In this situation, Sam has just announced his engagement to Larry his friend of 30 years. He is reluctant to listen to this story yet again. The reason for Larry’s hesitance to accept Sam’s happy news is that this is his fifth engagement to five different women. Each engagement to this point has ended just before the wedding.

Larry would like Sam to be happily married, however he has his doubts it will happen this time either. His concerns are that this current engagement will end before the wedding as well, this is where Larry’s is lack ambition to listen to the story again comes in his mind. He does listen to the story though just using passive listening skills; his mind wanders to other things missing much of what Sam says.

If however Larry were to use active listening skills, he could pay attention to Sam’s nonverbal cues and he might see that this time is different than the other engagements. He also might try to ask questions about his fiancé as well as the relationship in general to learn more about the outlook of with this engagement. Larry could also benefit from being empathetic to his friend and his exciting new future.

This situation could have a somewhat different outcome if the two friends were women. Women to begin with tend to ask more questions in a conversation. Also women get excited for their friends when they have exciting news and would not let the past stop them from getting excited and celebrating with her friend.

Larry’s friend with what he