The Voices section of the BBC website has a very interesting article “You just don’t listen!” Why do men and women miscommunicate? by Philippa Law which covers the basics of why men and women find it hard to properly get their point across to each other.
It’s not often we find an article that doesn’t devolve into a wholesale onslaught where the writer (usually female) can’t stop complaining that men can’t communicate well, that women are superior communicators, and that (by inference) women are orders of magnitude more sophisticated, intelligent and enlightened than those dastardly men who can barely do more than grunt.
This article lays down the blame somewhat even-handedly although I do disagree with a few of the female-centric opinions expressed.
Amongst the key themes in the article and selected reader comments:
The annoyance caused by the misunderstandings between men and women in conversation because men try to offer solutions and women often offer sympathy or empathy
Yes, this is definitely right on the money. Men are very practical when it comes to conversation involving problems. If there’s a problem, we’ll solve it (or at least try). Just talking about the problem isn’t enough for us.
Empathy or sympathy is nice if all you want is a shoulder to cry on (for some problems, that may be all that’s needed if the conversation topic is some minor misfortune that’s over and done with).
But for something that still needs fixing, you need solutions. That’s where we men come in. I for one can’t comprehend the idea discussing a problem with my male friends without expecting (even implicitly) that they’ll try to solve it for me with varying degrees of helpful (or not) advice.
Why else would I bother discussing it?
Sure, it’s nice if my friends offer a sympathetic ear, but solutions are part and parcel of ensuring that the problem will go away and/or that it won’t happen again. My friends would be pretty useless friends if they didn’t have the understanding and competence to help me solve something I’m not yet entirely sure how to fix.
For women, this concept is entirely alien as you see below:
Men seem to think that a woman wants to be told what to do about a problem instead of just sympathising about it.
And yes, that’s a key difficulty when it comes to cross gender communication. It’s almost impossible for me as a guy to listen to someone without offering a solution to something that’s troubling them. But if that someone is female (and attractive, and available!) I have to almost literally bite my tongue not to do so.
Why is that?
Because she’ll get quite upset with me if she thinks I’m trying to cut the conversation short. Which might be true (if she’s particularly clueless and talking a mile a minute about nothing in particular) but more often that’s not the case at all.
She just wants to talk about it, and I (as a guy who’d like to increase the chances that I can get to know this particular girl much, much better) have do simple listen and offer sympathy rather than solutions.
Here’s a comment I strongly disagree with:
Men treat conversation as a competition to see who can talk most, whereas women’s aim is to facilitate the flow of conversation.
I don’t buy it at all that men are more competitive than women. If you’ve ever seen two women competing for the same guy or for the same “80% off” dress on sale in a trendy store, you’ll know that for a fact. (Remember the shopping rampages for Cabbage Patch dolls or Tickle Me Elmo? — it was primarily women competing for those toys!)
The next time you’re in a group social setting (conversation, party or whatever) where one woman is getting most of the male attention, observe how aggressively some of the other women crank up their efforts to redirect some of that male attention back to themselves.
In fact, I suspect that the average woman is quite a bit more competitive than the average man … that’s been my experience.
Women are left with the feeling that men have failed to allow them the opportunity to speak, whereas men think that women have failed to grasp the opportunity to speak.
Hello??? Allow them the opportunity to speak? And who exactly allowed the men to speak? No one, it seems. Whoever’s speaking at that particular moment took the initiative. Get some yourselves, ladies … it can be wonderfully empowering.
In short, all that’s been shown in the article is that men and women have different ways of communicating.
“…
all that “empathy” they’re supposedly sharing: much of it is faked …”
If you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole, who’s wrong … the peg or the hole? Neither. They’re merely different.
And here’s one last closing thought on women and all that “empathy” they’re supposedly sharing that’s so “caring” and “understanding”: much of it is faked.
Me and my live-in girlfriend at the time can be at the mall and run into one of her female friends who then mentions a concern and my girlfriend will respond with apparent empathy … but then on the ride home, she’ll tell me what a loser that friend is, how she whines incessantly about next to nothing, how she’s so annoying and so on.
This raises the question: just how valuable is empathy from your “friends” if they’re being totally insincere about it?
I’ll take problem-solving any day, but don’t forget empathy wins when it comes to chatting up attractive girls. To get better at that particular skill (and a whole lot of other conversational tricks), consider getting our free downloadable ebook by signing up now. It won’t cost you a thing.
Until next time,
-Nick Thomas
