Celebrating Father’s Day on Sunday, I was thinking about all the men who have played such important roles in my life – my dad, husband, sons, grandsons, close male friends. We women love them and try to socialize them but do we really understand them? I’ve mused here in the past about the men in our lives and this week we’ll take another look at some of our differences.
Last week, I joined my husband at his 50th college reunion and noticed how he and his old friends, many of whom hadn’t seen each other in those 50 years, re-bonded. They told stories, recalling antics about the past – how they had played pranks on each other, who was the best athlete then and how they had competed in the past. They enjoyed hanging out with each other then and still did now. The focus of their conversation was on fun, silly times, even though they had all matured and created successful careers during the intervening years.
I recognized how different it was from my reunions with girlfriends I hadn’t seen in years. When women get together to reconnect, we tend to spend more time talking about our relationships than about past behaviors. We want to know about the significant people in each others lives and how those connections have affected us. We communicate about people more than events as a way of re-establishing the closeness that we experienced before.
As adults we treasure old friends – for one thing, they remind us that we were once young and they validate our personal histories. Both guys and gals appreciate the chance to look back and re-connect – we just do it differently. How about you? What was positive for you about getting together again at a reunion?
