If you’ve been holed up in a time warp and out of touch with humanity for the past few decades, it might surprise you to learn that women talk more than men. But, for the rest of us this is not news. A study by clinical psychiatrist Dr. Luan Brizendine, proves that women talk three times as much as men. Yes, the average woman spits out 20,000 words a day to the average man’s measly 13,000. That’s a huge chunk of dictionary.
Dr. Brizendine has concluded that two scientific reasons for this are that men and women are inherently different (well, duh) and, “women actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices.” I would like to challenge that theory. I’m actually sick and tired of hearing myself talk, and have been since 1960, when I first became a mother and my average daily word count sky rocketed to 80,000.
I have my own opinions. To start, men don’t listen, so women have to repeat everything. Mighty Marc never hears what I say the first time. I’ve tried various approaches to this problem, like shouting his name three times to get his attention before saying what I need to, or marching up to him, nose to nose, grabbing his shoulders and e-nun-ci-a-ting my request. But if we’re on different levels of the house that doesn’t work. So we turned to Radio Shack for help in the form of small intercoms placed in every room but the bathroom. Unfortunately, Mighty Marc hangs out there a lot – probably to get away from my voice – where he feels justified in tuning me out.
Another thing that causes my word count to rise is something that happens when we watch television. Why is it when he misses what a character says and asks, “What’d he say?” I always know – and tell him? But, when I miss what was said and ask, “What’d he say?” I get no response. Total silence.
‘“”Did you hear me? I asked you what he said.”
“I answered you,&rd he says, with attitude.
“No, you didn’t.“
“I did. I shrugged my shoulders.”
“Well, guess what. I couldn’t hear your shoulders and since you’re sitting along side me and my eyes are facing front, I couldn’t see them either.” Already I’ve used 43 words to his twelve.
The other day I tried a new approach. I said, “Honey, will you please open the window? Honey, will you please open the window?”
He stared at me. “Why did you say that twice?”
“Because, except for now, you never hear me the first time.”
Another reason women talk more is men don’t require vital details. They’re only interested in the bottom line. Typically conversation between a man and a women will go like this:
He: How was the bridal shower?
She: You should have seen Sue. She wore the most inappropriate outfit; skin tight leopard spandex pants. I swear she thinks she’s still nineteen. It’s obvious she never looked at her rear end in the mirror, or she might have reconsidered that choice; and she wore them low, really low, you know, how the kids wear them today. She had rolls of flab hanging over, but that didn’t stop her from wearing a halter top cut down to here. And I was shocked to see Rhoda had her breasts done. I don’t know why she bothered wearing makeup or combing her hair. Nobody noticed her head. Those boobs shouted, “Look at me!” How was your golf game?
He: Great.
She: Did you do well with your new driver?
He: Yeah.
She: Did the guys notice that your swing had improved?
He: Yup.
She: How’s Bob since his bypass surgery?
He: Fine.
You don’t have to be a clinical psychiatrist to realize that men are stingy with their words, and disinterested in hearing the volumes of valuable information women want to share with them. Any woman living with a man knows that.
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