The Educational Value of Eavesdropping

          “Eavesdrop on a Conversation,” that is the prompt for this week. Other classes throughout my college career have also given me the same task, which made me think about the educational value in eavesdropping on a stranger’s conversation. Is there something I can learn from knowing a stranger “would go to the gym, but all the laundry is a pain” or overhearing the inner politics behind Greek life on campus? Maybe this is supposed to an exercise in paying attention and focusing on something outside of myself. Is it meant to get you to notice something you would otherwise over look?

            Almost everybody has eavesdropped on people they know out of curiosity or by accident. When I was in elementary school, I won a prize for selling a certain amount of cookie dough. The prize was a little blue box no bigger than a match book that could amplify sound, so you could hear conversations from further away. I used to army crawl around my house with this blue box in one hand hoping to hear pieces of conversation that would come through the static in my headphones. Unfortunately for me, my house is over 150 years old, so every floor board squeaks. More often than not, my mother, with her superhuman hearing and the eyes on the back of her head, would know I was there and my cover was blown before I could hear any more than a few words. Back then and even now, eavesdropping only fulfilled a mild curiosity. I’d much rather keep to myself in a public setting and read or listen to music. When I am alone in a crowded place, I sit or stand as far away from other people as possible. I don’t like to be disturbed by their conversations, bumped into, or (heaven forbid) have someone try to talk to me. I really just need my space. 

         However, this prompt required me to sit in a public place in the middle of a crowd and listen to strangers talk to each other, which is different than eavesdropping on someone I know. With someone I know, I at least know the context of the conversation. This time however, I sat and listened to strangers talk about strangers and discuss places I have never heard of. I was forced to take off my headphones and put down my book in order to take in the world of people around me. I didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary, but I found myself silently agreeing with people or making comments in my head. Is that the point of this exercise? To understand how similar we all are or to get you to notice things you normally wouldn’t. The educational value in eavesdropping on a conversation doesn’t necessarily come from knowing a stranger “just jammed to Lil Uzi,” but in the way the exercise inspired me to write this post, recount a childhood story, and notice the ways different people communicate.