This week I will answer the question about how men and women can more easily start conversations with each other.
Both need to be aware of why the other communicates. Men do it to inform, women to relate.
For instance, if you ask a man where he would like to eat lunch, he very likely will tell you. When a woman asks another woman, the answer may come in a series of questions as the women relate to one another and want to be sure both are pleased.
What would you like to eat?
I don’t know. How about a salad?
Sounds good. What kind of salad?
Oh, maybe lettuce with a grilled chicken breast and all the other goodies … or a taco salad or … a Greek salad?
I don’t like Greek so let’s eliminate that. Either of the others is fine.
Ok, then let’s do lettuce with all the goodies.
There needs to be more give-and-take. Men need to be open to more than sports, current events and business. They need to get comfortable discussing other topics like marital and parenting status … even if they mostly listen and don’t want to divulge theirs.
Women need to get to the bottom line more quickly and leave out some of those details other women usually love. It would behoove them to bone up on sports and current events even if just on the basics like what sports are in season and what their local teams are doing.
The goal is to have the conversations mesh and turn into pleasant business-building opportunities for both sexes.