There is no “lovely girl” or “spoilt jealous one”. There is a human being who mostly feels lovely and acts nicely, and who sometimes feels jealous or needy or hurt and then acts unpleasantly. As do we all! Perhaps the problem with your friend is that she is used to being the centre of attention, and expects it. But that’s no reason for you to do whatever she asks you to do. The truth is that people can’t control you unless you let them. People can’t push you around and put you under pressure, unless you fall in with the game.

Want it to stop? Stop pulling when she pushes, pushing when she pulls. If she makes a face, say “Don’t agree? OK.” and leave it at that. If she has a go at you, ask her if she’s having a bad day, and back off. Tell her you’ll come back to talk when she’s feeling better, or ask her if she needs to talk about anything. Maybe she needs to learn from experience that when she acts in that way she won’t get what she wants. At present, you “reinforce (加强)” her behaviour — by that I mean you show her that it always works. Stop letting it work and she’ll soon learn not to do it.

The word listen, as is shown in Longman Dictionary, means paying attention to what someone is saying or to a sound that you can hear. Listening is definitely an important skill in communication. “When people talk, listen completely.” Those words of Ernest Hemingway might be a pretty good guiding principle for many managers. After all, people like being listened to.

Some firms use a technique known as a “listening circle”. In such a circle, only one person can talk about the issues they face at a time and there is no interruption. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that employees who had taken part in a listening circle subsequently suffered less social anxiety and had fewer worries about work-related matters than those who did not.

Listening has been critical to the career of Richard Mullender, who was a hostage (人质) negotiator, dealing with everything from suicide interventions to international kidnaps (绑架). He defines listening as “the identification, selection and interpretation of the key words”. It is crucial to all effective communication.

Plenty of people think that good listening is about nodding your head or keeping eye contact. But that is not really listening, Mr Mullender argues. A good listener is always looking for facts, emotions and indications of the other person’s values. Another important point to bear in mind is that, when you talk, you are not listening. The listener’s focus should be on analysis.

Of course, a listener needs to speak occasionally. One approach is to make an assessment of what the other person is telling you and then check it with them. For example, you can check with the other person by saying “It seems to me that what you want is…”. That gives the other party a sense that they are being understood. The fundamental aim is to build up a relationship so the other person likes you and trusts you, Mr Mullender says.

When he tells people that he is deaf, Oliver Stabbe is called a liar. "The idea that deaf people cannot speak is a very offensive assumption," the sophomore(大二学生) said.

Stabbe’s experience speaks of many of the misunderstandings about deaf people and the struggles they face — things commonly found right in Rochester. This city is home to 90,000 deaf people, a significant slice of the more than 1.1 million national population. The percentage of deaf people here is higher than the national average, due in part to RITs National Technical Institute for the Deaf, the first technological college in the world created specifically for the deaf and hard of hearing.

"Really, there seems to be an embarrassment in communicating with deaf people," said sophomore Stephen Davis, another deaf student. This awkwardness might arise because non-deaf people just don't know how to do so without possibly offending someone. "I guess they think saying ‘deaf’ is offensive, but it really isn't and deaf people don't get upset about it," Davis said. He noted that the biggest issue he's had when communicating with other students is their anxiety about communicating.

Deaf or hard-of-hearing students also face frustrations(令人心烦的事) on their end when interacting with others. "Sometimes people talk about you, maybe to a non-deaf friend standing beside me, as if I’m not there," Davis said. "That’s depressing." As Davis put it, "We don’t see ourselves as the disabled, so the awkwardness is only one-sided."

Stabbe advised that those communicating should not make assumptions about others’ preferences or ability. If you have a question, ask. A moment of awkwardness is absolutely worth it if you are being educated about an important topic.