Why Don't Men Talk? Why Don't Women Listen? How Can We Make it Happy and Fun to Bridge the Gap?

Hi, Coach Kammer here. There's a lot of truth to the idea that men don't talk. And one of the main reasons that men don't talk is that women don't listen. Some women even want to shut us up completely. But what about the women who really do want to listen? Who really do want to understand and empathize with men? How do we connect with them? That's coming up next on Our Comeback. Suppose we could come up with a way for men to talk without fear of being shamed, blamed, mocked, ridiculed, or criticized, and at the same time allow women just to listen with open hearts and open minds without having to worry that their silent listening signifies that they agree with a single blessed thing we're saying. Wouldn't that be good? We could relax in what we say, and they could relax in how they listen. And suppose we could get a measurement of how clear and effective was the communication between us. Wouldn't that be even better? In 1991, I was the emcee of a public event in Baltimore that was designed to do exactly that. And according to the participant evaluations, it was a pretty big success. The event was called "Men Are Talking," and we advertised it as a way to help improve the city since so many social problems have their roots in unhappy, unstable relationships. Apparently a lot of people agreed because a good crowd turned out. We even had Kurt Schmoke, the mayor of Baltimore at the time, come and give some opening words of support and encouragement. Here's how it worked. First, we allowed 10 minutes for the audience to read the program guide, which explained the purpose, format, rules, and gave some food for thought. You can download it for free. The notes with this video will show you where. Then, to start the program, a man volunteered to come to the front of the room and take no more than 7 minutes to say how he personally felt about American women. We asked him to talk about his feelings, not his opinions about current events or his version of political facts, just how he felt about women. No preaching, haranguing, scolding, blaming, or shaming anyone. After he finished, or after 7 minutes, whichever came first, we all said, "Thank you." No applause, no booing, just "Thank you." Next, a woman in the audience volunteered to come to the front of the room to say what she heard the man say. Not to agree or disagree, compliment or criticize, —not to preach, harangue, scold, blame, or shame—just to restate what she heard the man say, without anyone assuming that she agreed with a single word of it. After she finished, we all said, "Thank you." No applause, no booing, just "thank you." Then the man who had spoken wrote a number between 1 and 10 on a piece of paper, to say how well he thought the woman had heard what he had said, and he dropped that number in a box. No one but he knew what number he had written. We did that throughout the evening, a man stating, a woman restating, and a man writing a number. I'll be back to tell you how it went, right after this brief PSA. So at the end of the evening, we opened the box and calculated the average of the numbers the men had written and announced it to the audience. We all felt pretty good that the number was 8.2 out of 10. The men indicated that the women had listened pretty well, and on their evaluation forms, the women were impressed at how movingly the men had spoken. Here's some of what the audience said they liked best. When we asked the audience to rate the event as a whole, they gave it 8.1 out of 10, and they offered some good ideas for improvement for next time. But alas, there never was a next time. The Greater Baltimore Commission for Men, the organization that sponsored the event, folded shortly after. Maybe we were just a little ahead of our time. But if you have a group at church or in the community that cares about relationships and families and what goes on between men and women, you can present Men Are Talking yourself. All you need is a church basement or a community room in a library, plus a few bucks for photocopies. Or maybe you just have a party at home and try Men Are Talking with a group of friends. It might be even more fun than charades or Cards Against Humanity or whatever party game you and your friends like. Along with the program guide, you can also download the complete evaluation results from that first evening in 1991 Plus customizable registration and evaluation forms if you want them. Here's the URL. It's also in the video notes. Give it a try. It can help us score our points, recruit good, open-hearted women onto our team, and win new fans for our side. Plus it really was a lot of fun. Thanks for watching. See you on the field. Give Men Are Talking a try.