Understanding through talking
Communication between one and other happens every second on this world. In the essay “Sex, Lies, and Conversation” Deborah Tannen observes that there can be big gender and cultural differences when interacting with others. She states that how we communicate depends to some extent on which gender we belong to. In fact, I am always being referred as a talkative girl. It seems to the others that I am talking every minute. I ask many friends about what’s their first impression on me, and most of them say that I seem to be chatty to them. That’s good because I can make friends easily, but there are also times when they say that I am bothersome and noisy. I don’t know why, but I have great talents when it comes to talking. I always have endless topics, and most people, regardless who they are, can have a nice conversation with me easily. Strong communications skill not only enables me to win prizes in recitations and story telling contests, and most of all, I have the advantage to know many things about the others through conversing with them. On the other hand, I always need to bear the name of being a loquacious person among my group. That makes me extraordinarily sensitive to how different people communicate, and I’ll usually pay special attention on people’s conversations so that I can understand others and myself better. I want to know whether I am really what the others said I am.
“For women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven” (369). I agree on this without reserve. Erica, my high school classmate, provides a very solid example. Whenever she’s frustrated, in high spirits, heartbreaking, feverish or down in the dumps, she wants someone to talk with. I am one of her aims. She wants affection and attention, especially from her family and friends. In reality, she hates to be bothered by the others when she is calm and fine. So, this character of her shows that as a woman, she solves her emotional needs by the intimacies in her relationships. Besides, most of her friends are willing to listen to her. That makes the problem easy. As a contrast to Deborah Tannen’s opinion, there are also many boys who seek for emotional satisfaction from interacting with their friends and families. Douglas, my college friend, is one of those few boys I’ve ever known who admits that he loves to gossip. However, unlike Erica, he is not so lucky. As a male, most people don’t expect to chat with him other than on open topics. He is often rejected when he requests for a private and empathetic chat. Carrying a masculine label, he is not expected to talk too much about himself by his friends. He is upset about this, and I also agree with him that talking is not the right of girls only.
When I read the phrase “the image best represents the current crisis is the stereotypical cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast table with a newspaper held up in front of his face, while a woman glares at the back of it, wanting to talk” (369), I suddenly think of my parents who are thousands miles away from me. Being a daughter, I talk much more with my mother than with my dad. My dad appears to be tacit most of the time. Even my brother talks more with my mum than with my dad. However, interestingly, when it comes to “parent conversations”, it is always my dad who wants to talk first. In contrast to Tannen’s idea that women complains that their husbands don’t listen to them, it is my dad who complains about the lack of communication between them. This shows that there can be exceptional cases on how couples deal with communication after marriage.
My observation on communication doesn’t include the others’ only, but mine too. This is from a man who complained about his wife in the article: “She just wants to talk about her own point of view. If I show her another view, she gets mad” (371). I received the same complaint last few weeks from a male friend, Tong. Essentially, I just want to share some of my own experiences and ideas with him. I don’t necessarily need rapport from him, but he seems to think that I do. Meanwhile, he indisputably disagrees with my ideas, and he seems to care a great deal about whether I am right or wrong. This absolutely fits into the point Tannen brings out in her essay: “men use agonistic or warlike, oppositional formats to do almost anything; this discussion becomes debate, and conversation a competitive sport. In contrast, women see conversation as a ritual means of establishing support” (371). Men sometimes assume that when women say something to them, it means that women want to challenge them. I am amused at how Tannen views each gender so fastidiously. I never notice why I feel so uncomfortable when I share my feelings with males before. I just know that I always have to be careful not to say anything wrong in front of them due to their immediate “attacks” if I said anything stupid. Now that I understand the causes and consequences of why I feel stressed when communicating with males, I think I know how to deal with this problem better in the future.
To begin with, different people use different ways to express themselves. It is unfair to expect the ones we know to behave like how we expected them to behave. As seen from the examples I mentioned above, though stereotypes may tell us something in advance, we still have to know each other by suitable communication and observation. Boys can talk as long as they like; husbands can complain about their marriage’s communication problems too. Among different types of stereotypes, gender stereotypes are the most common. By observing how each one around us talks and communicates, we can actually learn much about their characters. Talking can disturb others sometimes, but it is one of the most primitive ways of communication. If we are all framed by the general images of each gender, how can we discover each other’s true nature and spirit?
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