What Men Need to Do

1. Stop making commands. Make requests instead.
2. Always use the words “please” and “thank you” whenever making a request. Use terms of politeness as often as possible.
3. Use more psychological state verbs to express how you are feeling.
4. Don’t be embarrassed to ask for help as soon as possible.
5. Don’t use sarcastic or cutting humor.
6. Don’t interrupt.
7. Don’t take up so much room physically.
8. Have more enthusiasm in your voice. Don’t wear your emotions on your sleeve. Instead, wear them on your vocal tones.
9. Don’t lecture someone—have a dialogue and not a monologue.
10. Look at a person face to face when speaking.
11. Use more descriptive adjectives.
12. Don’t frown when listening.
13. Show more emotional reaction in your face when you speak and listen.
14. Open up more—don’t use one-word responses to answer questions.
15. Don’t keep changing topics midstream in a conversation a woman brings up.
16. Stop fidgeting and rocking back and forth.
17. Disclose more personal information about yourself.
18. Don’t point your finger at people when talking to them, especially when you want to express a point.
19. Apologize immediately if you have done something wrong.

See What I Mean?

In looking at the differences in the preceding section, it is no wonder that men and women are always at one another’s throats. Little wonder that these misinterpretations of the male and female language result in explosions of tempers and devastation of feelings. It is sad and, when you think about it, also rather amusing. If we had the key to unlock the box of mysteries about how the opposite sex communicates, there would be less divorce, fewer sexual harassment suits, and much less ill will between one another. Now you have some of the tools right at your fingertips.
The next section lists several easy steps men can take to immediately improve their relationships with women, and women with men. I have chosen only some points for each sex, since they represent the differences leading to the most common misunderstandings.
Note than I am not trying to turn men into women and women into men! I am just giving you some things to do if you want to modify your communication patterns when you deem it necessary, in order to get along much better. Of course, these are only suggestions, but rest assured that if you do employ them, you might see some amazing and instant results.

Basic Female 101

Before a man thinks that the woman is driving him nuts or just having PMS, here are some common communication actions that typify women’s communication patterns. Knowing about them can save the male a lot of unnecessary grief and nurture a more positive and upbeat—and in turn, healthy—relationship.
Body Language:

1. Assuming a more forward position than men when sitting or listening, and leaning forward. Perception:
2. caring a lot about what is said; extreme interest.
3. Having a weaker handshake. Perception: being weak and powerless.
4. Sitting closer to men. Perception: the woman really likes the man.
5. Taking up less physical space, and sitting with arms and legs towards the body. Perception: being inhibited and submissive.
6. Sitting directly in front of a man, and having forward face-to-face contact.

Perception: being extremely interested in the man or being forward. It can also be misconstrued as an uncomfortably confrontational act.
Face Language:

1. 1. Nodding head “yes” even when not in agreement. Perception: Wanting to be liked and accepted.
2. 2. Lowering their head during every negative confrontation. Perception: being weak and submissive.
3. Providing more animated facial expressions during conversation. Perception: being overly emotional.
4. Eyes facing the person directly when speaking.
   

Perception: being forward or even invasive.

Speech and Voice Patterns:

1. Allowing more interruptions. Perception: being weak.
2. Ending sentences with a rising pitch, adding a tag ending to a declarative statement, or asking a question when it calls for making a statement (for example, “It’s a nice day?” or “It’s a nice day, isn’t it?”). Perception: being uncertain, weak, not powerful, and not in control.
3. Using more intensifiers such as “very,” “really,” and “much.” Perception: being overly effusive and exaggerating, and being more emotional.
4. Saying more words per sentence or thought. Getting very detailed and taking a long time to get to the point. Perception: being unprofessional, wasting time, being thoughtless, scattered, and frivolous (this usually creates the reaction of impatience).
5. Often having voices that are too high, breathy, and little girl-sounding. Perception: being a lightweight, less bright.
   

