thinking...

reading deborah tannen's you just don't understand for class. the book is about how male-female communication is essentially inter-cultural communication and her theories about what's going on.

and so far, most of it sounds spot on, though not necessarily enlightening. men see things as a hierarchy and women as a group. she discusses specific examples of commonplace conversations that take place and typically frustrate members of both genders because each person thinks they're saying the right thing.... but ultimately end up pissing off their conversational partner.

makes sense. yeah, boys and girls do learn to speak differently. guys interrupt girls more, girls apologize more often, girls often preface suggestions with "this may be dumb but... " or "here's how i would do it...but there may be a better way." guys discuss their problems with each other much differently than girls do. we tend to discuss them at length, and tell anecdotes of similar situations in order to show similarity, intimacy. so when guys respond to a girl's problem in a way that doesn't match this usual pattern she shares with her girlfriends, she sees it as rude or that he doesn't care. whatever.

according to tannen, so far anyhow, these misunderstandings really can't be avoided, but through studying how members of each gender view the world, we can try to understand one another.

but what about gay guys who spend a lot of their time hanging out with girls or other gay guys? they know how to relate to guys and how to relate to girls. i mean, i spent quite some time being bff with a gay man (another subject, which makes me so sad, but anyhow), and our misunderstandings and arguments like, NEVER stemmed from these sorts of issues. in fact, we girl fought. the shit we would disagree over was no different than fights i'd had with girls. yet, here's this guy who wasn't always perceived as gay, and grew up with the same expectations and scripts that most other boys grow up with. how come he could adjust to being more sensitive to the ways that women communicate?

in fact, for the longest time, most of my friends were male. i didn't know it when i formed the friendships, but the vast majority were gay males. it wasn't until towards the end of high school that i started spending more time with more "typical" heterosexual guys and then i started experiencing the more "typical" misunderstandings. it hit me so hard. "my GOD they're such GUYS!!!!!" like, my boyfriend and his roommates. the way they communicate mystifies me. they don't actually like, express their feelings or what's going on. it's all about power, who is in charge of a given situation. they're SUCH boys. i would never ever ever in a million years expect one of his roommates to "get" what i have to say. i would pretty much expect everything in that book.

but go back to the gay male friends, you can gab about anything. and, in fact, you don't have to be gay. granted, the vast majority of the guys i've encountered with mostly female friends have been gay, but not all. i won't name names because i don't wanna make 'em seem like pussies or whatever, but i've known a few. thinking of one in particular. we used to hang out in a group of all girls and him. it was perfectly comfortable, and conversation flowed as if we were all girls. i was unaware of the fact that he was "male," despite knowing full well he is heterosexual.

that's the thing, often when i'm in a group with all women, i don't think about it. it just is. but when you throw a guy into the mix, it's all off balance. i'm so aware of that foreign, male presence. but there are thew few guys who are such good communicators that you forget about it.


SO, my question, what is it about gay males (and the occasional, "sensitive" hetero guy) that allows them to adapt to a more female pattern of speech? has this been studied?

i'm so curious!