Dear Abby: Can Men and Women Talk to Each Other?

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: My wife and I are friends with a couple we have known for many years. When the four of us eat together, it's obvious to me that the husband directs the conversation toward my wife. Even when the topic is general in nature, his eye contact is with her to the point where it makes me uncomfortable. On a cruise last year, when we ate together regularly, I intentionally sat across from him and, sure enough, he talked diagonally across the table to my wife.

I have always made a conscious effort in mixed company to direct the majority of my conversation toward my male counterpart and not his wife. I feel that it's more appropriate. I really don't think there is any threat from him, maybe just bad manners on his part. How should I handle this? Should I ignore it, or make him aware of it? -- BOTHERED BY IT IN ALABAMA

DEAR BOTHERED: If there is a rule of etiquette covering this, I have never heard of it. You have two choices -- continue to ignore it and let it bother you, or ask him why he does it. He may be doing it unconsciously because he finds your wife to be an interesting conversationalist.

Comments

[cereta]

Dear LW:

I suspect there might be a slight clue in this sentence:

I have always made a conscious effort in mixed company to direct the majority of my conversation toward my male counterpart and not his wife.

Perhaps he is attempting to demonstrate that it is (and brace yourself, because this may be a shock) possible for people of the opposite sex to converse. Because someone does indeed have bad manners in this situation, and it's not him.

[xenacryst]

Might even be possible that both are in the bad manners camp, in different directions. Without further info, it's hard to say. But if that really is the title of the letter, it is indeed pretty clear who's in charge of the bad manners camp.

[cereta]

Heh, no, that's me ;).

[azurelunatic]

I know who I'm not inviting to any more of my polite-conversation-and-geekery parties!

[vass]

If Husband A is pointedly trying to demonstrate to Husband B that it's rude for a man to talk to another man's property wife, and Husband B is pointedly trying to demonstrate to Husband A that he's being rude by giving his wife the silent treatment, then... I got nothing, it's like a sitcom.

I want to know what Wife A and Wife B think about it all.

[cereta]

Seriously, Wife B must either be (a) fuming, (b) quietly amused, or (c) taking mental notes to share with her COM101 students.

[xenacryst]

Wife A and Wife B? Thinking? What kind of madness is that? The wives are there to nod sagely at the husbands' wise conversation, not to have independent thoughts. Next you'll be telling me that we're in the 21st century.

[deird1]

I really don't think there is any threat from him, maybe just bad manners on his part.

Dude, if you're seriously THREATENED by a man talking to your wife, get counselling.

[anotherheather]

This

[eleanorjane]

I am laughing in dismay at this letter because the alternative is a rage-fuelled aneurysm.

(It just occurred to me that LW says he made a "conscious effort" to talk to the husband -- ie that otherwise, left to his own devices he would have been talking to the wife. Perhaps he is projecting his own inappropriate feelings and reactions onto the husband.

[cereta]

This was widely speculated in the comments on uexpress.

[xenacryst]

This. I noticed quite the same thing. "I make a conscious effort not to be an ass" (in my own estimation) ... so, your default state is to be an ass? So noted.