Freedom of speech...

Yesterday, while at lunch with some Am. Con students, Katie brought up an interesting point.
"You have the freedom of speech, but that gives someone the freedom to not listen."
Which is true, but one does not speak unless they want to be heard.  Is it inherently better to be loud and obnoxious for your cause and thus alienate potential supporters?  Is it better to be quiet and slowly gather those around you by not being an extremist?  Are we just looking for the lesser of these two evils?
Why would one use their power of free speech if they knew that they weren't going to be heard?  While Katie seemed to possess a good point, I silently disagreed.  (Does this prove or disprove my point?  Frankly, I don't know).  We have the freedom of speech, but I think that means that people have to be listening for it to have any effect.  Whether they agree or not is an entirely different matter.
So, whilst freedom of speech is very important to me, as an American, a college student, a girl who likes to write down her feelings instead of verbalizing them; I think I would rather have freedom from being ignored.
One doesn't have to like your opinions or even consider your opinions to be valid, but to move forward within a democracy, I feel that you must listen.  Protesters don't protest for the sake of making a picket line and catchy chants, protesters protest for a chance to be heard.  So yes, give me freedom of speech, but also give me an open ear to freely speak with.