Women Talk Twice as Much as Men Do
I was talking to a very verbal work friend of mine the other day who often drives me crazy with all of her chit-chat and I decided to mention that women talk twice as much as men. 24,000 words a day, to 12,000 words a day, to be more specific.
“Says who?” she demanded to know.
“I read it in a magazine the other day,” I explained, “and there are lots of reasons for it too.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, “it appears that women are wired to talk, and men are wired to act.”
“Now what does that mean?”
“Well, it’s got to do with your corpus callosum.”
“My what?”
“Your corpus callosum,” I said. “It’s a bunch of nerve fibers that connect the left part of your brain, which controls language, and the right side, which controls emotions. Women have a larger corpus callosum than men, which means that when a woman is talking, she can get in touch with her feelings a lot easier than a guy can.”
“What has that have to do with women talking twice as much as men?” she asked.
“Well, I’m not really sure,” I admitted. “But I think it means that talking is just a lot more fun for women than it is for men. Most guys hate to do a bunch of talking, while most women love it. And apparently it goes all the way back to the caveman days.”
“The caveman days?”
“That’s right,” I said. “You see, for millions and millions of years, men were hunters and women were gatherers. Men hunted in packs and they didn’t do much talking.”
“Why was that?” she asked.
“Because they didn’t want to scare away all the animals they were out there trying to kill.”
“I see.”
“But now on the other hand,” I continued. “When women went out gathering their roots and nuts and berries and stuff like that, they talked as much and as loud as they could trying to scare all the animals away.”
“Really?”
“And the article also said that for a woman, her best friend is someone she can talk to, while for a guy, his best friend is someone he can do things with. You see the difference?”
“I think so,” she said.
“It’s pretty interesting stuff, isn’t it?”
“It sure is.”
“You know,” I said, “I have often wondered why women like you talk so darn much, and now I know.”
“Is that right.”
“Anyway,” I said, “I just wanted you to know some of this stuff so that the next time you think that I am not talking to you enough, or that I’m not getting in touch with my feelings, or whatever, you’ll understand that it’s really not my fault.”
“I will? Why is that?”
“Because my corpus callosum is smaller than yours and all my feelings are bottled up in my right hemisphere. So even if I wanted to there’s really nothing I can do about it.”
“Well, Daryl, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it too much,” she assured me.
“About what?”
“About me wishing that you would talk more.”
“Why not?”
“Because after this little conversation, I don’t think I’ll be needing to talk to you all that much for quite some time!”
