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> can in part be explained by the different conversational rules by which men and women play

Does the same kind of conversation happen in gay relationships as well? Because I think the 'men are like this and women like that' thing is kinda contrived and I bet that it has less to do with gender, but with some kind of power dynamic and the closeness of romantic relationships.

Edit: As a small experiment: Whenever you read some article about advice for men or women specifically, try to substitute it with a power relationship: the person with more power or the person with less power. I think this makes a lot more sense in many ways. Note though that power can change in an instant depending on the circumstances.

> Does the same kind of conversation happen in gay relationships as well?

Oh, certainly.

I don't think the paragraph quoted was implying that all men and all women converse in this way, merely that in the author's experience they tend to.

Probably if you divided the data further, by sexual orientation and upbringing, cultural background, and power-relationships you could find more nuanced distinctions, although probably recognizing such conversational styles is already so subjective that trying to divide the groups finely would lead to their being no more observable differences.

I think that there are some average conversational differences based on gender, although the bell curves are probably so overlapping that it's almost meaningless to try and apply it to any individual case.

>the person with more power or the person with less power.

Or more accurately, the hardtalking pushy one full of bravado and the sensitive one that communicates in implications and minute expressions. If you're full enough of bravado, everyone you meet will be comparatively sensitive irrespective of gender. If you're sensitive enough everyone you meet will seem bossy. Just look at those Meyers-Briggs subreddits for the, uhh, I forget which ones correspond to this, but they're full of people complaining about how virtually everyone they meet is trying to steamroll them.

This is also known as 'ask culture' and 'guess culture'

It's about culture, and this kind of miscommunication occurs in any cross-cultural talk. Even within a culture, men and women speak differently, as do old/young, rich/poor, and other discriminators.

So yes, it does happen in gay relationships. Perhaps not quite as frequently in straight ones, because one dimension of difference has been removed, but there are lots of others.

The book cited above is far more scholarly and insightful than the usual run of "Men are like X/Women are like Y" pop-culture books. Dr. Tannen is a linguist at Georgetown specializing in cross-cultural communication. This particular one is targeted at a general audience rather than an academic one, but it avoids a lot of the chauvinist pitfalls that similar books run into.

So it doesn't make sweeping generalizations along the lines of "Women are like that". It does point out that in many white American cultures women are taught to speak more indirectly, as in the example cited above, but it's not trying to impart the lesson that all women speak that way. Rather, it's about recognizing that everybody has different conventions and you need to be looking out for them, because what seems obvious to you will be very different from what seems obvious to them. Gender lines are just one dimension of that.

Dr. Tannen has written a number of books on various cultural speech differences, though this one about men and women in the US was particularly helpful to me.

> Whenever you read some article about advice for men or women specifically, try to substitute it with a power relationship: the person with more power or the person with less power.

I don't think this particular example is about the power dynamic. if I ask my boss "do you want...?" I really am just asking what their preference is. if I'm asking for something I want, I will ask "could we ...?" or "do you mind if I...?".

from my perspective, it takes a lot of inference to interpret "do you want...?" as a request rather than a literal query.

This happens enough in my relationship that I’ve got a standard response for it:

Her: “Do you want to stop for coffee?”

Me: “Do YOU want to stop for coffee?”

Not revolutionary or anything, it was one of the first linguistic quirks we discovered.

But don't you already know the answer to that question, since that's how she talks? Seems like you could just say "Yes", "No, but we can get coffee if you want." or "No, I'd rather not stop."

Well, yes, of course. The point is to get her to actually ask.

But why insist that she asks directly? If you already understand that's what she wants?

As a sibling comment suggests, this seems like a power move.

By all means, take a different tact in your own marriage. This just works for us.

Yes it is a move of insisting that his wife take more power. I think it is very noble.

The commenter's wife is not a child.

She has communicated her wish in a way which is already clearly understood. I don't understand why that is deemed insufficient communication.

So, she gets a mild reproach if she makes an indirect ask.

I wonder, what reaction does she get whenever she makes a direct ask? (Not necessarily in this situation, but also in other and past experiences in her life)

Can we just agree neither of them are children and they're fine to communicate how they see fit - It's their marriage?

You can't boil other folk's relationships down to your preferences, and what you're expressing here feels a lot more like personal projection than anything that OP said.

