I’m wondering if other women experience this. These are two of the latest instances…
Last week a male co-worker and I attended an informational meeting at city hall together. I have worked with this person for close to 15 years. I know quite a bit about his family from what he has shared with me over the years. We arrived at the meeting about 20 minutes early. So I asked him different things about the kids and grandkids, etc. Nothing really personal, (just catching up) although he has told me personal things in the past. He answered all of my questions with lots of details - some humorous and some frustrating teenage issues. In turn, he asked me NOTHING. Nothing at all. The whole conversation was about him. I had to try and bring up something about my life that was similar to what he was experiencing.
This seems to happen a lot when talking with men. When my boss (male) stops by my office for something, he might tell me what he did last weekend or some other personal anecdote. This is usually without prompting by me. I’ll chat with him about whatever he brought up and then that’s it. Out the door he goes. He never asks me anything. Sometimes I’ll blurt out as he’s leaving - I did such and such over the weekend.
And no, I’m not a Chatty Kathy, I don’t talk non-stop. I’m actually very quiet. Maybe I’m just a good listener. Or maybe my life isn’t interesting enough
Is this a “man thing”? Maybe I shouldn’t expect to be asked anything and just blurt out fun facts of my life instead.
I don’t find this to be the case when talking with another woman. There’s always give and take in a conversation.
At the danger of sounding sexist, I think it is a bit of a man thing. I sit on a senior leadership team where it’s 7 men and me. I can’t remember when they last asked me anything about my personal life beyond ‘good weekend’?
I would say, however, that the younger men (sub 35) in my company seem more inclined to ask me stuff. So maybe there’s a generational element too.
I once heard that something like 72% of all Facebook users are female. This suggests that people of the female gender enjoy the sort of engagement that one gets from social activity more than people of the male gender.
Personally, and I am aware that I am about to say something anti-social, I apologize in advance. Personally, I wish that people would stop asking about my family and my weekend plans. I find it off putting and intrusive. I never ask about anyone else’s weekend plans or families. Please don’t ask me what I am going to eat for lunch. I won’t ask what you are about to eat for lunch. I really don’t care where you are going on vacation. I won’t show you slides from my vacation.
I find it all to be noise.
I don’t mind asking for or giving advice. If you’ve got a problem, let’s sit down & talk it through. No problem. I don’t care at all that you baked brownies last night.
I work in a mainly-female environment, and the other guys who work here aren’t exactly yer Ron Swanson types. Do most guys, when talking with other guys, ask a lot of “how’s your life going” questions?
It may well be that this isn’t a typical conversational topic with American guys.
I’d say it’s just a bad conversationalist thing. I’d believe that more men are bad conversationalists than women, but I know plenty of people of both genders that don’t ask questions or notice that they’re monologuing, and plenty of people of both who know how to ask polite questions and share in conversation.
Speaking for myself as a guy, I would answer reasonable questions to be polite, but won’t ask many because I don’t care about your family. I don’t care about your personal life. I wouldn’t want you or yours to die a slow death from a horrible disease, but other than that what you do in your free time doesn’t matter to me in the least. (I also wouldn’t be spontaneously offering details about mine without prompting.)
My roleplaying group has been going for nearly 40 years. We have spent a LOT of time in each other’s company (including conversations over meals.)
Yet I have literally no idea about their politics, nor their religions (if any.)
I only know which of them are married because I have been invited to every wedding of a group member!
I would be nervous about even saying how many children the married ones have.
I can tell you a great deal about which character classes they like to roleplay and what sort of books they read.
Errr …. that’s it.
Yeah it can be a guy thing. We don’t multitask that well, so if he had anything else on his mind he wouldn’t have been able to pay attention that well. And we don’t care as much about personal/family issues.
I’m a guy. It’s my preferred way of having a conversation. I prefer for the other person to relate something of their own if they want to share. I don’t like asking a lot of questions because it feels like I’m doing an interview or prying. If someone wants to share something with me, I prefer that they bring it up on their own. I don’t like when people ask me a lot of questions for the same reason. I don’t want to feel pressured to share something that I may not want to. I like conversations where there is lots of back and forth where we are each interjecting, adding, and relating whatever relevant stories we want to talk about. At the beginning of the conversation some questions may be necessary, but I don’t want the whole conversation to be like that.
And like above with the roleplaying group, I have groups of male friends where I know very little about their wives, kids, hobbies, etc. If they don’t bring it up themselves, rarely will they be asked about it.
I think it’s more a function of a person’s personality with no gender bias. I know plenty of women who just talk about themselves without so much as a question about me, my family, my well being, etc. In a professional environment, I purposely don’t ask about my coworkers’ personal lives because (a) I’m very wary of appearing to show more interest than necessary in the details of my female coworkers’ lives, and (b) I’m genuinely not all that interested anyway.
I don’t think it’s a gender thing. I think it’s a people thing. I’m one of those “good listener” types who prefer to listen and feels awkward when having to talk about myself or my life. Once I figured out that people in general prefer to talk about themselves and I could just ask questions and sit back and listen, being around people became much easier for me.
I know three people, all of whom are men, who will ask me about my life and what is going on with me (none of this is based on sexual attraction, I am 100% positive). I actually find it kind of weird that they do this! But they stick out in my mind because every-damn-one else fails to do it.
One of the three guys I just mentioned revealed to me just last night that he has this ability to ask me what’s new. We’re trivia team members, he’s the husband of one of my friends, and we were the only team members there. I started telling him what was new with me and the whole time in the back of my head thinking “wow, this is weird. This is polite. This is ok.”
The guys I work with when we talk, its more about hobbies or projects they are working on. I dont even know really which guys are married. i do know which ones own a motorcycle.
Also sad to say that in todays world, its better for a man not to talk too closely with a female coworker to protect yourself from a harassment charge.
It’s probably just as well he believes that. If somebody can’t understand the difference between sexual harassment and asking somebody about their kids, they’re better off avoiding all personal conversations.
I dunno if it’s a guy thing but I noticed about a year ago that my female manager and coworkers often ask how my weekend was on Mondays and what my plans are on Fridays and I now make a point of returning the volley, as it were.
As far as a gender divide being the issue, I offer my mother as a counter-example. I’ve always said it’s easy to keep secrets from her because she has zero interest in learning anything about anyone else. I can have a twenty minute phone call with her and I will be told everything that’s occurring in her life, including how many hours of sleep she’s had and everything she’s eaten since the last time I talked to her. But I’m not sure she’s aware I retired ten years ago or where I live.
Narcissism is a more common trait in men than women, so, yeah, there’s a bit of a tendency for men to assume that once they’re done talking about themselves, the conversation is done.
