addEventListener is intended for DOM Elements that implements certain event-related interfaces. If you want an event system on pure JavaScript objects, you are looking for a custom event system. An example would be Backbone.Events in Backbone.js. The basic idea is using an object as a hash to keep track of registered callbacks.
Personally I use this: emitter.
It’s a fairly simple and elegant solution – with sweet short method names like on(), off() and emit(). you can either create new instances with new Emitter(), or use Emitter(obj) to mix event capabilities into existing objects. Note this library is written for use with a CommonJS module system, but you can use it anywhere else by removing the module.exports = ... line.