Is This a Guy Thing?

In My Humble Opinion
41

@manson1972 & Little Nemo - while I don’t totally agree with Urbanredneck’s comment - I could not disagree with your dismissal of the comment even more.

20 years ago I was a Director at a “Fortune Top 50” (13 direct employees plus 50 indirect) and we had an explicit policy that we were to never discuss personal lives with any employees. I signed documents indicating that I understood this policy and if I violated I could be reprimanded and possibly terminated (without compensation) if violations continued.

If a subordinate initiated a conversation and discussed personal lives I was to politely listen and then change the topic. I was never to ask them questions or probe further.

The rationale was that some employees (especially females) did not feel comfortable sharing personal information with managers. Unwanted questioning was considered both a form of harassment and and a violation of personal privacy. The policy was implemented as a direct result of employee complaints.

Bottom line was I used my judgement to discuss personal lives. For employees I knew & had a history with, we’d openly talk about family, kids etc. For new employees never.

This was 20 years ago, I’m no longer in that corporate world, but if anything the environment has only become more sensitive to harassment & privacy issues due to civil and criminal litigation. Large corporations have always been in “cover your ass mode”.

Note:

  1. I’m not saying I agreed with this policy, I agree with you, there is a huge difference between harassment and chatting, but some staff did not see it that way so a policy stopping all personal discussions was the only option.
  2. I’m not saying this was the case with the OP’s comments, (I would fall on the side of narcissism, especially in peer to peer relationships), but to suggest as you two do, that is never a factor is 100% incorrect.
42

Well, I’m a guy, and I could totally see myself doing that. I’m polite so I’ll play the game, but I don’t enjoy it.

Then again, there is maybe one other person on the planet that I give 2 shits about what they’re going to be doing on the weekend. My wife. And only because that will invariably involve me. Hate small talk, although I will occasionally initiate it if I know for a FACT that we share a common interests. You wanna talk to me about the game last night? How about you ask if I am into sports first? I’ll happily talk to you about my myriad nerdy interests, but I’m not going to assume you are into them right off the bat.

However, if I am talking to you about some trivial thing you will know I am genuinely interested in it and not just filling dead air.

43

I was a manager myself. So I know that just because a policy exists doesn’t mean a policy makes any sense.

Saying that any discussion of personal matters might be construed as sexual harassment is stupid. But it’s certainly possible that some executive was stupid enough to believe it and make it company policy.

I’m standing by what I said.

44

Yeah, those evil, predatory females are just waiting for you to ask how their weekend was and BOOM, you’ll be facing sexual harassment charges, right? FFS. :rolleyes:

I guess I shouldn’t have expected better from Urbanredneck.

45

I get it that some people are reticent, but OP, you say you’ve known this guy well and for many years, and he’s confided in you before. Clearly this is a guy who likes telling you about his life. The question is, is this a pattern of his or is this the first time? In the 15 years you’ve known him, has he ever asked you questions about yourself? Does the boss ask anyone else friendly questions, or is he self-involved, too?

I’ve known both men and women who could see you with a hatchet in your head and launch immediately into a long account of every headache they’ve ever had. Once a guy asked me out, and he spent the entire evening talking about himself. I couldn’t have gotten a comment in edgewise if I’d had a crowbar. I’ve also had female co-workers who could see you with an axe in your head and launch right into a long account of every headache they’ve ever had.

46

But of course not everyone likes to be asked about themselves, it is entirely possible the the asshole behaviour in some situations is yours.

47

It’s never a bad thing to observe the conversational style your acquaintance is using, and be guided by that. If they’re asking questions of you a lot then ask questions of them at least a little since it’s probably a signal that that’s what they expect. If they never do any question-asking but volunteer a lot of info, try volunteering some info of your own and dial back the questions. If they never leave a space big enough for you to get a word in edgeways, talk into the spaces that aren’t ‘big enough’. If they answer in monosyllables, let the conversation die quietly.

I feel like a lot of communication disconnects could probably be solved if everyone followed those rules.

