The Listener

So I've been thinking a lot about this lately and I've figured out that I'm a "listener". What I mean is that I listen to everybody's problems. I'm that friend that all my friends call when they need to air their problems.

Don't get me wrong, I kinda enjoy it and I think I'm pretty good at it. (I mean I must be since they keep coming back to me with all their problems.) I wasn't always good at it because I used to try to help with advice. Somewhere along the way I learned to just listen and shut the hell up. Have advice you've given someone come back and bite you in the ass enough times and you learn to zip it! I love hearing people's stories, I think this is why I'm such a voracious reader too. Plus, I love to mother people, not the nagging, bitchy, judgmental kind of mothering, but the warm and fuzzy, hug you mothering.

The problem is all my friends are "talkers". "Talkers" are not "listeners". "talkers" don't want to hear your crap, they want you to listen to theirs. So where do "listeners" go when they need to dump their crap on someone else? "Talkers" get free therapy, I want free therapy too!

This has been my problem and why I have been contemplating this dynamic.

Then it hit me. I'm a good "listener" because I suck at being a "talker". This does NOT mean I'm a quiet person, I can talk your ear off about almost anything. Unless that anything has anything to do with my problems. I gloss over stuff, leave out some things altogether, and use the classic 'it's nothing, I'm fine' like a crack addict uses the pipe! I've even been to therapy and walked in with a list of things that were bothering me and walked out not having talked about ONE of them.

So how does a "listener" become a "talker"? No really, I'm asking you because I have NO idea!

Is it possible for a listener to listen to their own crap? (I don't think so because I hear my bullshit rolling through my brain all day long and I don't feel any better.)

Do "talkers" ever wonder how they can become "listeners"?

Are there "talker/listeners" or "Talkners"?

If so, can I join?

Crap, I gotta go one of my friends is calling...... :P