Now that I think about it and read a bit more, I just realized that I actually don’t share the same curiosity as the OP. If someone were to tell me that they got a divorce, I would give my condolences and listen. It wouldn’t even cross my mind to ask for any circumstance or reasons for such a personal event without the information being volunteered.
I would have done the same as the OP, but I likely wouldn’t have even asked where they went or what they did.
What divorce are you talking about? The story in the OP was about my widowed father apparently having a girlfriend.
I don’t even think that my sister would have been wrong to press for details in my place; it’s just that she has a different relationship with our father than I do. Anyway, the story was a jumping off point, as the point was that my sister used a somewhat denigrating term to apply to women and I, a male, disagreed.
Yes, definitely. For example, I’ve had this conversation, in some form another, at least three times and seen it played out by other people:
Bloke: [Friend] Just had a baby.
Me/Other female: Ooh! Was it a boy or girl? Hope the labour was easy. Was it a big baby.
Bloke: Er, I dunno. It’s a baby.
And if the Dad puts up a baby announcement it will usually be: ‘Baby was born today! Mother and child both doing well. Pics to follow.’ If the woman, or a female friend, puts the announcement up it will tell you everything you could possibly want to know about a newborn infant.
Obviously there are exceptions.
Sorry, to clarify, there was a post later about a divorce. I meant to use it as an example and didn’t phrase it correctly. I also redacted the part where I commented on the new relationship aspect covered in the initial post and it led to more confusion.
male, I’m the nosied person I know male or female…its a control issue I think.
In my experience women always want to know every detail of everything, regardless of whether it matters to them at all.
I think it depends on the topic. For personal stuff, I am definitely more curious than my husband. The story in the OP happens to us every time his widowed father is seeing someone new. I am always dying to know her name, where they met, if she has kids, etc, and my husband never thinks to ask. It’s not that his dad would be offended by the questions, he’s always happy to tell me when I ask, but it just never occurs to my husband. Same with new babies, engagements, weddings. However, I would never notice or ask details about the things that interest him - if someone in my family got a new car or a new computer or whatever he’ll ask me all kinds of questions and I’ll be the one shrugging and saying, “I dunno, it’s a cellphone.”
More neutral, but hardly equivalent.
So what if the term “nosy” isn’t neutral? So what if it involves making a judgment? I think it’s still a perfectly valid question.
So we’re clear, I know quite a bit about the woman I suspect is Dad’s honey: her name, where she grew up, what her home town is, and so on. But I don’t know whether she and Dad are, ahem, more than friends, because I figure that if he wanted to talk about that he would, and he hasn’t.
I see astorian has already made more or less the point I wanted to make, which is that a “nosy” person is one who is *excessively *or *inappropriately *inquisitive about other people’s personal business. I would agree that in general women are more likely than men to talk/ask about other people’s personal business, but I don’t know that women are more likely than men to cross the line into excessive/inappropriate questions.
I can think of a number of times when women I didn’t know or had barely met asked me things like if I had children or what my husband does for a living. (I’m not even married, so no one who actually knew me would ask this question.) I’d consider this mildly nosy. Men have asked me similar questions, but not as often as women. However, I can also think of times when strange men – and only men, never women – have asked me extremely inappropriate questions about my intimate anatomy or sexual habits. While their ultimate goal was presumably satisfying something other than their curiosity and I would normally use a much harsher term than “nosy” to describe this kind of behavior, such questions do constitute excessive inquisitiveness about someone else’s personal business.
As a woman my opinion is that women are much more interested, on average, in personal relationships and communication. That doesn’t mean I don’t know any nosy, gossipy men of course.
Who wants to know?
When I talk about myself, men seem to drift off, but women listen and ask questions. When I get home and mention who I had been talking when it involves friends or family, I never seem to have enough of the pertinent details with regard to the conversations.
I don’t like the word nosier, but women do like the details about the experiences of others, hence those lengthy phone calls.
This isn’t even a question. Yes, on average women are nosier than men. There are of course exceptions, and no rule is universal. However, anyone who disputes this fact is obviously divorced from reality.
I went with men, but for a different reason than I assume most people chose women. Women seem to be better at noticing when curiosity crosses into nosiness than men are. I think the OP is actually unusual in actually knowing where the boundary is.
I do not think his sister is unusual in thinking she could have gotten more information than he did. But I am hesitant to say it’s because of nosiness. She’s clearly claiming she could have gotten more information out of their father, not indicating that she was more curious. She does believe that’s the reason, but that has to do with the difference between men and women and the idea that a curious person would find a way.
And, yes, I’m aware this is a novel way of looking at things. That’s the point. If what I think is exactly what other people think, I don’t post.