Does any one understand why most men don't seem to have the slightest curiosity or interest in the details?

Or the contrary. Why are some men (or at least your husband) content with the big picture unless it is the Yankees with bases loaded and the batter waiting for the pitch (2 strikes, 3 balls)?

‘coz the little details don’t matter.

Way too generalized. All the men I know are highly detail oriented. And there are more than a few women I know who aren’t nearly as inquisitive. Fewer stereotypes plz!

Personally I like details to flesh out my mental images and storylines. It’s like keeping detailed notes on the world. For some, the main event is more important than the lead up.

This preference might be tied to movie genre preferences, now that I think about it…

@gailcalled It’s KC in his case. And you got that right! He’ll spend half a day filling me on on every tiny detail of Larry Johnson or whichever KC Chief is in the headlines now! I swear, he knows more about their lives than he does about MINE!!

@Sarcasm I think they do. Often the details can provide one with a learning experience. “Kently got into a car wreck because ABC happened.” Also, I get a much, much better feel for what REALLY might have happened if I know the details.

@Beta_Orionis I’m not talking about work ethics. My husband is detail oriented when he’s building or remodeling something. I’m talking about in conversations.

@Val123 Wait, where did work ethics come into this?
I’m not talking about work ethics either. I’m talking about in conversations.

stereotype number two?

Additionally, while we’re on that, I’m way more detail oriented work-wise than my husband.

Does any one understand why most women don’t seem to have the slightest curiosity or interest in a man’s opinion?

Like, when they ask “does this make me look fat?”, they don’t want your opinion, they want flattery. At which point I would respond with “Yes, totally.”

@ragingloli that’s another generalization, but I’m kind of inclined to agree with that one…

That’s absolutely the way it works in our family. I won’t presume to generalize this to all men and women, but my read on it is that my wife and many other women I know are interested primarily in the narrative, whereas I and most of my male acquaintances are focused on current status. In other words, it’s enough for me to know what the situation is now, the “actionable information”, so I can take whatever action is necessary, but my wife needs the full back story behind the situation.I won’t speculate on why that is, probably because I’m a guy.

@Harp are you into GTD?

I just leaned over and asked my husband. He says it’s the other way around in our house – he’s more interested in the details, but I just want the big picture. Couldn’t tell you why that is, sorry.

@Beta_Orionis Guess not, since I had to Google it

In our house it is the opposite. I could care less about the details much to the bewilderment of my spouse.

Perhaps it is more a personality trait than a gender- specific trait.

Sometimes my wife will go on and on with incredible details of a story….. but she won’t tell me what it’s about!

All I need is one sentence at the beginning telling me where this story is headed—like if it’s a story, or if it’s a problem to be solved. But no, she has to start somewhere in the middle, and work her way out to one end and then another before I can finally know if this is something I have to pay attention to. Of course, by that time, my attention has long since wandered somewhere else, so if it turns out to be something important, I have to dredge up that infamous battle cry: “What????”

@Harp heh. It’s a productivity system, and one of the main divisions regards actionable items.

@daloon – my guy does that! I’ll ask him a yes/no question and he starts the story with a trail of breadcrumbs leading to some sort of conclusion that for him is clearly a yes or a no, but often I don’t have the same shared assumptions or data and I don’t know wtf he’s trying to say. So I have to ask, “Is that a yes answer, or a no answer?” and he gets all upset like I should know.

Example: Is the car going to be fixed soon? —“Well, you see, the car has an unorchestrated blempglorf that is causing the widget to rumple, so to unrivet the wallywhatsit, I have to get a new case of 10K-43 oil.” —Great! Does any of that mean the car will be fixed soon? Yes or no?

I’m the opposite. I’m very detail-oriented. Makes my brothers nuts, but they know they can rely on me because I’m so meticulous.

None of these generalizations work for me and my family
we’re both detail oriented, we’re both into the big picture

Generalizations never work for every situation and every person, as they are just that. I recognize the phenomena and I can relate, and think it’s one of the things that make men and women complement each other.

@Beta_Orionis I just misunderstood. I usually hear the term “Detail oriented” in job want ads, not in reference to conversations. That’s all. Been reading way too many want ads!

@daloon LOL! Like, you’re watching a Nat Geo show about penguins, and out of the blue she’ll say, “I can’t believe she threw those shoes away!” Say waaaaa? (I think I’m guilty of that!)

When my husband is telling me some narrative he’ll refer to all parties as “He,” without telling me that the “He” he’s talking about now, is not the “He” he was just talking about a second ago, but it’s actually the a third “he” in the story….like, “Bently ran a red light and ran into his car and he gets out of the car and goes over to him wanted to know what the hell he was thinking! And then he got out of the car and punched him, and then the cops pull up and he starts yelling at him and he arrested both of them. He had to go to court but he didn’t.”

