GIRL, INTERRUPTED AGAIN

Earlier this month, California Senator Kamala Harris was interrupted twice in one week by male colleagues while speaking at a Senate hearing. The exasperated but not entirely surprised look on her face was one with which many women are familiar.

This is nothing new. In 1975, a group of researchers found that, in the 11 male-female conversations they observed in public places, there were a total of 48 interruptions, 47 of them by men. Cut to a 2014 study in which 900 minutes of conversations were observed between men and women working in the tech industry. According to Bustle, the study found that men interrupted others twice as often as women did and were three times as likely to interrupt a woman as they were a man.

Sure, when you live in a big family, you’re at a loud party or your mind is buzzing with SO MANY THOUGHTS, you figure the more you say and the louder you say it, the better chance you have of being heard. But now imagine all of that mental effort going to waste as someone else’s synapses fire the same neurons – except with louder results. It’s frustrating.

Even if you’re simply offering a few encouraging “yes’s” and “no’s” or interjecting with some related life experience, it’s worth waiting out what your conversation partner has to say. Because by cutting into someone else’s speech, you’re dominating the interaction with your perspective, whether that is your intention or not.

It’s when you let a pregnant pause hang — as awkward as it may be — that equal conversation occurs. You don’t need to stand there foaming at the mouth, waiting for an opening in speech like a car waiting for the right moment to pull into traffic. You don’t have to prove that you understand and relate to what this person is saying on a superhuman level, or that you know what they’re going to say before they say it. Relax. Your moment will come. Just let them say what they have to say and have their few moments in time, while you focus your energy on listening, and can then respond with something more considered. Let them give you something, and then offer them something in return. You’ll become a better listener and a better conversationalist.

And if you throw in a little bit of eye contact? We’ve got a winner on our hands, ladies and gentlemen.