How do I tell my friend she is a poor listener?

It seems as though you have tried to tell her and as you say, she just doesn’t listen. Do you want to preserve the friendship? Is it of value to you? If it is, I think I’d try to tell her again. Perhaps write her an email or a letter telling her how you feel and explaining you’re writing because she a. hasn’t listened to you in the past and b. has dismissed your concerns and blamed your feelings on ADD. If she chooses to dismiss your feelings again, I’d start making other plans and being unavailable to spend time with her.

Maybe it’s what YOU are saying. Or how you are saying it. Maybe she is a good listener to everyone else, but she is not interested in what you are saying.

Don’t be so quick to blame her. There are two ends to each conversation.

Loudly.

Seriously, I might not bother. If someone is a poor listener, they just don’t want to hear what you have to say. Like @elbanditoroso it may be their fault, or yours, but either way it will probably achieve nothing.

She sounds exhausting. To me, if someone doesn’t listen to what you have to say they aren’t a very good friend. Why don’t you try one more time to talk to her? If she still doesn’t change her ways, then you should consider letting her go.

Repeatedly.

If this person is valuable to you and you want to keep her in your life, it is imperative that you express your concerns in a way that she can’t tune out or interrupt.

I suggest writing her a letter. She can’t interrupt, and you have the time and quiet to form your message carefully. She may get angry, as she may interpret it as criticism, but she may move past that pretty quickly. If she becomes defensive and angry with you after reading it, and has no intention of attempting to modify those behaviors, you might want to reevaluate her importance to you.

It is difficult to confront, good luck with this.

If you desire this specific individual to be part of your life, you’re likely to have to change your expectations.

If you desire someone with whom you genuinely feel you can share your deepest thoughts—someone who will listen, respect, support, respond meaningfully and give as much to the relationship as you feel you give, you need not invest any more time with this one.

I speak from decades of experience ;-)

I have a friend who is very like this. I enjoy her company but I don’t rely on her to help or to listen if I have a problem. It’s just how she is and I wouldn’t want to change that. I have other people that I can talk to about in depth things. Sometimes I will tell her if she is repeating a story or finish the story for her,then try to say something positive or ask a question about what happened next. She quite often talks about her job which, while it’s not the same stories, they are quite boring…

Why is she your friend? (ADD is a condition, not an excuse.)

If she doesn’t care about your feelings or what you have to say, then you definitely won’t be able to appeal to her by request. You’ll just have to change your attitude toward her. Say whatever you want to say to her. Rather than trying to lead by example, instead, respond in kind. If she ignores you, then you have all the right to ignore her right back.

If she tells you the same story twice, just say whatever you want to say. Don’t be patient or supportive when you should be annoyed. She probably knows you have a real opinion but maybe you’re being too conscientious, and she doesn’t respect how reserved you are with sharing with what you think about her or her situations.

Bottom line, she is selfish. If you want to remain friends with her, you’ll have to push back, or it’s going to continue to grind your gears.

Not. A friend .

Hmm. If someone is a poor listener, then you can’t really tell them this, can you? Sure, you could try, but you’d never know if you got through to them or not. The best that you can hope for is that they will “come to the realization” that they need to improve, and make steps to improve, and then actually will improve.

So what are you doing to enable her to “come to this realization”? The only way that I have ever done this in the past is to simply stop trying to communicate to the person. Just shut up completely, and don’t say a word. If they care – and some do not, this is not a 100% effective tool unless your respondent cares to hear from you – then they’ll ask “Why have you stopped talking to me?” At that point you can respond – without the least bit of snark, sarcasm or anger, “Because it seemed to me that I was wasting my time and my breath, since you did not appear to be listening.”

If you’re still talking and she’s getting what she needs out of the relationship, what earthly reason does she have to change?

If she doesn’t care enough to listen to you, then she’s a lousy friend. Lots of people are ADD, yet we don’t blow off our friends when they’re talking. Whatever else she is, she’s very very self absorbed. If you were to replace yourself with a blow-up doll, what would she say? Would she even notice?

The fact the she “stormed off” and essentially completely dismissed your feelings would be all it took for me to drop her in a heartbeat. That alone shows she is incredibly emotionally immature and cannot handle confrontation. I dropped a long time friend for the same reason a few years ago when I spoke up about her bad habit of answering for other people and her manipulative communication style. She turned into an instant 4 yr. old, became defensive and refused to acknowledge what I was saying.

