Christmas reminded me of how differently men and women can communicate

I’m fascinated (and at times frustrated) by the different ways that some men and women communicate. It's something that particularly shows up at Christmas when men and women spend more time in each other's company in a domestic setting and attempt to do things together.

I first noticed this in my mid-twenties when I became aware one Christmas of just how proficient the women in my wife’s family were in the use of embedded commands such as:

“Do you want to pass me the salt?”

I've subsequently learnt that are four basic types of sentences---exclamatory, interrogative (ie questions), assertive (or declarative) and imperative (ie commands).

So what kind of sentence do you think “do you want to pass me the salt” is?

It sounds on the surface like a mild mannered question---otherwise know as an interrogative sentence. In actual fact it’s a very assertive command (or a declarative and imperative sentence) of the type used by skilled hypnotists that’s cleverly hidden (or embedded) within a seemingly mild mannered interrogative question.

Now before you dismiss me as a festive weirdo who can't even pass a female relative the salt without turning it into a "gender issue" that's not what this is about. I did hear a real tale this Christmas of a son-in-law and mother-in-law who clash and were deliberately being seated at extreme ends of a long dining table to avoid conflict. His sister said the only thing he was planning to say to his mother-in-law all Christmas was "do you want stuffing up your end"!

Personally, I'm very happy to pass the stuffing to anyone male or female at Christmas and I'm inviting you now to consider the wondrously skillful construction of the sentence "do you want to pass me the salt?" and what if reveals about the different ways men and women communicate. 

Firstly, let’s look at why “do you want to pass me the salt?” is not an unequivocal direct question. The question is “Do you WANT to pass me the salt?” but the questioner isn’t really interested in whether you WANT to pass the salt or not, they just want you to pass them the salt so they can make their brussel sprouts more edible.  

If they were to ask you this question directly they'd simply say “Will you PASS me the salt?”

So what I am pointing to here is the difference between direct and indirect communication. It is said that while using direct communication reduces the risk of being misunderstood, it can carry the risk of offending people, which is why some people favour indirect communication as they find it more collaborative and inclusive.

Some people are wary of making this a gender issue and in my experience women do seem to be more likely to use indirect language and the phrase “Do you want to…..?” can create a Trojan Horse of a sentence structure that women in particular seem to use to get their needs met whilst creating a Christmassy sense of co-operation and togetherness (though men certainly use this technique too).  

Here’s how it works. Whilst I’ve met many people (mostly female) who use these sentences unconsciously, it is a recognized technique called “embedding commands” that (mostly male) hypnotists, advertisers and sales people  are trained to use.  

An embedded command is said to bypass the conscious mind and plant both a command and a positive feeling in the unconscious mind---making it more likely that people will be happy to do what you want them to do whether that’s to pretend you’re a chicken for a hypnotist, to buy a particular brand of toothpaste or pass somebody the salt during your Christmas dinner. 

You may (or may not) find that your Uncle is more likely to use direct orders to "pass me the salt" or direct questions "will you pass me the salt"?

Whereas, based on my completely unscientific research, you are more likely to hear your Auntie use the magical sentence “do you want to pass the salt?” This genie of a sentence contains three separate instructions that your mind unconsciously responds to in a split second.

On the surface there’s a non-threatening question that implies choice “do you want to pass me the salt?”

Then there’re two overlapping embedded commands, the first instructs you to feel all festive about taking this action (imagine a comical hypnotist’s voice saying this): “You WANT to pass me the salt”.

Secondly,  there’s a direct command stuck at the end of the sentence:“pass me the salt”.

What makes this technique so fiendishly brilliant is that while it gives the impression of being a gentle inquiry about what you personally want, the last thing your auntie wants is to find out whether you want to pass the salt or not, because all she's after is a bit of salt to make her over-boiled Brussels edible.

And of course most reasonable people are happy to pass their Auntie the salt (it is Christmas after all) and being asked to do this in a way that facilitates co-operation and inclusion can help lubricate the wheels of social interaction like a cheap bottle of Sherry and make it more likely that the day passes without another family row. 

It's important to note that there is nothing inherently wrong in communicating in this way and when someone is taking charge of a task (like making a huge Christmas dinner) and enlisting the help of a team of willing helpers my “man brain” responds very well to that benevolent, hierarchal, reciprocal way of doing things. When everyone’s pulling together questions like “Do you want to peel the potatoes?” and “Do you want to set the table?” work really well for my "man brain"---though to be honest a straightforward "Glen peel the potatoes" from a benevolent leader works even better.

