If you’re loading your comeback while they’re still talking, you’re not in a conversation. You’re in a queue.

Waiting to speak feels like listening from the inside, which is what makes it so easy to miss. While you are assembling a reply you are only scanning their words for the hook you need. The other person can usually feel it, even if they could not tell you how.

Try holding half a second of silence after someone stops talking, before you begin. It sounds like nothing, and it forces you to have actually heard them. A second test works too: see whether you can say back what they meant before you say what you think about it.