Remembrance

from Charlotte Magazine April 2020

It started a couple of years ago when he took an online personality test, which revealed that he was an “empathic listener.” Watson did what any empath would do in that situation: He rushed to his wife, Lorraine Jivo , to brag about it. She sco ed. “And he got this look on his face,” she says, “like, ‘But the personality test!’”

He was quickly set straight, then began to reach out to women he knew: friends, family, colleagues. Before the launch, Watson recorded conversations with 38 women about what they’d been through, achieved, overcome, and learned, and he discovered something astonishing: Many women, especially from older generations, are so conditioned to think of themselves and their life stories as nothing special that they were surprised at his interest. In the fourth episode, Watson speaks to a friend, “T Mack,” once the ancée of an unidenti ed Carolina Panthers player who believed, falsely, that she was cheating on him. She su ered the emotional upheaval of his paranoia, jealousy, and breaking o of the engagement.

He didn’t abuse her physically, but that’s part of the episode’s point: Every woman has a compelling story, and it doesn’t have to shock to matter. “I don’t know if I have anything interesting to say,” T Mack says early in the episode. Watson pauses, as if taking it in, and responds: Yes, you do. “It’s been a huge learning experience for me,” Watson says. “Unless we’re climbing Everest, we don’t give ourselves any credit. I love the idea that behind every woman—every woman—there’s a great story. It’s just up to me to listen well enough for that story to come out.”

He’s committed to 52 episodes, a year’s worth. During his launch party at The Evening Muse in NoDa, he asked a crowd of about 75 to return on January 12, 2021, and celebrate whatever happened, nancial success or failure, podcasting sensation or not. “There’s no such thing as a loss,” Watson says. “Everything is a lesson.”

ManListening is available for subscription on Apple Podcasts and on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as @manlistening. I HAVE TROUBLE GRASPING THE THOUGHT of being a member of what’s been called “The Lockdown-Drill Generation.” It presents me with realities about society that seem to contradict each other. I want to see the good in people and believe they mean well—because they usually do. I don’t want to perceive people as malevolent or dangerous. But, for my own safety, I need to.

It’s been almost a year since the shooting at UNC Charlotte, where I’m a student. I wasn’t close by, but it hit home—Riley Howell, one of the victims and the hero who rushed the shooter, and I were members of the Class of 2016 at T.C. Roberson High School in Asheville. A erward, as my mind raced with memories of Riley walking through the blue-and-gold hallways, I was forced to accept that what happened to him could have happened to me or any of my classmates.

I was always taught to be mindful of my surroundings. Since April 30, 2019, I’ve thought twice before I round the corner with my dog to a dark stretch alongside my apartment complex. I call a friend before I walk so someone will hear immediately if something happens to me. If I know I’ll be spending a long night in the library, I park in a lot with plenty of cars and lights. I try to block fearful thoughts, and I usually succeed. But they’re still with me. I don’t like them, but here’s something just as unsettling and scary—in a way, it’s good that I feel them. Who knows what could happen, anywhere, at any time?

Students in my generation have to live with this fear every day. Will the one a er mine be forced to live with it, too? My children? Will there ever be another generation in this country that doesn’t? I don’t know the answers or how to solve the problems. I do know that I won’t let these thoughts hold me back. You can’t sit in a turtle shell and think the world’s out to get you. It’s OK not to know what might happen. I’ll walk side by side with the uncertainty. I’ll have to. Everyone will. — Margaret Rawlings