I agree. Men absolutely speak in grunts to each other, and we know it. If there's a perceived pressure to perform verbally, the guy panics because he wants to impress, but knows he can't meet the impossible standard that's mostly in his own mind.

It's partly that women talk just to talk, and don't realize that when they talk to a man, he's desperately trying to figure out why she's talking, and just wants to fix the problem. It leads to plenty of miscommunication and friction in relationships. The woman says "you didn't do *blah*, and that makes me feel *blah* and I want you to understand how I feel" and the guy hears "you need to do *blah* more often, and you're a failure because of it". Guys aren't too good at empathizing, and they definitely don't understand what women are saying, they just want to fix the problem so the woman likes him again. The woman doesn't get the "I feel what you feel" response she's wanting, and the guy feels like he's being nagged. Not good.

Men take pride in pleasing a date, because generally the way things work is women are the selectors in a relationship, and men are trying to impress women, not the other way around. We can argue about why that is forever, I'm sure, but evolutionarily, mating for a female is a 9 month commitment, but in that time a male can produce hundreds of children, it shouldn't be surprising who's more selective. Anyway, the pressure is on to impress. Especially at the start of a relationship, the guy is going to be putting in a lot (at least what he considers a lot) of effort into his little plans and plots to make the woman like him. Every minor complaint by the female is going to be seen by the guy as a fatal flaw in his plan. Women may be talking about how their chicken is too salty as if it's a problem with the restaurant, and wants the guy to empathize, but basically he's thinking you don't like him, and now his stress level is shooting through the roof because his male brain doesn't think he'll fulfill his genetic imperative to mate now. (On the other hand, if the guy's complaining about his food, what he's really saying is "don't blame me! please still like me!")

We can toss as much rational intelligence on top of dating as we want, but there is nothing more primal than the mating dance, and some things you just can't change about how people perceive events on a date. So ladies, have some mercy on our poor egos and keep things positive. Don't like the salty chicken? Talk about how good some other aspect of your food is, or the ambiance of the restaurant, or how smart he was for getting a reservation ahead of time instead of waiting in line out the door for a table. Chances are the guy isn't really paying much attention anyway, what he's really looking for is clues that you approve or disapprove of him, so he can alter his plans accordingly, and provided you don't put him on the spot, he'll probably be pretty comfortable if you're not criticizing the chef or waiter. We've got all these new social structures and arrangements set up, but when a guy picks a restaurant out and plans a date, it's basically the same process of going out and clubbing a gazelle and dragging it back to the cave.

Do I rationalize these kinds of subconscious things away? I'd sure like to think we're above it. But tens of thousands of years of human evolution has programmed males to respond to a woman's reactions in certain ways, and millions more years of animal mating behavior follow the same basic patterns. It ups the tension and it makes us feel like failures when a woman appears unimpressed by our efforts (or we think she will be based on her expectations). Nervous people don't enjoy their dates, and that means bad things for a burgeoning relationship. So men are insecure in the initial stages of dating. Should we be offended by or ashamed of it? Considering it's programmed into our genes since the dawn of time, I don't really think so. If we can recognize these primal forces though, we can hopefully learn to compensate, avoid disappointing each other or making each other nervous, and hopefully have better dates and relationships all around.