MEN OUTTALK WOMEN

Our senior writer says that guys are more talkative than females – especially when the topic is cars.

Portrait of Tammy Strobel

 Our senior writer says that guys are more talkative than females – especially when the topic is cars.

My Reading Room

IF gender stereotypes are to be believed, women are way more talkative than men. Apparently, the average girl speaks about 1000 more words than the average guy on a daily basis. But according to some studies, this isn’t exactly true.

I can already imagine some readers exclaiming: “That’s impossible!” Well, a group of girls getting their hair and nails done at a salon is probably going to talk more than a group of guys having a few beers.

But when you have a bunch of dudes talking about cars, it’s an entirely diff erent story. Their conversations about the automobiles they’ve owned, driven and would love to testdrive could easily last a week.

Horsepower, torque and acceleration figures will be discussed. Power-to-weight ratios will be debated to death. High-performance makes and models will be compared, championed and criticised.

There will be discussions of the pragmatic sort, too, when someone mentions fuel economy. Just imagine what would happen when car modifications are brought up. That would easily extend the conversations by another week.

Then there’s car grooming. Products will be “reviewed” and recommended. Grooming sessions be organised, too.

And let’s not forget about track days. If the car owners in question are keen drivers, they’ll swop “war stories” about their thrilling racetrack battles. They’ll be happily sharing their roadtrip tales, too.

And, of course, every male petrolhead also has a long list of driving roads that he’d like to cross off his bucket list. If said petrolhead gets together with his buddies, their discussion about roads they must drive on before they die might be a long and winding one.

Ladies, if you’re not into cars and your man is, you’re probably nodding in agreement and waiting to show him this article. If he hasn’t read it yet, that’s because he’s probably still busy (you guessed it) talking about cars with his mates.