There is some evidence that women and men are stronger in different forms of memory. Women tend to be better at episodic memory, remembering everyday events, what happened when and to whom (my wife is amazing at this). This is the stuff of narrative, of course

Men tend to be better at symbolic, non-verbal, visuo-spatial memory., which is a more abstract form of information. That’s definitely the way my memory works.

If my wife, or anyone, gives me some detail-rich narrative, no matter how much attention I pay, my mind just filters out all but the “take-away message” because that’s all I can hang onto for any length of time.

Guys! I’m not saying Rick NEVER goes into detail! If it’s a story relating to him, or important to him, he be releasing so much detail that I just want to go to sleep! “Wake me when it’s over!” But in other ways, like, we were in Pittsburgh for his Dad who’s in the hospital. He’s hanging out with his brothers, whom he rarely sees. That evening he mentioned that Gary, his brother, had to go to work that night, so he wouldn’t be at the hospital. Gary is a retired HS Football coach and was the Mayor of his town, pop 45,000 for many years. Just not the kind of guy you’d think would have an evening job. I asked Rick where Gary worked. “Dunno. Didn’t ask.” — Why wouldn’t you ask??

My little brother age 24 went to two weddings on two consecutive weekends. When asked about the dresses for the bridesmaids for the first one, he was unable to describe it. When looking at facebook pictures later, we told him that we didn’t blame him for not having a name for a color that we eventually settled on as “raisin.” The next weekend he came home and he said “It was a good wedding and the dressed were RED!” So proud of himself. We had to grill him for other details, but he got that one right! I guess they have to be trained… :D

That’s an individual thing not a gender thing. Generalizations don’t help.
We as people tend to over analyze situations when it is not warranted.

@Val123 you know him better than us…why doesn’t he ask?

@Harp Yes, you did! It was a weekend summer night in 1982. It was about 85 degrees, and we were standing by the car and you said “XYZ!” Yes. You. did.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Dunno. Never asked him. LOL!! My son does the same thing. I don’t know that they could really give an answer, but I’ll give it a shot. See what they say.

@Val123 I’ll have to take your word for it (my mantra)

@Harp My husband’s too. It’s hard to argue with someone who is 100% certain of what went down. His answer, though, is “Whatever.”

—wait, what? Is there some kind of side-dialogue that bled over into the main thread. Are you two (@Harp and @Val123) married?

(inspired by the seemingly random ”@Harp Yes, you did! It was a weekend summer night in 1982….” comment)

@Beta_Orionis We might be, I don’t remember.

@Beta_Orionis LOL! It’s like this. Harp said “Women tend to be better at episodic memory, remembering everyday events, what happened when and to whom (my wife is amazing at this)” and so I said, ”@Harp Yes, you did! It was a weekend summer night in 1982. Yes. You. did.” In other words, I know exactly what he’s talking about because I do it too, and that’s how it goes down

haha! okay. Makes more sense. :P

@Val123 So was that a yes or a no?

@Harp It’s OK hon. You know I got your back when you get like this. We are not married. I am sure. Take my word for it.

@Val123 The notion certainly made the dialogue a little more interesting because it became encoded double-speak. (i.e. “my mantra…my husband’s too”) :D

Haha, I think this was one of the most funny threads I’ve read for some time, and quite intelligent.

@oratio Really? Thanks! Thanks to @all

Most men don’t care about details, on matters that do not directly effect them, because they are more thought centered.

Most women want every detail because they are more communication centered and plan to retell the details to anyone who will listen.

No offence meant to either sex, it is just the way our brains are wired.

I think my husband doesn’t want the details, because he doesn’t even care about the main topic really.

@DrBill ? What’s there to take offense at?

I think men don’t bother with the details because they know the women will take care of the details so they don’t have to.

It also has to do with areas of interest. Someone recently made a point that women don’t memorize ball players averages and the like but it’s not an uncommon thing for males to do.

I had a kennel and usually had high school kids work for me. __Most__ females cleaned very well but __most__ males rushed through and didn’t care about the result. When their carelessness was pointed out they shrugged and had to be told to do it over. I just figured it was because their mothers’ probably found it easier to do it themselves than to fight with the kid to get anything done right.

Men look at things with more of a “just the facts Ma’am” approach.

Women could look at the most simple event and derive thousands of meaningful things from it.

That’s just how we are programmed. That is why women are always trying to get men to be more sensitive and men are always trying to get women to be less sensitive.

