There is one perennial mystery about which women are none the wiser – what on earth it is that men talk about when they are together?
Actor and comedian David Mitchell, half of the hilarious duo Mitchell and Webb, does his best to shine a light on the age-old conundrum, but succeeds only in further muddying the waters. Mitchell informs us that men don’t chat or gossip, but take polite turns to “have a little mutual explain” to one another, delivering mini-lectures on a variety of topics, never under any circumstances venturing into a discussion of emotions or feelings.
For example, Mitchell never thought to alight more than fleetingly on comedy partner Robert Webb’s chain-smoking and battle with alcoholism. Webb ended up having open-heart surgery and eventually giving up drink and cigarettes.
Says Mitchell: “We had the odd conversation that referenced it.” Similarly, Webb didn’t think to probe when Mitchell found love with QI presenter Victoria Coren and married her in 2012, saying: “We didn’t have long chats about David’s love life, particularly.”
I first encountered female bewilderment at the baffling riddle of what passes for male conversation when my father returned from yet another Saturday at the golf course. My mother greeted him with a volley of questions. He’d been out for seven hours. Eighteen holes had been vanquished and lunch eaten. There’d been umpteen opportunities to ask crucial questions and receive juicy answers.
“How is Gillian’s pregnancy progressing?” she’d ask, bristling with curiosity. My father would look blank.
“The morning sickness,” she persisted. “Has it eased? Is she keeping anything down?” Silence. “And Jonathan’s new job? Has he settled in?” “No idea,” said my dad.
“And the recently divorced daughter? How’s it working out with the new boyfriend?” “Humph,” was the impenetrable response.
My mother never came to terms with the conversational void. “You must have said something,” she’d ask. “What the heck did you talk about?”
Gentle reader, answer came there none. I suppose the general impression was that men talked about “male stuff”: sport, business, world affairs and – in a vulgar sense – women.
We gathered from their monk-like refusal to breathe a word that something in the category of “don’t trouble your pretty little head about it”, or “so unsuitable it might frighten the horses” must have been uttered. In 1966, I yearned to eavesdrop. Now, Mitchell says it was serial mansplaining, I’m glad to have escaped it.