Communication Patterns:

1. Tending to take rejection more personally. Perception: being overly sensitive.
2. Not laughing at or responding favorably to practical joke and cutting sarcastic humor. Perception: having no sense of humor.
3. Trying to match troubles by relating similar experiences. Perception: competing with the man or trying to top him, and not listening to or caring about what he says.
4. Confronting issues and situations more than a man would. Perception: being nagging or harping on the past (this often makes the man feel angry and defensive).
5. Censoring thoughts less than men and communicating more through stream-of-consciousness. Perception: being ditsy, spacey, or flighty.

Basic Male Conversation 101

This section lists typical male communication patterns—some of the key things men communicate and how they may be misinterpreted. A woman's knowledge of these patterns will help her to realize that men's seemingly rude, distant, or obnoxious behavior is not that at all. In their innocence, men are just speaking “male.”

Body Language:
1. Taking up more space. Perception: they are hogging space and trying to take over.
2. Sitting further away. Perception: they don't like the woman.
3. Gesturing with their fingers, often pointing their finger. Perception: they are admonishing you.
4. Fidgeting and shifting their bodies more than women do. Perception: they are not interested or are anxious to leave the situation. judgmental.

Facial Language:
1. Cocking their head to the side and looking at the person at an angle while listening to them. Perception: they are being judgmental or disinterested.
2. Frowning and squinting when listening. Perception: disapproval.
3. Using little eye contact in positive interaction. Perception: they are disinterested and distant.
4. Providing fewer facial expressions and fewer reactions than women when listening.
5. Avoiding eye contact and not looking directly at the other person. Perception: disinterest or dislike.

Speech and Voice Patterns:
1. Interrupting and allowing fewer interruptions from others. Perception: they regard the other person as unimportant or not knowledgeable.
2. Using less intonation or vocal inflection. Perception: disinterest, disapproval, apathy, and dislike for the
other person.
3. Allowing more silence during conversation lulls. Perception: they have nothing more to say and want to end the conversation.
4. Giving more command terms. Perception: they are acting with hostility.
5. Using fewer emotional state verbs (such as “I feel,” “I hope,” “I love”).

Communication:
1. Teasing more, playing practical jokes, and using sarcasm as humor (often making a joke out of “sensitive” issues). Perception: acting in a hostile way and not liking the woman.
2. Apologizing less often after an argument. Perception: being stubborn and uncaring.
3. Liking to hear accolades about themselves and talking more about their accomplishments.
4. Confronting issues less. Perception: being uncaring and disinterested and purposely hurting the woman.
5. Disclosing less personal information. Perception: they are hiding something, being dishonest (possibly cheating).
6. Invading one's personal space more than women do. Perception: being obnoxious and trying to be intimidating.

He Says—She Thinks! She Says—He Thinks!

Because there is such confusion in the way men and women speak to one another, a man might innocently say something to a woman that causes her to fly off the handle. In turn, she might say something that aggravates him. Both of these people have no clue why the other has gotten so mad at what they said. The man often thinks the woman might just be going through PMS. The woman, on the other hand, thinks that the guy is just being a jerk. “Who is right? Who is wrong? What is going on here? First of all, nobody is right! And nobody is wrong! In fact, they are both right!
The man is just talking “male,” while the woman is understanding what he says in “female.” Conversely, the woman speaks “female” while the man hears in “male.” It’s as simple as that!

There’s Only One Brain!

Now of course I have to bring in the other element—not nurture, but the biology of how little boys and girls are wired neurologically and hormonally. Unlike little boys, little girls have an initial growth spurt in the left hemisphere of the brain. As a result of this difference in neurological development, they tend to become more fluent and develop a greater repertoire of speech and language skills than boys. Little boys take about four years to catch up with this growth spurt. In the meantime, some serious environmental stimulation has taken place, and little girls get more parental verbal attention because they are more responsive, due to the advanced growth of their neuroanatomy.
In this case, the behavior of parents corresponds to real physiological characteristics. This is not true in the case of parents conditioning their sons to be more mechanically and mathematically inclined. The right hemispheres of boys’ brains do not grow more rapidly than those of little girls; the difference is purely environmental. In fact, I, along with many other specialists in the field, believe that if little girls were equally encouraged in mechanical and cognitive abilities, we would observe little or no differences between the sexes in this area.

