like a “what was that?” question.   It’s hard to really hear, when you are focused on something else.  I was not being heard – and I felt unheard.

My partner, on the other hand, doesn’t really care if he was heard – doesn’t wonder if he was –just assumes of course he was.   That’s his ‘default’.  Mine is to wait for someone’s attention, as I assume I will not be interesting enough to be heard at the best of times, let alone when someone is not paying attention.

Funny, these lifelong perspectives and habits-of-feeling we develop.  At least these days I merely feel bored in this situation, and my mind wanders off to the world of ideas and dreams.  I have a very active imagination – well-honed after a lifetime of frequent use.

But for some people, the need to feel heard is deep and desperate.   It’s a straining, bursting-at-the-seams kind of need; an it’s-been-so-long-I-might-kill-myself kind of need.   And there are so many people out there with this need, one could almost become a fulltime “volunteer listener”.   I know there are some who just never stop talking – for whom the talking is probably an unconscious distancing of people – a barrier to intimacy.  But for most, the bursting need is to talk about something pressing – like a feeling of injustice or unfairness, the need to feel affirmed, appreciated, perhaps even understood.

Maslow’s famous “hierarchy of needs” didn’t include the need to feel heard; but it would fit right in there among the more basic needs in life.   How about right after food, or sleep?