Here’s what I find baffling about the differences between the conversation styles of men and women.
Typical conversation between me and one of my male friends (I probably have about 17 of these conversations per week)
Friend: I’m having this issue with my boss. I think things are going well, but sometimes I think he’s not that impressed with me.
Me: Well, first of all, is there anything specific that’s going on. I thought you said he’s the kind of guy where no news is good news. I thought you also said you were going to try to get into work earlier on Mondays so you could get caught up. Have you been doing that?
Friend: yeah, you’re right. I’m probably just imagining the issue. As to getting in early on Mondays, yeah I’ve been trying but […]
And the conversation continues with various suggestions and discussions about how to deal with issues. I hasten to add that frequently the roles are reversed and my friend is giving me the advice.
Typical conversation between me and a girlfriend or female friend:
Her: I’m having this issue with my boss. I think things are going well, but sometimes I think he’s not that impressed with me.
Me: [same answer as above]
Her: Look, I don’t want you to try to fix this problem for me ok, I just want you to listen.
Me: ok, wow that sucks, I’m sorry.
I have to confess that this second kind of conversation is baffling to me. Or I guess I should say, completely unnatural. By now I have learned that I shouldn’t offer suggestions, I should just bite my tongue. But I have to confess that deep down I just don’t get it.
So here’s the question: for anyone who prefers this “empathic listening style” can you help me understand why. I mean, when I have a problem, and I tell my friend 95 imes out of 100 I’m looking for a solution to the problem, and I appreciate it when someone makes a helpful suggestion.
I am fluent in both styles, so sometimes if I’m unsure of how to respond, I ask whether they just want me to commiserate or are asking for advice.
For those who prefer your second scenario, generally they are perfectly capable of finding solutions on their own, they just want support. So, a “That’s terrible, I know exactly how you feel <insert similar situation here>. When that happened I felt so <insert uncomfortable emotions here>.” response is better.
It’s about venting your feelings, reassurance that what you’re feeling is normal, that you’re not overreacting.
Women* tell people about their vulnerabilities in order to build social rapport. We think if we tell you the ways in which we’re suffering, you’ll like us more. We’re showing you that we trust you enough to let us see our soft squishy underbelly. We want you to acknowledge that trust and vulnerability, not remove it by solving the problem.
Deborah Tannen did a lot of research into this phenomenon.
*ETA, of course, men can have this style too. But for the sake of the discussion…
Here’s your difference. When women have a problem (*please see * gender disclaimer in WhyNot’s post, adopted by me and incorporated herein by reference) they tell their friends. You can take out the comma and the conjunction because one leads right to the other. We tell our friends even when we already know the solution and sometimes we tell them only after the solution is already under weigh.
If we want suggestions usually we require you to drag the problem out of us.
If we are married to/children of engineers or physicists or the like (who think as well as humans but not exactly in the same way), we have learned by hard and weary experience then we start the one conversation with “I don’t want you to solve this problem but I want to talk about it…” and the other with “Can you help me find a solution to this…?”.
Nothing to add, just wanted to say I agree with posts 2, 3 and 4. Honestly, nobody can really help me with most of the problems I have except me. So if I tell my husband about the problem, it’s not to get a solution, it’s to have him tell me he understands how I feel. Sometimes I just need to know that what I’m feeling is normal. That’s why, if he responds in a “harsh” way (i.e. fixing the problem by saying, well, why don’t you just do this or that?), then it hurts my feelings because he’s telling me that it’s NOT normal to be feeling what I’m feeling.
Amen. Usually if I have a problem, by the time I’ve told someone, I’ve already started fixing it. When I tell someone else about it, it’s usually because I want commiseration rather than a solution. If it’s not because of the commiseration, it’s really to use the other person as a sounding board for my own solution, not to get them to come up with one for me. So even a solution is what I’m after, it’s generally something I’ve come up with on my own and need an objective opinion about. I’m pretty explicit, too.
Marienee hit it dead on about the engineers, too. My husband is a computer engineer - very, very logical, sometimes coldly so. If I have a problem, I know better than to start a conversation without explicitly letting him know, “I need you to listen and give me your sympathy,” or “Hey, will you listen to this and let me know what you think?”.
This falls into the category of what someone once called “sometimes we just need a hug.”
