Years ago, someone I went to university with had this habit of overusing the “You know what I mean?” expression. Even after I did everything I could – and applied everything I learned in the Interpersonal Communication subject – to show her that I really got what she meant, she would go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on (I can go on and on and on and on with this, too, you know what I mean?) with her sob stories. And after every second or third sentence she would say, “You know what I mean?” Sometimes with a different variation such as, “You know what I’m saying?” or “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Mind you, I knew even back then, that I was not only an active listener or a dialogic listener, I was a reflective listener. I did not only have empathy, I communicated my empathy. So I put up with her annoying habit until one day I just strangled her to death and sent her to heaven. You know what I mean? Yes, I was that mean. You know what I mean?
Well, I wish the story and the friendship would just end with something as easy as strangling her to death and sending her to heaven to end her misery. But no. It didn’t end that way. It ended with a technique called Avoidance Technique. Or sometimes known as ‘Run The Opposite Direction When You See Her And Make It Look Like An Accident’. It worked. I was just about ready to strangle myself and send my good-listener self to 
good-listeners heaven if I hadn’t adopted the technique fast enough, though.
So to Ms Mean, if you still do what you used to do (and was about to cause yourself a tragic death), please change. It has been close to 17 years since I had to use my Avoidance Technique on you, so I would truly like to believe you have grown out of it. Mind you, you are the only person I ever had to use the technique on. In later years, I actually learned different techniques. My favorite has been “Be Honest, Just Tell Them”. Thanks to the quotation I found not long after we graduated…
“The greatest consolation of all is to speak one’s mind.”
Questa è Enida 