movement of c

The other day I was visiting with friends and family. A wise woman spoke to her friend about many things including her children, her shopping experience at JC Penney, and her renovation plans for the coming week.

Both women are married, and their husbands also procure a friendship of their own. One woman said to the other, “I wanted to ask you about Wednesday…” She replied, “Oh, Bob told me he saw your husband at the store the other day, but didn’t mention it.” (They had obviously spoken about “Wednesday” previous to this conversation.)

The wise one replied, “Well that’s because they’re men.”

The remark wasn’t a blow to the typical “man” or enforcing a negative image of men in any way. It was said as a matter-of-fact statement. Not because women can’t rely on them, but because to this wise lady, you just don’t expect them to be thinking of something like the dinner plans for Wednesday night.

Female friendships seem to be based more on common ground. Our conversation flows off of one another’s statements, as opposed to building up from the last statement. Before we can move forward, we like to establish as many things in common as possible.

I remember studying some linguistics in college. One of the themes was differing language patterns in men and women. It borders on stereotypes, without a doubt, but the fallacy of being opposed to all stereostypes in general is preventing yourself from looking to where they were founded.

Some preschool children were in their classroom. Two girls sat at a table and one said, “Oh, my mother has that!” The other girl replied with big eyes, and a huge smile..”Mine does too!” No joke, they proceeded to move closer to one another, press their heads together and just giggled. This connection of “we are similar” founded some greater connection for their friendship.

Two boys were in the classroom. Their conversation, though the topic was different went something like this. “When my mom drives the car, we go so fast.” Another replied, “But when my mom drives the car, we go so fast that we almost fly.” The third one said, “We go so fast we fly in to space.”

These two examples are gender stereotypical, and that may be the fallacy here in my argument. But really, I’m not arguing anything. I’m just saying that we have differences and there’s a reason why our same sex friends have a different appeal and comfort to us than our partners.