busyI listen like a man. I loathe girl-talk. It grates on my ears and makes my mind go away somewhere else. This tends to baffle or annoy some women, but there are plenty of men who appreciate it. Of course, this is also somewhat complicated by the fact that, in order to get by in society, I had to create a kind of autopilot personality. If you interrupt me while I am writing, or cooking, or engrossed in some other task -- it is entirely possible for you to have an entire conversation with me that I will not remember later. You were talking to the autopilot.
I've known women who don't do girl-talk; I've known men who do. There's a divergence of conversational styles, it's just not absolute. Interestingly, the amount of speech isn't necessarily gender-coded; there are quiet women and men who will talk endlessly about trivia of guy-interests.
April 5 2010, 03:08:23 UTC 11 years ago
But from your description in this post, I'm guessing I'm more of a "listens like a man" type. Just a guess, though.
I understand about the autopilot. My autopilot does the same thing. But it mostly makes yes and no answers. For anything more, I switch gears to conscious thought... but the switch isn't obvious, even to me. I frequently switch from autopilot to consciousness mid-sentence without any change in behavior (beyond more complex sentences).
My autopilot does other things, too. When I worked at the buffet, I found it could do complex tasks like goign around cleaning off tables without any help from me; I would space out and have internal conversations with the others in my head. When the autopilot came across something it couldn't do, such as helping a customer, it poked me and told me, "Hey, need help here." (Well, without words.) It also lets me nod off while I'm walking somewhere. It flutters the eyelids open every few seconds so it knows where it's going, but otherwise I'm asleep. Very useful. Wakes me at crosswalks, too.
April 5 2010, 04:44:16 UTC 11 years ago
April 5 2010, 04:45:09 UTC 11 years ago