Once Upon a Time There Was an Infant Boy and Girl

Men are raised differently than women are—yes, even in this day and age when we are supposed to be more sophisticated and aware. We clearly see this difference in people as early as infancy. For example, in a study at an Ivy League university, men and women were put into a room with infant boys and girls. Before entering the
room, the men and women were told that the infants were all little girls. As they entered and stayed in the room, both men and women spoke in a soft voice, making delicate cooing sounds and saying comments to the infants such as “You’re so pretty.” “Look at how beautiful you are.” “You are a little princess.” There was
hardly any physical contact.
Next, these same men and women were lead into another infant nursery, where—they were told—all the babies were little boys. Upon entering the room and subsequently spending some time there, the behavior of the adults changed greatly. The decibel level rose. The infants were actually taken out of their cribs and held under their
arms as they kicked the air beneath them. The adults used phrases such as “What a big strong boy,” “You’re gonna grow up to be a football player,” and “Hey, you little pumpkin head.”
More often than not, a parent will tolerate a boy’s impoliteness—“Gimme that”—over a girl’s impoliteness, insisting that “little girls don’t talk that way and have to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

Learning to Be Bilingual

Perhaps the people who have the best opportunities in life are those who know another language. I know this first-hand. Understanding and speaking languages other than English has proven to be invaluable to me in my personal and professional life. Even understanding certain dialects and slang words and expressions among young people has helped me.
What has been the advantage of knowing these different languages, aside from allowing me to order a meal, get appropriate hotel service, and understand spoken direction (so I don’t get lost) in another country? Knowledge of these languages has helped people to relate to me more quickly and to have immediate affection for me, unless of course I’m yelling at someone who has been totally mean and obnoxious to me. Similarly, when women learn to speak “man talk” and men learn to speak “woman talk,” suddenly there is more affection, camaraderie, communications, friendships, and more exciting intimate relations.
Throughout the rest of the chapter you learn how to speak one another’s language and decode the signals, so that you never again have to worry about being misunderstood.

What's the Real Deal?

What is the number one reason for divorce? What is the number one reason for marital affairs among couples? With the exception of medical problems, what is the major reason for sexual dysfunction among couples? What is one of the main reasons women are not advancing up the corporate ladder as rapidly as they should? Aside from a few unsavory individuals whose main concern is financial gain, why are there so many sexual harassment suits bombarding our courtrooms today? The common denominator of all of these questions is “lack of communication.” This lack of communication between the sexes is a serious issue, so serious that it can determine not only the quality of your professional life, but your personal life as well. It can even affect the seemingly benign things you do on a daily basis and your interactions with people you encounter throughout the day.
Not knowing how to effectively speak and understand employers, employees, and co-workers of the opposite sex can make the time you spend at work “hell on earth.”

Gaining the Winning Verbal Edge Between the Sexes

No more male bashing! No more female bashing! No more lectures about how different men and women are! No more hearing how “men are from Mars and women are from Venus!” Trust me, we get it! We don't need to be beaten over the head with the same information. In this chapter, you learn less commonly shared information that strictly concerns how men and women speak to one another. I will discuss specific body, facial, and head positions, vocal patterns, pronunciation of sounds, words, phrases, and content of speech that are specifically indigenous to men or to women. This chapter is not designed to make you feel bad or guilty for how you speak to members of the opposite sex. Instead, it is designed to teach you the language of the opposite sex, so that you will know what the other truly means by what he or she says.
Because today's litigious society demands respect and equality, you have no choice but to put the information you learn in this chapter into action. If you do, you'll never experience the pain and frustration that comes from miscommunication.