Communication Breakdown

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From Glamour magazine, 11 Things Guys Just Don’t Understand about Women, it
seems that the biggest beef men have with women is that they can’t understand
our style of communication.  Seriously,
six of the eleven things were about communication!

Men and women have very different styles of communication.  I know, newsflash, right?  Let me break it down and offer some tips to
improve communication between the sexes. 
There are four major differences in communication between men and women,
in my personal experience. 

The first is the difference between internal and external processors.  Do you think out loud and change your opinion
as you come up with different arguments for or against your position, or do you
mull over a situation and only speak when your opinion is fully formed?  If you think out loud, you’re an External
Processor.  If you keep your mouth shut
until your opinion is fully formed, you’re an Internal Processor.  Most women are External Processors (EPs) and
most men are Internal Processors (IPs). It’s not 100% true, but let’s assume
for a moment it is.  

IPs are very confused by the running dialogue of EPs.  They can’t keep up with us, and they’ll latch
onto something we say as if it was The Word. 
Then, ten minutes later when we have a New Word, they feel left in the
dust.  An example of this would be an EP
debating with herself about where to go to dinner.  It would look like a conversation with her
partner, but she’s really thinking out loud. 
She’ll say, “how about Italian?” 
He’ll say, “That’s great.”  She’ll
say, “No, I had Italian for lunch.  What
about Indian?” Then she might remember the last time she went to that Indian
restaurant, the service was awful.  So she’ll
suggest something else.  Meanwhile, her
IP partner’s head is spinning!