Not OP, but: When I notice my wife indirectly advocating for something in a way that I barely pick up on, I try to let her know that it would be appreciated if she'd ask more directly.

Why? Because it lightens my cognitive load, and lessens the chances that I'm missing other times that she's expressing a preference. And, besides, she is smart and deserves to be heard, and I know other people (men) are not listening as carefully for these cues as I am.

It's also "hilarious" when things go wrong the other way, and I interpret something that's just meant to be a question about preference as a serious ask to do something.

In my case, at least, I try to get more direct statements even when I understand the intent, to hopefully reduce misunderstandings in situations where I fail to pick up on the real intent

This is also indicative of a divide that my family has been trying to work on recognizing in ourselves recently: that between "Ask Culture" and "Guess Culture". This isn't a perfect example of it, but I believe it falls into the category.

"Ask Culture" is all about being direct, straightforward, and generally fairly literal. The husband is demonstrating this when he simply answers the question his wife asks.

"Guess Culture" is exemplified by indirect ways of communicating information, commonly to avoid risking giving offense. The wife is demonstrating it when she attempts to use her question to her husband as a roundabout way of indicating her own desires.

These aren't gendered in any significant way. To some extent, they're regionalized, but in my experience they're also very much a product of one's particular family/friend groups—and, to further confuse the issue, they're not entirely binary, as individuals can be very "ask" in one context but "guess" in another, generally switching subconsciously.

"Ask vs. Guess Culture" is something everyone should read about!

https://www.google.com/search?q=ask+vs+guess+culture

Another thing to notice here is the author being much more lenient on the woman in the story than the man.

The man FAILED, couldn't deliver, while the woman merely didn't realize, made a misunderstanding.

Communication is hard.

Also why didn't she follow up with "well, I do" and see what would happen? Is it better to shut up and blame communication style? Is shutting your mouth and getting angry a communication style?

Sadly, yes.

Is it flaming if I point out you're probably not American while being one?

Spot on, I've never been to that side of the pond, mate :P

When the wife believes that you've deliberately declared that no, she can't have coffee, seemingly the only choice available is to escalate to a dispute.

A fairly big part of the population, mostly female, are taught to be unassuming and meek-- to indirectly ask, to accept the decisions of others, not rock the boat, etc. If you spend your youth in this mode, it becomes something that's difficult to overcome as an adult.

Let’s stop training children this way, shall we?

Talk about setting kids up for failure: train them to never actually ask for what they want. And then they can look forward to a lifetime of bad relationships and never earning as much as the people who do ask for what they want.

it's entirely possible to be submissive and literal at the same time. compare "I deserve a bigger raise" with "I do appreciate the raise I was given, but in light of my contributions to XYZ this year, I was expecting a little more. could you please consider increasing it?". the second is still an unmistakable request but is deferential and does not imply that the decision maker was wrong.

As someone who could probably be categorized as a guesser, I would feel incredibly pushy if I answered "well, I do" in this situation.

Askers should take notice. "Would you like to stop for a coffee?" is an entirely different question than "Would you like to stop for a coffee?". I don't see where the confusion is. (/s)

You might be coloring that one with your own perspective. "Failed to realize" and "Didn't see" both parse with the same emotional connotation for me personally.

This is your own bias.

"Failed to see" and "Didn't realize" are both equivalent statements. The author simply didn't want to repeat the same words twice, because they know how to write.

In linguistics, these kinds of implicatures (e.g. Can you pass the salt?) are called pragmatics. Sometimes people like to play dumb but with rare exception they do understand what is being implied. This can be irritating.

Thanks for this example! It’s interesting to compare these two questions:

- “Can you pass the salt?”

- “Would you like to stop for coffee?”

Neither is explicitly a direct request, but somehow the salt one is more clear than the other —- for me. It just shows how different social conventions and expectations can play into one’s understanding.

> Neither is explicitly a direct request, but somehow the salt one is more clear than the other —- for me. It just shows how different social conventions and expectations can play into one’s understanding.

The difference is that for the second one the literal interpretation is not an unreasonable question whereas for the first, the fact that you can pass the salt should be given.

How can you interpret "No, thanks" as a ruling? Doesn't the thanks part imply you're rejecting an offer, not refusing a request?