To be fair, it’s not just women who act this way. With both our sons, my wife and I have had to resort to asking “are you looking for advice or acknowledgement?”
Most men, however, are not just confused by the scenario, we’re afraid of it. We like to think that the only time we need a hug is when the dog dies or the truck burns up in a fire.
Speaking as a fully actualized male who is fully in touch with his feminine side, I just want to say that IMHO neither sex really gets what communication means to the other sex. To men, conversation is mainly about exchanging information. Male bonding is all about talking about something removed from us (sports, politics, cars) and gradually discovering the other person’s views, which leads to shared interests, which leads to friendship. In most cases, talking can even be replaced by sharing activities.
WhyNot describers women’s social interaction far better than I could. Female bonding is all about building levels of trust. The higher the level of trust, the deeper the friendship.
Reading this post made me realize how little I heed advice (probably to my detriment). I take advice all the time, but I think ultimately 99% of the time I end up making a decision on my own, regardless of what others have told me. Obviously if someone has previously unknown information for me that makes the situation different, I take that into account, but when people are just advising on which of a set of choices seems better to them, I think I rarely use that.
It depends… but some of the time, I don’t need you to help me find the solution to my problem. I know the solution, I need to do X (or Y or Z). In fact, you’re telling me “you should do X” is rather annoying and vaguely insulting because I know that, I’m not an idiot. Anyone with half a brain knows that I should be doing X. And by telling me, you’re implyng that I have less than half a brain. I just want to vent. I’m probably being insulted enough by the situation itself.
Other times, I’m looking for a solution. Then, the brainstorming is welcome.
BTW, men do the same. There are times that they’re just venting and there are times where they are looking for answers. Maybe you’re better at picking up clues from men as to whether they’re bitching or solution gathering?
I think basically it’s “understand what I am feeling now and what I have went through; I don’t want solutions or any paragraphs from a self-help book or lecturing; just listen and show that you care!”
And if you don’t care, or don’t have the time for this, actually it’s best to tell up front. Saves the other party lots of time and trouble.
Through some activities met up with someone with shared interests. One day I asked him out for lunch saying “I wish to share something”, partly because we get along well, partly because we’re at the same school. He immediately retorted “I don’t really like to counsel people.” - much to my chagrin. Well, some shit had happened in my life during that time, so it’s understandable that he took it this way.
But hey, from that point on, I struck him off my ‘listener’ list. He’s friendly, courteous and all that, but that really saved us both hell lot of time.
What everyone else, particularly Redroses, has said. And being fluent in both modes of communication, I’ve learned to let men know when it’s just venting and when it’s information seeking. Saves a lot of time and heartache it does.
The bolded section above could be me…just replace computer with environmental. I can’t even count the number of fights that my girlfriend and I have got into because I’ve misunderstood what she’s looking for. I’m trying to get better at it but it feels like I’m swimming upstream; it just seems very counter-intuitive.
Of course there’s a continuum, but would you say men generally don’t need trust as part of friendship?
I ask because I tend to keep (male, interest-based) friends at arm’s length, often because I don’t know if I can trust them with what’s going on in my life. Do I just need to pull my man pants up a little tighter and not ask so much of friendship?
I have never been a man, so there may be some secret man-shit going on when I am not around. My observation, though, is that in general, men seem to trust mostly women in the sense you describe. Men appear not to need trust in that sense so much as a part of their friendship with other men – it appears from the outside to be a different dynamic.
(Please see disclaimer above, of course, as there is some gender overlap in this area).
I have (male) friends I trust, and others that I like well enough, but probably wouldn’t talk to about my life/relationship or whatever. It’s not that I actively distrust these people, it’s just that I’ve never connected with them in that way - and usually, never felt the need to either. I wouldn’t be friends with someone I really didn’t trust at all, male or female. [Edit: I may be acquaintances with them, I might have a chat about motorcycles or soccer, but I wouldn’t call them “friends”.]
I do, though, find it much easier to tell what a male friend wants when he talks about a problem. It’s usually quite obvious whether he wants empathy or whether he wants suggestions. That, though, has a lot to do with the fact that my male friends don’t usually get upset if I offer advice when that wasn’t what they were requesting. They tend to say “Ach, I know that Paul, I’m just moaning.” No offence intended or taken.
