A bit of a sad scene

Last week I was in an upscale restaurant in a city of at least 300,000. I was eating alone because I was traveling, but I decided to notice the groups around me and their interaction. I was in the restaurant about an hour, so I go to see most of the conversations of the people around me. Directly in front of me was a table of 4 young women who appeared to be from a nearby university. One table over to my right was a couple in their mid-30s I would say. Close to them was another couple probably in their 50s. Behind them was a table of 3 couples. To my left was a table of two men sitting across from each other. Behind them was a table of 4 women. And near to them was another couple. I switched on my observation mode.

The three young university women talked without interruption the whole time I was there as did the two men who were engaged in lively conversation between friends. The table of 3 couples had at least one conversation going, sometimes two at all times. The table of 4 women didn't seem to have any pauses in their conversations either. Well, you noticed. What about the tables of the couples. They were pretty quiet tables. Conversation was intermittent, even sporadic at the 50s couple table. They found it hard, it seemed, to keep conversation sustained. The couple closest to the two men seemed to have the least trouble. But, their tones and gestures seemed serious most of the time.

This illustration bears out another point of opposites in cross-gender conversation. When men talk, they seem to talk of events surrounding them in the outside world. The topic of weather in many men's conversations is a point in case. They talk about their relation to their work or career, their ambitions, their analysis of politics or religion or any other issue that is common between the participants. Women, on the other hand, seem to talk about lives of the people around them. What happens in an event takes second place to how something happens or the after-effect of an event on people's lives. What people say and feel about something is important. With men, what people do is important. It bears analysis. Some people say the difference in conversational topics revolves around the internal, the personal, the notional for women, while for men, conversational topics revolve around the external, the competitive, the analytical.

Now back to the tables around me in the restaurant. The all-men, all-women tables had no trouble talking because they are all operating from the same norms. The multiple couples table had no trouble because the couples could splinter at any time between men and women to 3 men and 3 women if the topic selected was of lesser interest to one of the groups. But, the couples tables had trouble. The topic brought up by the men bore the stamp of male conversational rules: the external, the analytical, which is of less interest to the woman who brought topics of things personal, internally connected to people in the topics. Partners appeared bored out their skulls when the other was talking. Couples left in silence. Mixed or same-sex groups left chattering away.

I was a bit saddened by the scene. Are people not willing to notice others' norms and make that adaptation? It's enough to make a person regurgitate.