man compliments women on appearance-awww, thank you-man tries to be funny/flirt- haha thank you, you’re funny- man attempts to be funny/flirt- haha thanks- man asks vague “tell me about you” question- woman gives vague answer detailing only a bit of information about her life and then asks him about himself- man proceeds to write an anthology about his likes, dislikes, backstory, job, etc without commenting on or appreciating any of the information she told him about her life.
It’s astonishing to me. For example, a woman could tell a man when asked “I’m 23, I’m in law school, I foster puppies, I enjoy jazz music. Tell me about you!” and the man will completely will skip to the “tell me about you” part, not even commenting on her achievements and cool interests! When a woman tells another women these kinds of things, we appreciate it. While a man would go on to detail about himself, a woman would respond to that message with something like “Wow, law school? I hope you’re proud of yourself, it takes a lot of work and dedication I’m sure! And fostering dogs is amazing! I’ve always wanted to do that. Jazz is one of those objectively great genres, I totally need to listen to it more. A little info about me would be....” Unfortunately, women have been ingrained with “Don’t talk about yourself too much, you’ll seem vain/boastful/self absorbed” and that has caused us to have difficulty opening up about ourselves with pride. We end up feeling an unwarranted twinge of guilt. When two women talk, they try to share the conversation. They want each other to know “I see you and I think you’re awesome”. Men just are foaming at the mouth to talk about themselves.