Why Men and Women Can't Communicate —by Deborah Tannen A man and a woman were seated in a car that had been circling the same area for a half hour. The woman was saying, 'Why don't we just ask some one?' The man was saying, not for the first time, 'I'm sure it's around here somewhere. I'll just try this street.' Why are so many men reluctant to ask directions? Why aren't women? And why can't women understand why men don't want to ask? The explanation, for this and for countless minor and major frustrations that women and men encounter when they talk to each other, lies in the different ways that they use language—differences that begin with how girls and boys use language as children, growing up in different worlds. Anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists have found that little girls play in small groups or in pairs they have a best friend, with whom they spend a lot of time talking. It's the telling of secrets that makes them best friends. They learn to use language to negotiate intimacy—to make connections and feel close to each other. Boys, on the other hand, tend to play competitive games in larger groups, which are hierarchical. High-status boys give orders, and low-status boys are pushed around. So boys learn to use language to preserve independence and negotiate their status, trying to hold center stage, challenge and resist challenges, display knowledge and verbal skill. These divergent (有分歧的) assumptions about the purpose of language persist into adulthood, where they lie in wait behind cross-gender conversations, ready to leap out and cause puzzlement or grief. In the case of asking for directions, the same interchange is experienced differently by women and men. From a woman's perspective, you ask for help, you get it, and you get to where you're going. A fleeting connection is made with a stranger, which is fundamentally pleasant. But a man is aware that by admitting ignorance and asking for information, he positions himself one-down to someone else. Far from pleasant, this is humiliating. So it makes sense for him to preserve his independence and self-esteem at the cost of a little extra travel time. Here is another scene from the drama of the differences in men's and women's ways of talking. A woman and a man return home from work. She tells everything that happened during the day: what she did, whom she met, what they said, what that made her think. Then she turns to him and asks, 'How was your day?' He says, 'Same old rat race.' She feels locked out: 'You don't tell me anything.' He protests, 'Nothing happened at work.' They have different assumptions about what's 'anything' to tell. To her, telling life's daily events and impressions means she's not alone in the world. Such talk is the essence of intimacy—evidence that she and her partner are best friends. Since he never spent time talking in this way with his friends, best or otherwise, he doesn't expect it, doesn't know how to do it, and doesn't miss it when it isn't there. Another' source of mutual frustration is the difference in women's and men's assumptions about 'troubles talk.' She begins to talk about a problem he offers a solution she dismisses it, with pique (赌气). He feels frustrated: 'She complains, but she doesn't want to do anything to solve her problems.' Indeed, what she wants to do about it is talk. She is frustrated because his solution cuts short the discussion, and implies she shouldn't be wasting time talking about it. The female search for connection and the male concern with hierarchy is evident here, too. When a woman tells another woman about a problem, her friend typically explores the problem ('And th