The Women’s Communication Network
First, there are the Men-Who-Don’t-Get-Women. Truth be told, the majority of men in the world fall into this category, but for various reasons they think they don’t. Sometimes they understand us enough in terms of the big items that we really don’t mind so much about the smaller things. But what’s amazing to me is when they can’t or won’t admit the few basic male female differences that people have been joking about or commenting on forever. One of those things is that women talk. About everything, in excruciating detail, to anyone and everyone we feel like. And at the drop of a hat, too. (Okay, to one reader’s point, not ALL women, but enough that men should realize it’s a potential threat to his privacy.)

On a bus, plane, Laundromat. In the office, over the phone, in Instant Messaging. With our girlfriends, sisters, strangers and co-workers. Guys: if you can’t get used to it, at least don’t forget that it occurs.

One such ignorant man, who later recovered well enough to marry (and actually found a woman to procreate with) was asking out “Nancy” via the company email. She turned him down. He took the same invite and flipped it around to another Nancy, the one in accounting. She turned him down too. Then he sent it to a third Nancy, the one in telesales. She accepted. (He later admitted that he felt very clever about the whole thing, since he didn’t have to change a single word.)

I know this story because I worked with him, and one of the Nancys got really steamed about it. She hit the warpath, warning other women about what a player he was, etc. I popped into his office and told him to cut it out because I liked him. His brow wrinkled and he said, “How in the world did they find out?” And this thirty-something year old man meant it, he really didn’t know.

Hmmm…three single women with the same name in the same company, where two of belong to the same cafeteria clique. I wonder! Of course men can know one another for decades and never realize the other is married to an alien, raises porpoises for fun and has fourteen kids. He’ll know the car his friend drives however. Us, we never talk about our cars. But our friends know not only who we’re sleeping with but who we’ve ever thought about sleeping with. For men the sheer volume of data on that last one would be too staggering to even keep track of.

Male Privacy: Bye-Bye
Another man was introduced via blind date (by a mutual friend) to “Terri”. Terri liked him. On the second date, however, he confided that he had a fetish for cross-dressing (like a woman). Being a fairly communicative and inquisitive person, Terri asked him more about the details. Possibly construing her questions as interest, he spoke to her quite freely about it. After their third date she decided it couldn’t work for her. She called their mutual friend, a man who worked for the Cross Dresser’s company and asked him, “Charles, what in the world made you think I would be interested in a cross-dresser?” She had assumed that since the Cross Dresser had never told her it was a secret, he was open with the information.

Charles was floored. He’d had no idea. When the Cross Dresser called her again, Terri asked him how he felt about other people knowing. His answer was, “Oh, I would just be devastated if any of my friends or employees ever found out.”

Whoops. Terri hadn’t meant to divulge his personal information, but men should just know this: WE TALK. If you don’t want us to tell anyone, you better ask us not to. If you don’t, it’s not our fault.

And by the way, women know that men don’t talk. About anything interesting at least. We know better than to count on you men to discover what’s going on with anyone. You won’t ask any of the interesting questions. You won’t ask about their marriage, their sex life, whether they want more kids. You won’t ask if they’re happy or nervous or in love. We can’t even count you to figure out if another guy is hetero or not. If we’ve figured this out, why can’t you track the fact that all the truly relevant information in the world is extracted, broadcast and shared by women?
Best,
cj

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under Dumb Things Men Do, Say and Write. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.