Is This a Guy Thing?

[Novelty_Bobble]

@Thudlow_Boink

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.

I’d be amazed if there were a society where it *never *happens but have no problem imagining cultures where it happens much less and have absolute certainty that there are plenty of people the world over who try to avoid it completely.

“small talk” is my idea of hell

[DPRK]

Maybe the OP isn’t in Finland or Scandinavia.

Silence is gold, talking is silver.

So it’s 100% a cultural thing, not a guy thing, except insofar as the prevailing culture dictate a different level of chattiness for guys versus for women.

@Thudlow_Boink

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.

ETA just noticed this comment

[Nava]

@HMS_Irruncible

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.

But that’s not gossip It’s, as Manda Jo says, about establishing relationships that go beyond the “this lump of meat inhabits the cubicle next to mine” and into “this human being that I know from work and I have in common, at the very least, our humanity”. My brand-new coworkers aren’t new to this area and will probably never visit my home nor I theirs, but they’ve already offered several helpful suggestions about sites to look for a flat. Because aside from our employer we all have in common having had to look for flats as some point in our lives and they’ve kindly used their own experiences to assist me.

[TRC4941]

@nelliebly

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.

He’s always talking about stuff. I’ve heard some of his stories 5 times or more! I would never ask questions that are prying. I ask about the stuff he’s told me about in the past. I feel like Johnny Carson interviewing a guest. I honestly believe that it just doesn’t occur to him to ask me anything.

I don’t work in an overly professional office and we’ve all known each other for years. There would never be a feeling of inappropriateness.

[TRC4941]

@MandaJo

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”.

Perfectly said!!

[Darren_Garrison]

@TRC4941

I feel like Johnny Carson interviewing a guest.

Except that Johnny Carson commented back to his guests. If Johnny Carson asked someone what they did over the weekend, after they answered, he would have mentioned what he did over the weekend. He wouldn’t have sat there like a lump creating dead air waiting for the guest to carefully spoon-feed the exact same questions back to him every step of the way before the conversation could continue. You aren’t wanting conversations to go like The Tonight Show, you are wanting them to go like Goofy Gophers.

Here is Johnny Carson:

JC: How was your weekend?
DS: Great–I wore loud clothes and played the trumpet or whatever it was!
JC: Mine too–I did whatever the hell it was that Johnny Carson did for fun.

Here is the conversation you described:

You: How was your weekend?
Guy: Fine.
You: Stands there quietly waiting to be promped for your next line.

@TRC4941

I honestly believe that it just doesn’t occur to him to ask me anything.

Or maybe He Is Just Not That Into You.

[Chicken_Fingers]

Setting aside whether it’s small talk, personal talk, or talk about interests, over the years I have noticed an increase in people simply doing monologues around others. Two-person conversations have become more like turn-based masturbation than an interactive experience, and it’s less fun than when people react and reciprocate. For some reason, I notice this more with Americans. Facebook, Instagram, blogs, Twitter, etc have enabled this side of people loving to hold forth about themselves, and it’s bled into face-to-face interactions.

[Jumpbass]

@Chicken_Fingers

Setting aside whether it’s small talk, personal talk, or talk about interests, over the years I have noticed an increase in people simply doing monologues around others. Two-person conversations have become more like turn-based masturbation than an interactive experience, and it’s less fun than when people react and reciprocate. For some reason, I notice this more with Americans. Facebook, Instagram, blogs, Twitter, etc have enabled this side of people loving to hold forth about themselves, and it’s bled into face-to-face interactions.

I agree except for the social media aspect. I’ve been monologued at for years before SnapBook or FaceChat. One of the reasons I don’t initiate too many conversations. I DO love a good conversation, but not just listening to someone ramble.

[johnod]

@Darren_Garrison

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.)

Exactly.

[Darren_Garrison]

@johnod

Exactly.

Right. Sometimes you just don’t care about someone’s Pokemans.

[HoneyBadgerDC]

I was on a dinner date last weekend and the lady I was with was very nice and interesting but she did at least 90% of the talking about whats going on in her life. She did make it interesting but at the same time she doesn’t know me any better now than she did before dinner which was maybe a 2 hour date.

[johnod]

@Darren_Garrison

Right. Sometimes you just don’t care about someone’s Pokemans.

I also consider it an imposition when others ask about my doings/life.

[MikeF]

Its because, at home, they never get to voice their thoughts and have to listen what the wife/girlfriend is droning on about. Out in the wild they get a chance to be heard but otherwise appreciate the silence. Just kidding, of course. For the most part.

[HeyHomie]

Certainly not a guy thing. Mrs. Homie, her mother, indeed, all of the women in her family, do all of the talking. The men just sit quietly and listen. I’ve been married to Mrs. Homie and have known her mother for 20 years, and I can tell you amusing anecdotes about my mother-in-law’s childhood that she’s repeated to me many times. I doubt my MIL even knows where I was born. I doubt I’ve even had the chance to tell her without talking over her. She sure as hell hasn’t asked.

[Bear_Nenno]

@MandaJo

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.

But according to madmonk28, your coworker was rude for not asking about your mother’s health after spending all that time talking about his. If you feel that your coworker committed no faux pas, then the coworker in the OP didn’t either.

[Urbanredneck]

@Slash1972

This post is the stupidest thing I’ve read today. And I’ve read the President’s twitter account.

And I think yours was the stupidest comeback. Who died and made you discussion king?

[filmore]

@TRC4941

He’s always talking about stuff. I’ve heard some of his stories 5 times or more! I would never ask questions that are prying. I ask about the stuff he’s told me about in the past. I feel like Johnny Carson interviewing a guest. I honestly believe that it just doesn’t occur to him to ask me anything.

I don’t work in an overly professional office and we’ve all known each other for years. There would never be a feeling of inappropriateness.

Maybe I’m missing something, but if you’re asking about stuff he’s shared in the past, that may be why he’s telling the same stories over and over. Maybe he forgot he told you or he thinks you may have forgotten and he’s telling you again.

It sounds like he’s a bit of a quirky guy. I’m not sure how many generalizations you can make about men in general from how this guy acts.

[Miller]

@MandaJo

But that’s the shit that builds the relationships so that later when you hear Cathy lost her mom, it means something because you know something about Cathy. Or maybe you don’t need to know, but someone in the office need to know, so that Cathy doesn’t feel like her grief is meaningless. Generally speaking, women take on the burden of being the “someone”.

Are these people who don’t have other social outlets outside of work, or something? I just have trouble wrapping my mind about needing my grief validated by my coworkers. Hell, when my dad died about five years ago, I deliberately avoided mentioning it at work, just to avoid this sort of faux-pity from people who barely know me, and didn’t know my dad at all.

[Darren_Garrison]

So is this (slightly related) possible “guy thing” rude? When I’m at some place and the person helping me makes point of telling me their name, I never volunteer my name in return or make any effort at all to remember theirs, because 5 minutes later I’m never going to see them again for the rest of my life and neither of us needs to know each other’s names.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Darren_Garrison

So is this (slightly related) possible “guy thing” rude? When I’m at some place and the person helping me makes point of telling me their name, I never volunteer my name in return or make any effort at all to remember theirs, because 5 minutes later I’m never going to see them again for the rest of my life and neither of us needs to know each other’s names.

What kind of “I’m at some place and the person helping me” did you have in mind?

Like, are you shopping at the Mega-lo-mart and one of the employees helps you find the nose-hair trimmers?

Or did you leave your headlights on and the guy parked next to you helps you jump-start your car?