Girl Talk
Guys talk about things.
Girls talk about people.
We ate Chinese take-out at a friends' house tonight with four married couples (minus one husband). I had the privilege (?) of sitting with the guys during dessert. I mainly sat there listening and observing about subjects such as the Wright Amendment, Judicial Nominees and filibusters, stem-cell research, and the recently passed Transportation Budget. These are topics which require some level of knowledge for the conversationalists to discuss them.
I have almost always thought the male discussion was more interesting than the female one at events like this, especially when social unwritten rules don't usually allow one female to sit at the guys' table while all the other girls are in a totally different room.
And believe me when I tell you that most likely the girls in the kitchen tonight were talking about how this friend or that friend are doing or how Marci's baby shower was or how their own job is going. Not that these aren't good things to talk about, don't get me wrong, especially if the girls are being honest and transparent with one another, they're just interesting for a different reason.
But as we were driving home, I realized that the main difference, once you boil it all down, is that guys talk about things, and girls talk about people. It's not an earth-shattering observation, and I suppose I've always known it, I've just never crystallized it with words.
Girls talk about people.
We ate Chinese take-out at a friends' house tonight with four married couples (minus one husband). I had the privilege (?) of sitting with the guys during dessert. I mainly sat there listening and observing about subjects such as the Wright Amendment, Judicial Nominees and filibusters, stem-cell research, and the recently passed Transportation Budget. These are topics which require some level of knowledge for the conversationalists to discuss them.
I have almost always thought the male discussion was more interesting than the female one at events like this, especially when social unwritten rules don't usually allow one female to sit at the guys' table while all the other girls are in a totally different room.
And believe me when I tell you that most likely the girls in the kitchen tonight were talking about how this friend or that friend are doing or how Marci's baby shower was or how their own job is going. Not that these aren't good things to talk about, don't get me wrong, especially if the girls are being honest and transparent with one another, they're just interesting for a different reason.
But as we were driving home, I realized that the main difference, once you boil it all down, is that guys talk about things, and girls talk about people. It's not an earth-shattering observation, and I suppose I've always known it, I've just never crystallized it with words.
posted by Holly Putnam | 8:34 PM
3 Comments:
Nice observation. I think this is why girls struggle with gossip so much more than guys do. Most girls I know CRAVE to know what's going on with other people, even if it as innocuous as wanting to know about their own friends and family (people they know and care about - not just random strangers). Discussing people is like a drug we can't get enough of. If our interests were more topic-related, I think the temptation to gossip would become more of a distant memory.
I have often (but not always) enjoyed the guy conversations more than the girl ones for other reasons as well. If the girls are talking about their new window treatments and the guys are talking about the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, I know exactly where I'll be. :)
P.S. Oh yeah - Hey Holly. Glad you're here in the blogging world. :)
Hey, Holly--Just saw your blog listed on Phil's blog. Fun to check it out. :-) And, I must say that I, too, am one of those girls who would often prefer to participate in the guys' conversation more than the girls' conversation (except, perhaps, when the guys' topic is cars). While the things women talk about aren't always unimportant, perhaps it seems that they're more often more immediate while men tend to talk more big picture, and I like big picture better.
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