The sad, bad fact of life is that the great majority of hu-chimps (that’s US, dearie) are, well… gloriously mired up to our necks in a lot of dysfunctional poo… annnnnd when boy chimp meets girl chimp the dumbest, ,most primitive, tape playing-est, reactive, reflexive parts of our minds are activated… 
which is why it is “relationships” that bring out the deeply established patterns in us, for better, worse, or boring as hell…
In my personal history of relating and observing, this basic point keeps returning to my attention… people feel powerful unconscious attractions to other people who function at the same level of automaticity (or cruise control, or auto-pilot, if you prefer)…
Some family systems are deeply auto-pilot-ish, where the family members relate, understand each other, and identify themselves with established patterns, and they have a very hard time coping with other individuals who don’t comply with those pattterns… 
Quite often I have observed in the wealthy to super-wealthy category of persons, especially after 2 or three generations of wealth, this particular problem most insidiously established, for the obvious reason that they have never had social reality “get in their face” to any meaningful degree, and no contrasting social information to help them disentangle themselves from often incredibly weird, self absorbed, self entitled, generally incurious worldviews. Not surprisingly, these fortunate individuals have an obscenely hard time “being natural” with other people, empathizing with their lives, or having some holistic sense of what it might mean for that person to BE who he or she is…
Alright, so much for one of our worst case scenarios…
What works then ? Well.. regardless of man or woman, gay or straight, young or old, one significant remark about a socially successful person is universal… “I felt heard” or a close relative to that “I felt like I mattered”, “he/she made me feel interesting”…
Soooo… this CD I’ve posted a link to might be a great starting point:
Be A Better Listener Hypnosis CD and downloadable MP3 by Steve G. Jones, Clinical Hypnotherapist
And why would that be ? Have you ever felt anything as insulting as someone who patronizes you by pretending to listen when they just want to get something out of you, or tunes you in and out at their narcissistic whim… or thinks the world was created for their gratification ? Disgusting and repulsive, right ? Like the Chevy Chase book about himself “because I’m me and you’re not”… thanks for that… 
Advice and observation from Tacitus’ Perch In The Sky…
The better the listening, the better the ability to fully hear, get, BE WITH, profoundly connect with another person, even if only for a brief animalistic sexual encounter, the better, more explosive, more mind expanding, more yogic the sex is… you think there would be a market for this stuff, right ?
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Alright, chimparoos… I’ve also noticed that when you’re “manifesting” a general state of deep listening, this is more of an ontologic thing, you’re “in the space of” (to use ghastly new age terminology) listening, appreciation, getting, comprehending… the other chimparoos, including the much desired chimparitas seem to unconsciously, autonomically pick up on this…
another possible growth helper:
So does this means you can’t be something af a cocky alpha chimp as well… sure, that can be a valuable pose as well as long as it is a function of choice, being stuck in alpha, or being stuck in nice guy is like trying to drive a car stuck in one gear, probably worse… chronic beta guys trying to play alpha for the night, with the help of too much liquid courage screw up royally, like my erstwhile Mr. Lonelyheart friend with his misguided crotch staring, where he got that idea into his head…
… internalized self loathing I suspect, he actually had a masochistic need for rejection, so he would unconsciously generate scenarios where he would experience maximal masochistic payoff by the disgusted expressions on women’s faces… you can take that one to your shrink for analysis…
Pass the bananas, if you would…
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