You were up most of the night, prepping for an important exam. Now the test is over and you’re sitting outside, talking to your best friend on the phone. As he tells you about his latest romantic woes, you find your attention wandering. But you don’t want to embarrass yourself or your friend, so you do your best to act the part of an active listener—saying, “Uh-huh,” and “Oh, that’s too bad,” when needed.

In such a scenario, you’re engaging in pseudo-listening—behaving as if you’re paying attention though you’re really not. Pseudo-listening is an incompetent way to listen because it prevents you from really attending to or understanding information coming from other people. Thus, you can’t accurately recall the encounter later. Pseudo-listening is also somewhat unethical because it’s deceptive. Although occasional instances of pseudo-listening to veil fatigue or protect a friend’s feelings (such as in our example) are understandable, if you continually engage in pseudo-listening, people will eventually realize what’s going on and conclude that you’re dishonest or disrespectful. In the Episodes example, Matt LeBlanc’s pseudo-listening was what made the encounter so awkward and uncomfortable: he obviously wasn’t really listening, even though he insisted he was.