Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
One very simple example: groups of men and women have conversations in completely different ways. I have often observed, while having coffee in the canteen at work, that when a group of women is sitting together chatting, they will generally all talk (and - I assume - all listen) simultaneously. When a group of men is sitting together it's completely different; one at a time talks, and the others listen.
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A long time ago now, I moved from New York City to California and I became aware, after a while, that I seemed to be interrupting people a lot. This embarrassed me, of course, and I started to pay attention to my timing. Shortly thereafter, I read an article in the NY Times on geographic differences in conversation, which said that in New York, it was courteous to interrupt people. You were signaling that you were engaged, that you were interested in what the person said and conversations would proceed in this manner. Clearly I had taken my New York ways to an environment where that did not hold and I only became aware of it because instead of furthering a conversation, I was being signaled, presumably by a slight halt in the talk, that my manner was unacceptable. Phew! I wasn't quite the innate bumpkin I had started to think, I just hadn't acclimated yet.