Happy Talk

Earlier today I partook in one of my fondest pastimes of people watching, I observed a couple sitting in a fairly modern café, (you know the type, where you can’t just order a straight forward coffee anymore) on this occasion it was the conversation that grasped my attention, now please don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t eaves dropping, in fact I have no idea what they were talking about. What intrigued me was the way the conversation flowed. The couple were probably in their mid thirties and judging by their body language were either husband and wife or at least in a very close relationship.

I sat there enjoying my “skinny cinnamon latte” for nearly an hour watching these two converse, although what fascinated me is that during the whole hour the man said exactly three words, “yes”, “no” and “maybe” various other guttural noises of approval and disapproval were made along with the occasional “Hmmmm” but I am not counting these. Throughout the majority of the conversation the mans eyes were transfixed on the large plasma screen displaying a football game in progress, at one point, so engrossed was he that he had to stop himself from jumping up and cheering when a goal was scored. For nearly an hour the woman upheld the majority of the conversation and didn’t seem to mind that her partner was negligibly involved. She was quite content just sitting and talking, barely stopping to catch breath or to sip her coffee.


Women are incredible like that, as any man that lives with a woman will be able to tell you, their ability to talk knows no bounds, which is often manifested in the phone bill. I believe this is nearly an exclusive female trait, I am notoriously bad at making conversation, small talk fills me with dread, I just can’t do it. I honestly believe anything I have to say would be found dull and sleep inducing to the poor unfortunate stuck with me as company. I admit I am not what you would call a social animal, I thoroughly enjoy my own company, when I do go out with friends or to a social occasion I am fine in a group and with a topic of conversation given to me and will happily throw in my two pence worth, however leave me alone with just one other and my ability to talk disappears quicker than a white rabbit at a magic show and I retire into my shell. For this reason I am truly envious of woman’s ability to just talk. Women love to talk, and it doesn’t necessarily matter to whom, their partner, best friend, girl friends, strangers on the bus, if you give a woman the opportunity to talk then she will take hold of it with both hands and not let go. I find it one of woman’s most endearing qualities. They will talk for hours, days if you let them; it’s stopping them that proves to be difficult, especially when in a group of other women. A woman can spend the whole day with a girl friend only to get home and spend another three or four hours on the phone to them. All a woman seems to want is someone to listen to them, simple, listen and just listen to your significant other and they will be happy. You don’t even have to get that involved in the conversation, just as long as you have listened.


Men on the other hand are at the other end of the spectrum. Men don’t really talk to other men at least not on a level that woman can comprehend. A man can spend a whole evening with another man enjoying a beer and a game of pool and darts and leave not knowing anything new about him. Wouldn’t have a clue what’s going on in his life at the moment, couldn’t tell you what their last holiday was like or even where he went, chances are would struggle in telling you his kids names let alone their ages and what’s going on with them. However he would have a complete working knowledge of his new car, the full technical specifications of his new LCD television and cinema surround sound and a mental image as clear as a high definition picture of the new female secretary his company has taken on. A man can quite happily spend hours in the company of his best mate and only exchange two or three words for the whole evening and the two or three words would probably be, “Beer?”, “Yeah” and “Cheers”.

On the very rare occasion when a man calls another man the conversation would be deemed a complete failure if it took anything longer than a minute. A man approaches conversation in much the same way as he does shopping for clothes; know what you want before you set out, know where to get it and how much it will cost, get in and get out as quickly as possible, none of your trying it on or browsing, no going round to a hundred different shops only to go back and buy the first thing you saw. Say what you have to say, await the response, hang up, job done.
Men have a unique ability to understand the guttural grunts and groans mentioned previously. Whole conversations between men can be carried out with these Neanderthal noises, which is why we get into so much trouble with the opposite sex when we instinctively use them in conversation with them, the woman is under the impression that we are not listening where as we believe we have answered fully and adequately forgetting that women have lost their ability of guttural speech and evolved into a far more beautiful subject than there cave dwelling predecessors.


Man is a few steps lower on the evolutionary ladder than woman in the conversational department and if truth be know probably always will be. Man still expresses himself with hand gestures and incomprehensible noises, under the belief that the louder he is the more articulate he is. This is one of the reasons sport is more popular among men than women as it gives them plenty of opportunity to shout and wave their arms about.

Woman however speaks in poems and flowers, there words float on the air and bring harmony. A woman’s belief is why use one word when twenty can say it so much better, never is this more evident than when woman returns home and finds man still sitting on the sofa with a beer and the pile of dirty dishes still in the sink.


If man speaks in black and white then a woman speaks in vivid high definition technicolour.