Gender Differences

The other day in my interpersonal communications course, we did an activity where we analyzed communication between men, women, and each other. In it, every group found the same results: women talked about relationships, emotions, and other personal topics while men discussed sports, news, and more superficial issues. In reality, I boil it down to women talking about FEELINGS and men talking about NOT FEELINGS.

That's really the breakdown. Granted, for someone I'm very close with (mother, girlfriend) I may be more apt to disclose feelings, but between my guy friends that's a sign of weakness. Anyways, I'm sure this is no revelation for most people, but I still find it interesting as I'd never taken the time to really look at it. This sort of confirms the idea that pick-up artists use in arousing a girl's emotions in conversation.

I think realizing this general breakdown will help as far as my male-female relationships are concerned. It also made me realize the shallowness of my male relationships. We are bonded by the shared experiences (the road trips, drinking nights, etc.) but the words really mean nothing, it's the time spent together. Being someone who is introverted, I see that being a problem I've faced while growing up.

I now am believing that being introverted is a character flaw. Don't agree? We'll see. I'll be talking about it soon.