Men and conversations - is it true?

Conventional thinking says that women are much better at general, open-ended conversation than men are. I can certainly think of a number of men - often the male half of a couple - who are really hard work in conversation. However, I can also think of quite a few men who are a pleasure to talk with, and quite a few women who are hard work.

Conventional thinking says that women try harder in conversation because - either by nature or by conditioning - they are more focused on smoothing things along, on making sure other people are looked after and feel good. It says that men tend to be more "instrumental" in their conversation, talking for a purpose and not talking just for the sake of it; they tend to compete with jokes, quips, digs and facts.

As in so many areas of life, conventional wisdom grossly oversimplifies the situation, but it does contain more than a grain of truth.

Purposeful Conversations vs. Random Conversations

I wrote "vs." in the title but there doesn't need to be a contradiction.

A conversation may start off with a specific purpose such as deciding on an itinerary, but if the parties involved are open to it the conversation can become random and lead to who knows where. I booked a hotel in Taormina at the weekend and having cleared the details, ventured a few random comments and observations which opened the whole thing up. All sorts of information comes up, some of it "contentual" (the director is a former tennis champion) and some of it contextual (Antonella enjoys chatting and has a sense of humour).

Conversely, a conversation may start off random and increasingly focus on a purpose. For example this morning I called Mike for a chat and we ended up talking about how and where I would ideally provide the new service I'm thinking through.

Jumping to conclusions in conversation

In conversation with my friend Philippe, he spoke about a rigorous interviewing process that he uses and trains others to use. The trouble is, he explained, that people supposedly using the process have already made up their mind within a minute of the starting the process and they waste an hour going through the motions, just to arrive at the conclusion they had already reached an hour earlier.

There are times when coming ot a conclusion quickly is vital - for example in A&E admissions in a hospital.

However, there are many occasions and circumstanstances where jumping to conclusions - or paying too much heed to the impulse to jump to conclusions - is counterproductive. Sometimes it's important to open oneself to more information, more deeply, for longer and allow the brain/mind to work on it.

One area where people often try to force things is language learning. From my early years teaching English to foreign students (through the 1970s, on and off) it was so clear to see when students were stopping incoming words in their ears and - metaphorically speaking - trying to force a direct translation out of them, or worse, refusing to believe that the word could exist. What works with foreign languages, and many other things, is to allow information in and to trust the mind/brain to do its work.

All too often we apply "technische afhandeling" (technical processing) as a lazy, self-confirming shortcut.

How long before I succumb to e-books?

Too many CDs and too much convenience from iTunes / iPod have virtually halted my purchasing of physical CDs.  I now buy at least as much music in purely digital form as I do on CD - probably more.

I stopped buying printed newspapers in about 1994, when we moved to Holland.  These days I read a selection online, including on my iPhone - it's perfectly possible to read a long piece that way.  However, I do still get printed copies of the Economist, Wired magazine (US and UK) and Prospect magazine.  I've always taken weeklies and monthlies since I was a kid, and I like having the physical paper handy.

I take a load of photos but most of them exist only in digital form.  A couple of years ago I did take the plunge and have 500 or so printed up, but we look at them less often than the digital versions.  In the next week or so I'll be selecting, processing and sending off a dozen or so photos to make big prints for an exhibition - but they're the exception.

I work entirely paperless.  The only things I ever print out are for the accountants.  For the rest, it's all digital. 

I have bookshelves full of books, many of which I'll probably never get round to reading.  Yet I still can't resist buying titles that catch my eye, even though many will only ever gather dust.  In some respects it would make more sense to get them on an e-reader,  Yet at the moment, that feels like one screen too far.

I'm sure that if I actualy took the plunge and got an e-reader, I would be hooked.  However, looking at the move from this side of the decision I feel sad about it. Books are the last hold-out of analog content in my life.