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Thursday, June 23, 2005
There's the obvious suggestion that the same care-free, unselfish-conscious [sic] spirit which makes Maizie so entertaining at a party might serve her in good stead when she's alone with men. There aren't any rules about how to be entertaining. Conversation isn't a set thing to work out by rule. It ought instead to be a spontaneous interchange of ideas between people who have something to say to each other, and in the saying stimulate each other to further conversation.Maizie probably thinks that talking to a man alone ought to be romantic adventure, most stimulating to him and the girl who furnishes the emotional excitement of the occasion by her words. When she's alone with a man she feels that as a tribute to her womanhood he ought to be personal, romantic, chivalrous—altogether different from the man she sees in a crowd or out among men. And when he isn't she feels that she's a social failure and doesn't know how to talk to men.It's a tragic blunder for girls to fancy that [the] only relationship possible between them and men is a "man and woman one." There is no reason why girls and boys should spend their time together in remembering that they are girls and boys. The difference between the sexes are great enough without our constantly adding our mile of self-conscious posturing to the sum.Why can't a girl talk to a man about the things she'd like to talk to a woman? His work and hers, the events of the day in the history of the world, the happenings that have befallen people they both know, the little incidents that mark out the day, each so different from the all the days that go before.Why can't a girl draw a man out to talk of things that interest him—his ambitions, his hopes, his plans for the future?Most people like to talk of themselves. All people admire a sympathetic listener. And all people are lonely and in search of interesting and understanding companionship.The girl who encourages a man to talk is more likely to seem far more interesting than the one who does all the chattering.Why then should a girl rack her brains for conversational material? She can talk of the things should would discuss in a crowd, she can bring up questions she'd talk over with another woman. She can set her self to finding out what are the things a man longs in the soul of him to confide to someone who will care.There are people and things and ideas to discuss. In the order of our culture and brains we turn to these three fields of discussion. And ideas, the highest form of conversational material, are all about us in our changing world.The papers inform everyone who will read of the events of the day. With editorial opinion and comment, with the weeklies and monthlies offering material for thought and discussion, with the city all about us teeming with incident, how can anyone who opens eyes and mind and heart lack something to discuss?
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