I’m a woman, and I voted that in general we are nosier. The thing is though, I don’t think this is an innate difference, I think it’s just how women are taught to socialize. I’ve had a lot of male friends growing up and my mom is always asking me why I didn’t ask people for additional information about things, much in the way your sister was.
I voted for women are nosier, but I do think it probably has a lot more to do with socialization and culture than some physiological difference between the sexes. I think our culture sort of expects and encourages gossip amongst women and denounces it amongst men. Although, there may be some sort of evolutionary advantage, in a hunter-gatherer sense, in the idea of women focusing a lot more on the details of others as part of socializing whereas men might focus more on communicating more concrete things to establish the pecking order or get kills/victories.
I voted even and this is why. My predominately male ( and older men at that, 40’s - 60’s ) workplace is as gossipy as all get-out for purely structural/cultural reasons ( part of it is a “sit and watch”-type job that promotes chattiness to pass the time, but there are other reasons as well ). Atypical perhaps, but it shows that under the right circumstances men can develop different social patterns than those revolving around the noncommittal grunt. Just like most everybody at my job is happy to ask to look at somebody’s pay-stub to compare sick leave hours or overtime worked and rarely is an eyebrow raised about it. It’s just the culture of the place.
Just want to add that back in the bad old days when a woman working outside the home was weakening her family and destroying society, looking after relationships was a woman’s JOB. A woman who did not keep up with neighborhood and family relationships was slacking. A woman who did only the physical and not the social part of her household work was considered to be cold, which could injure those around her, especially children. That set up a wave of expectation that has not yet reached a shore.
I think it depends on who you work with. I pride myself on not being gossipy and nosey, but this last job I had, I was surrounded by a bunch of gossipy people, all but one was a woman. And as hard as I tried, I would find myself sucked right in there with them and gossiping. Then i’d tell myself to stop. I think it’s more about who you associate with than they sex
Female - Hell if I know. I was all set to vote for women being nosier but I’ve worked with 3 guys who were off the charts nosy.
Take the new guy, Ken, he’s chatty has hell and won’t stop asking me questions. Talking to him is like a cross between a date and a job interview. He called me Ellie for about a week and I didn’t correct him because I didn’t want to have *more *conversation.
I voted “women are generally nosier than men” because there was no option for women are generally MUCH nosier than men. I’m not, but in general. And because I’m not nosy myself, mostly because I honestly don’t care enough about most people’s personal lives to ask about them, I get to be considered “cold” by a fairly large minority of other women. Yay.
Women are more inquisitive than men by nature. I also think we’re probably a bit nosier, but not by much.
As far as run of the mill gossip goes, it’s dead even.
I thought it said “noisier” too.
I am female and voted even, but also, hell if I know.
I would have handled that scenario the way you did and my brother would have been the one pressing for details it didn’t occur to me to ask for.
That’s an awkward sentence, but I am too tired to rewrite it.
I too thought it was “noisier” and not “nosy”. sigh
As for the OP, if you were in my family, you would wish to live in a bunker by yourself. Everyone is so friggin nosy. They say it’s because they love me and want the best for me. Me, I hide most of the time.
You know… I’ve been in exactly that situation. But from your sister’s POV. It’s soooo annoying. DH’ll come home from meeting his brothers or get off the phone with his mother and he won’t know anything more than he did when he started!
Did he brother get a new job? Yes. What is it? He doesn’t know.
Did his brother break up with his fiancee? Yes. Why? No idea, he didn’t ask.
His mother wanted him to come over. Why? She didn’t say. Did she sound upset? He doesn’t think so. Do we need to bring anything? He didn’t ask.
Seriously, I don’t know if I’m “nosier,” but there’s some basic interest in other people and their lives that should be an expectation of family life, isn’t there?
For one thing, humans are female exogamic; in other words, usually the girl goes off to live with the guy and not the other way around. This has several consequences; for one, the great majority of women at some point in their lives were going to find themselves permanently moving in among strangers and have to make a new network of friends from scratch. For another it meant there wasn’t much point in gaining status through things like kills or getting formal positions of authority because that would all be left behind anyway. It was generally a better choice for them to try to win over their new neighbors with friendliness than it would have been to try to impress them with victories they’ve never seen over people they’ve never heard of.
I’d say it is about equal. I’ve got a male coworker who drills me about my spending habits. I realize this is actually because he is concerned about his own finances and is looking for reassurance but I was surprised by it.
Come to think of it, I have several male friends who are nosier than my female friends. But the truth is, when other women get nosy with me, I shut them down and tend to avoid a friendship. But I don’t really do that with the men. Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.
I do know what’s missing from the poll: offerings of chocolate for those responding! :mad:
I’m not sure, why do you want to know?
Did you find out any more salacious details?
etc. 
I know in my circle, all the women are incurably nosy, and almost none of the men. My brother can be, but only sometimes… Though he’s the one that’s most likely to throw a hissy fit if you don’t answer sufficiently.
I have to say, in my limited experience, men, in general, may be less nosy, but when they are, they spill as much details or more as females. Not only that, but they tend to not think of what they’re saying as “being nosy”. They’re quicker to attribute that behavior to females than to themselves, even if there is no difference.
“Nosy” isn’t a neutral adjective- it’s a judgmental term. “Curious” or “inquisitive” would be more neutral.
If a young woman has just started dating a new guy and her liberal best friend pumps her for details, the woman PROBABLY won’t call her friend “nosy.” She might actually relish the chance to tell all the juicy details! On the other hand, if her prudish, conservative Mom asked the exact same questions, that woman probably WOULD call her Mom nosy.
The Mom and the friend are EQUALLY inquisitve- the only thing that makes one of them “nosy” and not the other is the way the young woman perceives each.
Now, are men more or less inquisitive than women? The answer is… it depends on the subject matter. There are a host of personal matters that a man would never dream of asking his friends about, and that might make men seem either (admirably) less nosy than women or (not so admirably) less interested in their friends’ lives than women are.
On the other hand, if the subject matter involves something they actually CARE about, then men are every bit as inquisitive as women.
It’s not that I didnt want more details; I thought of several questions I wanted to ask. But I didn’t think it appropriate to ask for more details, so I quashed my curiosity.
My sister introduced that term, not I. And, anyway, I was definitely curious; I just decided not to indulge.
Fair enough- my point is simply that “nosy” has bad connotations, period. Nobody ever uses "nosy’ as a compliment!
Just as a “weed” is simply an unwanted plant and a “pest” is simply an unwanted animal, a “nosy” person is merely an inquisitive person that we don’t like. A question you’d happily answer from one person seems “nosy” coming from another.
Of course, there are times when LACK of inquisitiveness will offend people, too. If a woman says, “I had a horrible day at work” and her boyfriend replies “Aw, that’s a shame,” but doesn’t pursue the subject any further, well, she’s likely to be offended, and to assume he just doesn’t give a damn about her (he, on the other hand, may feel he was being polite and showing her rspect by not prying… after all, she’d TELL him something if she really wanted him to know about it, right?).
Not that men won’t be EXTREMELY inquisitve about OTHER things.
I say women.
Every female companion I have ever been with has chided me for not getting more information in situations extremely similar to the OP. Oddly, they have also all pointed out that this is a clear indicator of the difference between men and women as well, so I don’t think any of them would be offended with my vote.