I think there may be something to this. In reading several of the very interesting posts on this thread, I got to thinking that in fact I have had situations where I have become frustrated with a male friend who offered unsolicited solutions when in fact I was just kind of just blowing off steam about a problem.
Just this week in fact, I ran into this phenomenon when I had my picture taken for the website at work. Here’s a confession. Every time I get my picture taken, I am expecting that the picture will come out looking like my 24 year old, 155 pound, not very photogenic (imho) but at least slim self. And it is always a surprise to see my 41 year old, 175 pound, still not very photogenic, and not very slim self looking back at me. I shared this with my brother. Now, IF my brother had said, well, you just need to eat less and exercise more and how many days per week are you running, etc. it would have been extremely annoying. Instead, he said “yeah, I hear you. Even after I lost a lot of weight, I still kind of hate having my picture taken because I still feel like I look kind of pudgy.” And it made me feel better.
Having said that, I also agree with Kid_A that I feel like I’ve had lots of fights and misunderstandings over the years because I didn’t pick up on what a woman wanted when she was telling me about a problem.
I think WhyNot’s point about exposing vulnerabilities to build rapport is interesting (and thanks for the point to Deborah Tannen – I have heard of her work several times over the years and I think it’s time I took a closer look at what she has to say). I guess I feel like (surprise surprise) it’s not a black and white/either or kind of thing. I guess I feel like I (and I guess many or most men) want the “wow that sucks – I’m here for you response” about 5% of the time and the “wow that sucks – here lets team up to create a plan to vanquish this problem” about 95% of the time. And it seems like for women the ratio is different.
And getting back to amarinth’s point, I think I am much better at guessing/picking up on which response is warranted when I am talking to a man.
It’s a different kind of trust. A man trusts his friends to 1) come down at 3:00 a.m. to bail him out of jail, 2) be careful when they borrow his tools and give them back when they’re finished, and 3) not try to steal his girlfriend.
The essence of male firendship is wrapped up in the phrase “I owe you.” The implication is transactional, i.e., you’ve got my back, and I have yours.
When a man calls his best friend at midnight after his girlfriend dumps him, the conversation can be summed up by:
“Dude, that sucks.” (I empathize)
“Yeah.” (I knew you would. That’s why I called.)
“Are you alright?” (Should I come over and get drunk with you?)
“I’ll be okay.” (It’s sufficent that you’ve validated my feelings.)
“Hang in there.” (If you still feel bad tomorrow, we can get drunk then.)
“Thanks, man. I owe you.” (If your girlfriend ever dumps you, I’ll be here for you.)
I think there’s a deeper layer here. When women* commiserate, they’re looking for emotional connection and validation: she understands me, she knows what I’m feeling, therefore we have connected. She doesn’t explicitly say she wants understanding, but she’s hoping for it. In some ways, it’s fishing for a particular response. Women share their vulnerabilities, it’s true — but only to a point. She expresses frustration or heartbreak, but she doesn’t express the need “make me feel better.”
When a woman wants commiseration or sympathy from a man, she’s hoping, as with a woman companion, that he understand her. She’s seeking connection. She wants him to know her well enough to know what she needs at that moment. And when he opens his big mouth to say something stupid or insensitive or logical, she gets the feeling as if “he doesn’t really know me. There’s no connection here.” He hears her problem, and he thinks “problem — needs solution.” He doesn’t hear the unspoken need (“make me feel better”).
And women (in my experience**) tend not to tell their men what they want from the conversation. It’s an unspoken test, really, along the lines of “did he notice I changed my hair?” or “is he going to ask me about these shoes?” The test is, “is he going to know what I need without my having to tell him?”
Men fail these tests quite a lot, sadly. And it’s unfortunate, because (as people in this thread have said) all you have to do is say what you want and need.
*Subject to restrictions above. Your mileage may vary. Offer not valid in Rhode Island.
** Also not available in Rhode Island.
I don’t know why this conversation style is gender exclusive. I am a male and do feel better when talking problems over with a sympathetic ear. I don’t usually want a solution just emotional support and connecting with someone who genuinely cares.
You’re the first one who’s suggested it is. In fact, most of us have, with varying levels of humor, been quick to disclaim gender exclusivity here.
If it makes you feel better, do a SEARCH for “women” and REPLACE it with “people desiring empathic listening” and then SEARCH for “men” and REPLACE with “people desiring problem solving listening”.