Men and women talk differently. We know this because we hear them conversing, and may have witnessed their failures to connect – or experienced these difficulties in our own relationships. Many of us have also read accounts in the popular press of “he said–she said” types of communication breakdowns.

By focusing on the ways men and women talk to each other, however, writers have overlooked an important issue: how members of the two sexes communicate when they are with ???their own kind.??? This seems odd, since same-sex friendships are far more prevalent, and more natural, emerging spontaneously in the second or third year of life, intensifying in later stages of development, and continuing throughout adulthood. Opposite-sex friendships are relatively rare. Many people don???t have any.

The fact is: if you want to witness speaking differences, look at what happens when men talk with men, and women with women. Now here are some variations ??? ones that are far more extensive, and far more compelling, than anything that has ever been described in the literature on mixed-sex conversations.