IN the latter months of last year, this column talked about grief and feelings associated with that loss of a loved one.
This year, this column will explore thoughts that you may have had and how certain issues affect our lives as seniors.
Women are better at off-loading their innermost fears than most men. There seems to be a macho image of a man that is instilled in many from the very beginning of their lives. Boys wear blue, boys don’t play with dolls, boys don’t cry!
This then carries on to manhood and it’s almost a universal rule that the male is more stoic than the female. He doesn’t talk about his nether regions, his prostate, his parts.
Yet women seem to be a lot freer in their attitude towards themselves.
So, why is this?
We’re told that women talk to express, support and connect. Conversely men speak to disseminate information. Women talk to build rapport, men talk to report. While men tend to be more task-orientated, women tend to be more relationship-orientated.
It seems that communication matters more to women than men.
So where does this leave the ordinary senior? Depending on their age and their sex, the tendency is for the man to just watch and listen, while the elderly woman still has things on her mind that she wants to say.
She is generally more of an ambitious person and a contributor to conversations.
Age for age, women are more able to keep a conversation going, most are generally a few years younger and possibly fitter than the husband, while the husband may have things, which limit his participation.
In The Female Brain, published in 2006, Louann Brizendine claimed that women spoke about 20,000 words per day compared to men’s 7000.
But we all tend to hide our true feelings at times.
How often would you like to say what’s on your mind, but don’t?
Seniors have a particularly tough time, especially those getting on in years. It seems that the older one gets, the quieter one becomes.
Just imagine, if we all spoke our mind, what would others think of us – would they still value us as friends?
Many friendships have been destroyed by telling the truth.
