Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 22:01:21 -0400

The company I work for is overwhelmingly female. It might come out 90 or 95%, and most of the men are managers or IT employees.

For the past three years I've worked most closely with men. Three male managers, some male friends that I talked to sometimes. There were one or two women I would really talk to, but that was it. Somehow I managed to avoid most female conversation.

Then I got another promotion and moved to another department and was thrown back into an entirely female environment. And while there are a couple of my female co-workers I talk to and find genuinely comfortable company, now I am reminded of why I have always preferred to talk to men.

The conversations, taken in isolation, go well enough. I seem to have remembered how to play that role and I say and do the normal things and nod and say "mm-hm" and "Really?" at the right times. But even with most of these I am conscious of myself playing a role, conscious that the other party is faking it just as determinedly and that I don't really know what's going on - but that's much better than when I do.

There's some natural restraint in conversation between men and women that keeps it from breaking out into the weird and subtle boastfulness that comes up so often in women's conversations - at least with me. Maybe it's just something in my demeanor or tone that leads other women to start listing off which co-workers hit on them how much, showing me what expensive presents the present lucky guy bought for them, shining with pride that they've just picked up someone new (that can be kind of sweet, sometimes, but the most recent occurrence was definitely mixed with triumph over a mutual and disliked acquaintance).

There's still so much that I can't articulate about it. That hasn't got me very far.

My mother's friends were mostly female, and they talked frequently and would help each other out. Yet I always got the feeling that they didn't like each other much.

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