Interested

as in

"You’re not interested in me."

Variations: "You don’t understand me ... You never want to know my opinion ... You don’t care what I think."

Picture this. She’s been in the library or supermarket or dry cleaners or hairdressers or even the gym, for goodness sake, and struck up a conversation with some passing male and he has looked her in the eye and said, “What’s the weather like outside?” That’s what this is all about. He’s asked her opinion.

He has sincerely wanted to know what she thought - merely about the chance of rain, of course. But the subject doesn’t matter. What counts is that he has paused from his busy schedule, from picking up his frilly pressed shirts or wiping the sweat off his heaving chest between sets or whatever - and focussed his attention on her.

You never do that, of course. Well, not in the way he did. A different tone of voice. No baggage intended. The world full of promise. It was so refreshing, so uplifting. Whereas with you, well, it’s always the same old thing, isn’t it?

Solution? Voice lessons perhaps? Or even take up singing. Anything that will help her notice the next time you ask her a question that that is what you are doing - asking her a question. Soliciting an opinion. Actually, maybe forget the voice. Get a sign and hold it up in front of her: “I am asking you a question. I am interested in your opinion.”

Sometimes bold initiatives are called for. This may be clumsy but it’s certain to get her attention.