It’s a situation many will know well. You’re at your local pub with your pals and you’re a few pints in – your tongue is getting looser, and the conversation sillier. The cocoon of alcohol, chairs pulled in close proximity and low lighting can make it feel like you’re in your own little world. But, as it turns out, your chats might not be as private as you think…
Edie Medley is an illustrator who, alongside freelance illustration projects, works part time as a manager at a pub, and she’s been drawing up the conversations she hears while on the job. “Being behind the bar is the perfect place to quietly observe, there are so many different interactions happening around you; friends who haven’t seen each other in a while, groups who meet at the same time every day, first dates, etc,” she says. “Honestly, when you’re pulling pints or collecting glasses and people are sitting there chatting, it’s difficult not to tune in.”
It was one particular conversation that first sparked the idea for I’m Not Listening. When in a pub garden, Edie overheard an argument which culminated in someone throwing their drink over a man, to which he indignantly (and hilariously) replied “well this is Gore-Tex, so the joke’s on you sweetheart. It’s waterproof!”. From that point onward, Edie kept her ear out for one-liners, swiftly noting them down in her trusty phone notes app, titled ‘overheard compiled’. “I had to organise it recently because they were all over the place, mixed up with my to-do lists and recipes,” she says.