FEMALE PERSPECTIVE By Lillian Sudi
On why women love to talk
Women love to talk. They are more in love with the act than on whether there is any value added in what they are sharing.
They don’t want to give you an edited version of the story. No way. They want to give you the FULL story – they will even set the scene for you, to ensure you have the full picture in colour. From their frustrations at work to the petty arguments at home, they simply love to share. They literally hold a conference with their friends to announce updates or happenings in their lives. It is a way of releasing that little bit of excitement or frustration. It might not be headline worthy but as long as it affects them, they think about it and they want you to know. So you can imagine their frustration when men reply with that one sentence and they have absolutely no clue as to how to interpret it. This conversation often sounds like this: So you said your day was fine; why just fine and not great? What happened? Or was it that it was so bad and you really don’t want to discuss it? Any short statement is inconclusive as far as a woman’s mind is concerned. Many women out there have WhatsApp groups with their girlfriends specifically for updates. It is their combined diary. They rant and rave, they cry, they support and advice each other all on that combined platform.
Men have a strange ability to file away problems; a man can put his problems on hold and simply switch his train of thought to something else, the female brain does not store information like this -the problems just keep going round and round in her head. So while men may put problems on hold internally, the only way a woman gets rid of her problems from her mind is by talking about them to acknowledge them. Therefore, when women talk at the end of the day; they are not necessarily looking for a solution to their problems. Sometimes they just want to discharge their problems. It is their form of therapy. So, unless directly asked, a solution to the problem is never required, they probably already know it but they just need to get their frustrations out.
For a woman, speech above everything serves a purpose of building relationships and making friends. Men talk to relate facts and come up with conclusions, women view speech in a broad light. It is a means of making people feel loved, accepted, making people feel good about themselves and more so, a critical tool for bonding. A phone is not just a tool for relaying facts to a woman. A woman can spend two weeks on vacation with her girlfriend and, when she returns home, telephone the same girlfriend and chat for another two hours. It is perfectly normal. Why? Because her mind is still engaged, she needs to let it all out again.
A woman’s brain is pre- wired to use speech as a main form of expression and this is one of her strengths. Her brain has items linked by a mesh, sort of a web such that all her thoughts are somehow connected. If a man has to carry out a list of five or six tasks, he will say, ‘I’ve got some things to do. I’ll see you later’ because his thoughts are not always on standby, he can lock them away and access them when necessary. A woman on the other hand, will verbalize all the items out loud in random order, mentioning all options and possibilities. She will say, ‘Let’s see, I need to bake cookies for the fundraiser, oh and Mrs. so and so told me to use butter instead of margarine for the cookies so maybe I’ll try that today, okay then I need to sort out clothes to give away…I’ll give away the baggy jeans mum bought me because I’ve lost weight, the gym is really working for me…on that note I need to call mum, and I had also planned to… This is often one of the reasons men accuse women of talking too much. But this is just how their minds work. Women don’t necessarily nag; they are simply hardwired to communicate verbally. If men understood this simple fact, they would be less frustrated when communicating with their female counterparts. To read a male perspective ‘On Why Men DON’T Like to Talk’ please click here for my colleague Mitch’s views – http://goo.gl/ZPeqbl