Bye bye baby. I have zero tolerance for those that cannot hear me on the rare occasion I feel I need to speak up about something. A real friend would be concerned about fixing things not storming off or attempting to shift the blame. Let her go, you don;t need the drama.

Is there a way I can let her know how I feel without making her angry? This is a two-pronged question.

If you have the energy (and personally I would not) you can address this issue one more time, from your point of view. You will get nowhere by criticizing her behavior, no matter how justified, but you are entitled to talk about yourself.

Use only “I” statements.

I feel I do 90% of the listening.
I feel my issues fall through the cracks.
I am not happy with this friendship at present. It feels very one-sided much of the time. Do you have any suggestions?

She has already shown how angry she can get. That’s a given.

I join in the collective who suggest you move on.

Perhaps you could record a conversation?

My sister was like that. Exactly like that. Still is, but I rarely talk to her any more. My sister does it from a lack of self esteem and selfishness. She feels that her life has more importance than anyone elses. Her thoughts and ideas are profound and everyone else has mundane, meaningless lives.

Sounds like you’ve tried to get through to her and wasn’t able to. Maybe it’s time to cut the line, and tell her why. If she values your friendship, perhaps she’ll make an attempt.

It seems to me that you have told her how you feel and she is 1) not receptive and 2) not making an effort to change.

Have you considered dumping this one-sided friendship?

I had a friend tell me that he had gotten tired of our roles—something we established 25 years ago. He was the listener, and I was the talker. He felt like my priest.

I had gotten tired of being the performer to his audience. I felt like his entertainer.

Ah…. we realized that we had outgrown our roles, but still cared for each other enough to stay friends. We both realized it was a matter or difference in perspective, but also that we had gotten stuck in roles. We both agreed to change.

The key element in that discussion—we both were open, willing to hear the other person’s feelings without discounting their feelings. We supported each other even though what we said wasn’t comfortable. We’re still friends.

If you have approached your friend with respect, caring and openness, and have shared your feelings.. and your friend can’t give you balanced respect in return, then yes… I’d move on too. I’ve cut off people who don’t see me as an equal—it was painful, difficult and exhausting, but in the long run, much more liberating.

It doesn’t mean that she did not hear you at all. It may mean that she is so upset to talk about it?
Or perhaps she can’t handle emotions very well.?
Some people are so rational that they come across as unfeeling, but it isnot the case.
Cousellors need to separate there own feelings when listening to emotional problems etc.
Some people can’t explain their feelings either.
My guess is that you may have to openly discuss just“what responses’ that you require from her?

She isn’t referring to one incident @Inspired_2write. It happens in every conversation.

@Dutchess_III
Perhaps that person is uncomfortable dealing with feelings, emotions…all the time?
Not everyone is adept at handling emotions.

Or she’s just selfish.

@Dutchess_III
Or immature?

It is understandable how you feel. Most, if not all of us have felt the same way at one time or another. Here is what I have found.

Communication styles vary. Relationships are often challenged when one person expects another to communicate in the same way that he or she does, especially after voicing frustration. The bottom line is that we cannot change another person’s actions. Inspire yes, but motivation comes from within. This is out of our control.

Now that you have addressed the situation on two occasions, it is time to give up on the hope that she might change her communication style. A co-worker once told me that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

It sounds as if it is time to reassess what this friendship brings to the table. I have a couple of friends that feel comfortable venting to me but have little interest in hearing advice or my own venting. Yet they are still valuable as friends in their own way. I’ve learned to respect and appreciate that.

Her mention of ADD (an accurate diagnosis or not) shows some awareess.

Lol that sounds like my sister =\

Awareness, or a BS excuse, if she doesn’t really have ADD.

Thanks for all the great responses to my query. After things settled down, I had a long and frank talk with my friend. She has been much more responsive and even asks me how I am doing quite regularly now. When I look at the big picture, she indeed has attention issues. She also had a tough upbringing, no (positive) role model as a child and she has successfully overcome a great deal of hardship in her life, including years of abuse by a relative. While she has been open and willing to change, my learning lesson here is to be compassionate toward others who are not behaving and reacting in the way I THINK THEY SHOULD. Thanks again to all!

Two very important lessons, worth repeating, regarding the value of:
1. Speaking honestly, patiently and considerately
2. Listening compassionately