Are You Made for Each Other? The Relationship Quiz Book

Chapter One Talking and Listening Why Men Don't Talk Much and Women Talk a Lot We've known for thousands of years that men aren't great conversationalists, particularly when compared to women. Speech is not a major brain skill of men as it is with women. It operates mainly in a male's left brain and has no specific locations. MRI scans show that when a male speaks, the entire left hemisphere of his brain becomes active as it searches to find a center for speaking. Men evolved as lunch-chasers, not communicators. The hunt was conducted with a series of body language signals and often the hunters would sit for hours silently watching for their prey. They didn't talk or bond. When modern men go fishing together, they can sit for hours and say little or nothing. They're having a great time enjoying each other's company, but they don't feel the need to express it in words. Yet if women were spending time together and not talking, it would be indicative of a major problem. In women, speech is a specific area located primarily in the front left hemisphere, and in other smaller, specific areas in the right hemisphere. Having speech centers in both sides of the brain makes women good conversationalists. Because they have larger, specific areas that control speech, the rest of a woman's brain is available for other tasks, thus enabling her to do a number of different things at the same time. Women's clear-cut speech centers give them superiority of language and verbal dexterity. Because women originally spent their days together with the other women and children in a group, they developed the ability to communicate successfully in order to maintain relationships. The Basics of Listening Typically, a woman can use an average of six listening expressions in a ten-second period to reflect, then feed back, the speaker's emotions. A woman reads the meaning of what is being said through voice intonation and the speaker's body language. This is exactly what a man needs to be able to do to capture a woman's attention--and keep her listening. Most men are daunted by the prospect of using facial feedback while listening, but it pays big dividends for the man who becomes proficient at it. The biological objective of our ancestral male warrior when listening was to remain impassive, so as not to betray his emotions. This emotionless mask that men use while listening allows them to feel in control of the situation. It does not mean he isn't experiencing emotions; brain scans reveal that men feel emotion as strongly as women, but avoid showing it. The Great Listening Test The following questions can put your partner to the listening test. He or she can't fool you easily. Do they really listen to you or not? Do they really know your special likes and dislikes, or do they only pretend to? And what about you? Do you frequently expect too much of your partner and his speech ability or can you deal with his weaknesses? This quiz will bring the truth into the open. If you are a man, take the test on pages 6-7. Women should fill in the questions on the next page. If you want to test yourselves the other way round as well, make sure you copy the questionnaires before completing them. Answer the questions carefully and ask your partner to fill in his/her answers afterward--without having read your answers. Your name ________________________ 1. What upset you most this past week? 2. As a child, did you have a pet? If yes, what was it? 3. What happened in your last dream? 4. Which film moved you most during the past weeks or months, and why? 5. When is your best friend's birthday? 6. Do you believe in an afterlife? 7. Which of your partner's habits annoys you most? 8. How can your partner always make you happy? 9. WhicPease, Barbara is the author of 'Are You Made for Each Other? The Relationship Quiz Book', published 2005 under ISBN 9780767922791 and ISBN 0767922794.