Well, as a married male Archipelagoan (I would think Arghipelagoans deviate from the male/female norms somewhat -- we're so intelligent, so sensitive, so creative, so . . .) I can validate much of what you say about female-talk, male-no-talk conditioning in our culture. The line of male heros from Gary Cooper through Rambo seems to confirm your observations on the strong type silent male behavior. What you say seems to make a lot of sense to me. Though I might add that I think males can be "conditioned," or "trained" to break out and talk more intimately about their emotions.

Patience and sensitivity seems to me to be needed on both sides of the gender gap. Speaking for myself, when I first entered into my current intimate relationship -- when my wife and I were first dating -- I was very reticent about sharing feelings verbally with Kathy. I'm much better but still relatively reticent. So how much time does this process take, you might ask. Perhaps a whole lifetime.

Another thing that strikes me. I've known a lot of men who can't relate verbally in an intimate way and who don't engage in shared activities (your suggested outlet for the way men share their intimate feelings). What do those men go through?

Hmmm...... very interesting topic, Dionne.