nicole5 wrote: The phrase that my boyfriend says that really bothers me is his response to my daily question when he returns from work, "How was your day sweetie", I say? To which he always replys, "loooooong". That's it that is all he says, long, no details, no interesting interactions, nothing. Surely something went on during his day that he could elaborate on. I come home and I have an overload of information to tell him and I never understand why he has nothing?

I'd like to give my two cents about this. Simply that I completely agree with the vast majority of men that have responded to the fact that men simply need time to unwind and a bit of space, and god bless you women that realize this. Seriously, I admit I'm not a very verbal man, and to be frank I'd love to hear about how your day went, etc., but I cannot stress this enough, that you should give time for the person to unwind. You have NO idea what went on in their day. They could have had a bad report, a bad meeting, horrible commute, etc. and a lot of the time I'd rather not talk about it to blow up needlessly on someone I care about and start a pointless fight, argument, etc. Let us gather ourselves for a moment, sit down, shower, have a change of clothes, do whatever habitual stress reliever that we need to do to get accustom to the new environment change.

As for the concept of communication, its very simple as to why women and men have different communicaton needs. For women, who were not generally involved in the hunting culture, would need to strengthen social bonds to help rear children, establish networks for help and assistance in times of need, etc. So its valuable for women to learn about body language, communication, and socialization, simply because it was an intergral part of their survival. As stereotypical as this sounds, it makes a lot of sense. It also shows the huge discrepancy in terms of abilities in picking up non-verbal cues, which females, I'm sorry guys but its true, have such a huge, huge advantage over. As for men, the need for constant or continuous communication wasn't needed, as it would generally hinder stalking down prey, game, etc. If the animal that you were trying to kill heard you coming, it wasn't generally a successful hunt. Which is one of the reasons as to why men go to the crux of the matter quickly to stop unnecessary communication, as well as seek communication as a method of problem solving and acquistion of germane information. It also explains why men generally are less inclined to talk about things that are irrelevant to what they deem is necessary in that situation. The concept of the hunt overlaps into various other aspects of the male, such as spacial cognition, mathematics, etc. which men's minds are generally better geared for because they were more essential for their livelihood and welfare, much like how typically women are more skilled in terms of linguistics and communication.

So, to get to the bottom of this, men when they come home, aren't inclined to talk about their day because they don't feel that it is absolutely relevant at the moment. As the woman feels it is necessary, more or less because her social evolution has chosen genes that produce such a result. So to get over this hurdle, simply tell your other that you feel its important to you and your relationship, and then give him some space to chill. When he's aware that it is important, and its needed, he'll come around if he's not a complete idiot or jerk.