Dating fail: Your date doesn’t ask you a single question?

Dating Fail: That’s why straight men are sometimes so bad at conversations

It’s that time again: I’ve pulled myself together and got ready for a first date, dressed up in a cute look, and now I’m sitting across from him, this guy who I thought was really cute on my dating app of choice. I don’t know much about him yet, except that he likes to drink Aperol and hangs out at the bouldering gym a lot. But that’s about to change – because in a few hours I’ll know a lot more about him than I’d like.

Unfortunately, he is one of those men I have been on dates with before: the egocentric blabbermouths who bombard you with an hour-long monologue about their job, their past relationships, their childhood and family traumas and their favorite culturally high-quality films. When you go on a date with them, you wait in vain for counter-questions.

And no, I’m not talking about dates where someone goes on to tell long stories or just talks passionately about their hobbies. I’m talking about dates where you don’t even have the slightest chance to interrupt the flow of conversation, share your own opinions or put topics on the agenda yourself.

But the craziest part of the whole thing is yet to come: What was not a particularly successful date for me in most cases is often the opposite for these men. They write to me the next day saying that they would like to see me again and that they really enjoyed “chatting” with me. Hmm.

Why do straight men and women communicate so differently on dates?

For a long time, I thought I was the only one who told their friends about such dates in the group chat. But now I know that quite a few women who date men have such experiences. All of this could be because men and women communicate completely differently in a hetero dating context. Of course, a person’s communication style is influenced by many factors – socialization, family or personality play a big role here, but classic gender roles can also lead to me having to listen to a speech about cryptocurrencies on a date again, even though I didn’t ask about it.

These rigid gender roles are a key reason why men are much more likely to assume that they have the right to be heard and to take up space. Dazed explains author and psychotherapist Gin Lalli: “Nobody ever told them to still be, to apologize for their feelings, or to read the room.” For women, the opposite is the case.