48

That suggests that they too should observe my conversational style with them and pick up on the fact that I don’t want to share personal info with them and so won’t asking them personal questions either.

49

Well, yeah, hopefully if they notice that you’re not asking many questions, and giving very short to nonexistant answers to their questions, they will also try something else. Then you end up somewhere in the middle. Nobody gets everything they want, but compromise is the glue of society.

50

The compromise is that they get those short answers and I am not obligated to ask them anything.

51

Eh, the Dope has never been a terribly socialized group. If someone asks about you, the polite thing is to then ask them something about themselves. You have a little conversation, move on with your life. It’s how adults behave.

52

In that case, according to my ruleset, the conversation dies a fairly quick death, and is slower to restart the next time. Which may, of course, be the result you were after.

53

Was going to post something similar. Totally agree.

54

Only if you assume that that someone asking about you, uninvited, is a polite thing to do. Not everyone does.

55

Absolutely, that is exactly the result I’m looking for.

56

Several of y’all keep saying “I don’t care what people do on the weekends/how their kids are. I don’t want to talk about things that are boring to me”. But the point of these social exchanges isn’t actual curiosity about what people did over the weekend. It’s establishing a very low-level feeling of community.

I work right next to a really nice guy whose mom has cancer. In all brutal honesty, I don’t really care about his mom. She’s not my mom. I’ll never meet her–she lives in Panama. I’m not friends with her son, really: we work next to each other, we respect each other, but we haven’t a thing in common. But once every month or two, I ask him how his mom is doing, and let him talk. Sometimes he goes into quite a bit of detail, other times he doesn’t. If he does, I ask a few follow-up questions as seems appropriate and express sympathy. Then I never, ever give his situation or his mom a second thought, because for me, I don’t care. But for him, I do.

I go through this routine because it’s helpful to both of us. It reminds both of us that we matter, our feelings and the shit we go through matters, and that we are part of a community. Not a “family” as my odious boss likes to pretend, but a group that is generally well-meaning toward each other. And it helps everyone get along better and hate work a little less. But I can’t have “touch-base” conversations about Jose’s mom if we don’t exchange morning pleasantries and “did you have a nice weekend” and all of that most days.

I really feel like all but the most extreme misanthropes would feel it as a loss if this sort of low-key community building wasn’t going on around them, and it honestly burns a bit that they not only don’t recognize the labor that goes into crafting it, they are scornful of the people that engage in that labor.

The other, fringe benefit is that knowing a little about the people you work with is also called “networking”. You never know when you might suddenly need to know more about a topic, personal or professional, and it sure is helpful to know “Oh, Cathy’s wife worked for company, I bet she knows someone” or “Oh dear, my daughter is really getting into this softball thing. I didn’t expect that. Wait, Bob’s daughter is a softball player, he might have some advice”.

57

Not really a fan of gossip, not really buying that gossipers are unsung public heroes. If you’ve lived outside America, you understand that many other cultures function just fine (perhaps better) without this kind of chitchat.

Some people enjoy this kind of chitchat, others don’t, end of story. People who mind their business and keep their mouths shut are the real public heroes IMO.

58

People that don’t like that level of personal discussion won’t see what you do as a benefit to them.

You assume that your colleague likes being prompted to talk about his mother’s illness and that my be true for him but it certainly wouldn’t be true for everyone. It certainly was never true for me. I’d find it intrusive.

I’m a big boy. If I want to raise a subject I’ll do so.

59

I’m a guy, and I’ve recently started noticing that I engage in this behavior, and I don’t like that. It’s not limited to interactions with women. I actually really enjoy listening and hearing about other people’s lives, so it’s not as others here have said that I “don’t care”. It probably stems from introversion and irrational fear of saying the wrong thing and/or bothering someone (yes, I am in therapy). I’m making an effort to try to correct it as I find myself doing so.

60

I thought gossip meant talking about other people, not talking about oneself and one’s own life, immediate family, etc. By that definition, I don’t think gossip is what anyone has been talking about in this thread.

And I’m dubious that there are cultures either where people don’t gossip or where people never engage in idle chitchat about their own lives.