I’ve also seen this tactic in relationships where it’s more about one person getting the other person for perform acts of service for them. “Do you want to go into the kitchen and make me a drink?” “Do you want to run upstairs and get me a blanket?” “Do you want to give me a foot massage?” “Do you want to keep doing things for me because I'm co-dependent and don’t feel loved unless you do?” “Do you want to subjugate all your personal needs and wait on me hand and foot?”

I remember  in my twenties spending a Christmas with my in-laws where I kept a running total of the number of times the three commanding women in my wife’s family used the phrase “do you want to?” as I smiled sweetly carrying out various tasks that I didn't particularly WANT to do. 

This year I spent some of my Christmas with another set of female relatives who use a far less assertive form of indirect speech that starts “I don’t know……”

This is another technique taught to sales people as an indirect way of drawing information out of people. So rather than walking up to a customer in a Toyota showroom and brazenly saying “how much do you want to spend on a car you might say “I don’t know how much you are looking to spend on a car......"

The danger is you will be met with silence because you haven’t actually asked a question and you are relying on the other person to play the game and fill the gap for you.

And so it is with the "I don't know" side of my family.

“I don’t know how Elsie takes her tea,” one will say and wait for someone else to fill the gap by saying.

“I think she just has milk,” or “Do you think Eric will know?” or “Brian made the tea this morning, maybe he'll remember?”.

Again, this seems to be a form of a communication used by women more than men and I find that it confuses my man brain.

When Auntie Mildred says “I don’t know what time everyone wants to eat Christmas dinner”, my “man brain” literally thinks she is simply reporting her current state of knowledge. My man brain genuinely doesn’t think that any feedback from me is required at this point because if I wanted to know what time people wanted to eat I’d say “what time do you want to eat?" and so I assume that's exactly how everyone else (including Auntie Mildred) operates. 

However, my empathizing “feminine” side that I have developed over the years understands there is more to Auntie Mildred's  question than simply reporting information and so now I try and enlist a part of my "man brain" to fix Auntie Mildred's problem. And so I offer a very logical solution such as "why don't you ask everyone what time they want to eat Christmas dinner Auntie Mildred?"

At which point Auntie Mildred ignores me and turns to Auntie Elsie and says “I don’t know what time everyone wants to eat Christmas dinner”.

And now I'm left thinking that Auntie Mildred's a bit slow on the uptake---she presented me with a problem and I fixed it and now she's taken the same problem to Auntie Elsie problem who still hasn't got a cup of tea because the other conversation about how she takes her tea is still bouncing around the kitchen.

So this year, rather than get confused I got myself a present, a book from 1990 that I've never got round to reading which is Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand (Women and Men in Conversation)."

I've only got as far as the preface but I've already discovered an explanation where I might be going wrong with the "I don't know" side of the family.

Tannen tells the story of a couple in a car. The wife asks "Would you like to stop for a drink?" and the husband says "no" and so they don't stop to get a drink. She's furious because (it turns out later) she wanted to stop for a drink and he didn't think to ask what she wanted. He's furious because he doesn't understand why she didn't just say "I want to stop for a drink" instead of playing games with him and expecting him to guess what she wants.

Tannen explains that where men trip up is we think that these are informational statements when they are an invitation to begin a collaborative conversation to find out what everyone wants and to work out how everyone's needs can be met.

Tannen also explains that where women trip up is in assuming that men are refusing to collaborate or help when they don't respond to Auntie Mildred's question in the way that Auntie Elsa does, but rather answer what we think is a straightforward question with a straightforward answer.

There were a number of interesting books published in the 1990s on gender differences like Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand", John Gray's "Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus" and Allan and Barbara Pease's "Why Men Don't Lie and Women Can't Read Maps".

Sadly these books are often dismissed out of hand by those who believe gender is all about social conditioning. As someone who believes gender is about both nature and nurture, I find these examinations of gender ban be an extremely useful addition to anyone wanting to understand the experience of being a man.

If nothing else, they make Christmas with the "do you want to" family and the "I don't know" family a lot more enjoyable.

(If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy reading "Why I'm going to be called a right wing, God-fearing, biological determinist in 2014") 

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