That comment makes me think you have a hidden agenda, @NaturalMineralWater! Haven’t quite puzzled it out yet. But I will. Oh, yes, I will!! (And then you’ll probably be in trouble! LOL!)

@Val123 XD Awesome.

Also, maybe, men don’t like to ask about things they nothing about? If I tell my husband someone is sick, since he feels inept when it comes to medical stuff, he doesn’t really try to learn or understand, he just feels it is a subject he doesn’t know much about. If you tell him a story about a guy who bought a Porsche, he wants to know what year, is it an air cooled engine, how many mile, what color, is it an S, a Turbo, and on and on and on.

@JLeslie Some women are the opposite of my example too.. everyone is truly different. But as a whole the rule holds true.

@NaturalMineralWater At first I thought it was because my husband was not raised to “question.” But I think a lot of it is actually gender and whether the person actually has an interest in the topic.

@JLeslie Very true. My wife could talk for hours about crafts and craft supplies and all things craft related. I’m more like “So it’s yarn right?”

@NaturalMineralWater Well, I for one, would have a hard time tuning in to crafts and craft supplies meself! I’d be like, “It’s yawn, right?” Astronomy, anyone?

@Val123 My fiancé is the same way and it drives me nuts. This is how our conversations happen:
Him: My mother called me today.
Me: Oh what’d she want?
Him: She mentioned something about my sister moving back home.
Me: Really?! Why? What happened?
Him: Not really sure. I forget.
Even if the conversation happened 5 minutes prior, he can’t recall details! It’s hilarious.

@ItalianPrincess1217 Learn to adjust, darlin! My husband is the same way!! It MIGHT start driving you batty someday….

@Val123 Yeah I’ve learned to accept it. It’s just one of his quirks :)

@ItalianPrincess1217 Good for you! After you get over that infatuated “He’s so perfect!” stage, and realize he’s not then you have to decide what you can and can’t live with.

Depends on the topic. Most women don’t seem to have the slightest curiosity or interest in the details of soccer or baseball games which took place decades ago. Remember when Manchester United in 1996 did… Men can memorize myriads of numbers and names of players related to sports events. Many truly love that. Any women out there who do as well??

I remember the details of the US Ice Hockey team’s final victory in Lake Placid in 1980.

But that’s because I and a large family owned a summer camp (read 17 beds) there, then.

Well, I know the details too, cause I’ve seen the movie five times! that sounds like a cool place to own!

It was if you didn’t mind not having a road or car access, having to do everything by boat (including moving a piano ), paying for a caretaker for 9 months of the year to prevent the ice from raising up the boat house, paying for two boat slips, two parking spaces, emptying the septic system tank by pumping onto barge and then repumping into truck at the harbor.

We’d take the ten-minute boat ride into town on a nice day, drive to market, buy 12 bags of groceries, reverse the procedure., load bags into boat, and then motor home in a monsoon. Five teenagers who threw damp towels on my antique pine furniture and ate supper as a snack until I had to put a lock on the fridge. That didn’t win me any friends.

A “camp” was a euphemism similar to the “cottages” in Newport. Huge houses with guest cottages and a guide’s cabin for the caretaker. Acres of roofs, four-slip boat house, two wooden boats (that I was not permitted to drive) and two fiberglass ones.

…....It’s be a COOL place to be a temporary guest!!

@Val123: No one ever dropped in for the week-end. Guests usually stayed for a week. It stopped being fun as I aged.

A week would be good! Or even a month! Or two!

@Val123: How do you feel about splitting wood with wedges and a sledge hammer? These houses had no heat except for fireplaces. By mid-August, I was wearing a down parka and mittens on the evening boat trips.

Look, I am a paying GUEST!!! YOU get to split all the wood for me, right???

@Val123: Ah, money changing hands. Now you tell me. Too bad my ex got that white elephant as part of the settlement, and I got to keep my lovely house and 20 acres in the Berkshires.—

So, did the guests have to split their own wood?

@Val123: I no longer have a clue about life at Camp Blackhawk, Lake Placid. Here I pay for a ½ cord of wood every fall and scrounge around the woods for kindling.

So you don’t think men – on average – are more passionate about memorizing (useless) statistics of past sports events? I’m not talking about one event in 1980.

@mattbrowne Yes, they are! The dumbest guys can rattle off useless sports stats, but they can’t remember their wife’s birthdays!

@Val123 heheheheh GA & lurve

I swear it’s a combination of culture and mothers “fixing” everything for boys because they are only boys!

Well, in defense of those men, there must be some sort of genetic program that makes their brains do this. Eventually the gene will mutate and include their wives birthdays.

That would make perfect evolutionary sense, if it were a gene. :) Men who remember birthdays get more nookie. More nookie = more babies = gene will spread…