Why I Eavesdrop and So Should You

Yes, I confess. I eavesdrop.

No, not the kind where I try desperately to overhear my neighbor whispering to her lover. That’s pretty easy without trying, given the thin walls where I’ve been living recently.

And I’m not talking about the kind of eavesdropping the scullery maid hiding behind the linen closet enjoyed between the laundress and the butler in Downton Abbey or in an English mystery. I’m talking about the kind of eavesdropping you cannot help but hear, even when you do not want to listen to the prattle. The kind that occurs in restaurants, air terminals, bus stops or in front of the produce section at your favorite market.

Yesterday, after days, weeks, even months of being quarantined, I walked to a nearby lovely old textile mill gentrified into a set of glamorous shops. A few galleries were open but even fewer customers explored the offerings, making the beautiful halls feel as if elegant ghosts were sauntering, even haunting, them.

In one of the three open restaurants I sat alone, only a table of four several feet apart from my table. Enjoying my salad and Chardonnay, I realized something was missing.

I could not overhear other people’s conversations.

Most of the time I like that, too often having been irritated by overhearing statements showing the speaker’s ignorance, biting my tongue and restraining myself to set them right…to my way of thinking.

I enjoy dining alone, allowing me to ponder over the menu offerings and their sources, their preparations, their presentations. I enjoy sitting by myself at a bar, overhearing a sales rep speak dismissively or appreciatively of his boss or client, the guy at the next stool frantically trying to impress a potential date, or hearing the latest complaint about urban growth, taxes, or whatever is the topic of the day.

You may call me nosy and that may be true. In reality, I think I like listening because it gives me insight into how other people think, how they are living their lives, successfully or not. I don’t have to live their lives. I’ve got mine which works pretty well for me, but I can learn from what I hear. And I’m pretty sure I’ve not been assigned the role of judge in this lifetime.

I listen.

I have no experience raising children, but I have a greater appreciation for the challenges that childrearing presents as I hear Madeline tell Sue about her frustrations with her teen son. If I were planning a takeover of an IT business, I might learn from Sanjay and Anoosha as they lay out a six-month plan. Do I need to know the intricacies of new divorce laws? I don’t think so but then…one never knows when a friend may need to be aware of them.

Am I trying to overhear the conversations above clattering dishes, unmuffled buses, crying babies, and an occasional barking dog?

No. But I cannot not overhear them.

Perhaps because the population is older. Perhaps because television watchers have numerous examples of speakers screaming at one another. Perhaps because the restaurant industry has encouraged hard surface walls, ceilings and floors to create more noise which makes people think they are having a better time.

Perhaps.

All I know is that even when I do not want to eavesdrop, I have little choice. I try to focus on something else but a laugh, a sob, a groan brings me back to someone else’s conversation. Rarely do the speakers look around to see if their vocal noises could affect someone else. Perhaps they want their stories to be heard. Maybe the speakers feel it is the only time in their day when they are heard by someone and they want desperately for someone to listen to them and their life stories.

The conversations take me out of my limited world. I hear concerns I may not have known existed. I hear the silent or spoken reactions to pronouncements made. I learn how others perceive their and others’ realities.

Better yet, I don’t have to live those lives about which I hear. I don’t have to worry about a philandering lover nor an ogre of a neighbor. I don’t need to lament the latest exhausting homework assignment or fret about the foyer’s paint color not matching the living room. But those issues are important to the person sharing them. Some of the lives may display outwardly better than mine while others may appear wanting. Whatever or however, I can learn from those lives.

Yesterday as I listened, I resolved never to gush about an overrated film, not bore my tablemates with a recitation of a garlic mashed potato recipe or recount my latest battle with a company or organization. Listening, I developed a new fictional character partially based on overheard chatter between a doting grandmother and a young woman dropping out of college. Continuing to eavesdrop, I recalled that I want to re-read some of Doris Lessing’s work given the conversation among a group of five as they waited for their taxi.

These gabby amateur orators, should they ever look my way, may feel sorrow for me being alone. If only they knew how I heard them.