Ever noticed those social conversations where someone talks about themselves endlessly – asking no questions or always hijacking the topic? According to the LifeModel and other developmental frameworks, this behaviour often signals arrested development – where someone hasn’t matured beyond a psychological stage of life – still seeing themselves as the centre of their world. Failing to move from being attention seekers to attention givers.
The gender patterns here are interesting too. Generally, women often demonstrate more developed relational skills earlier in life – they ask follow-up questions, remember details from past chats, and create space for others. Generally speaking however, this is not an innate gender/sex exclusive skillset – it’s learned through socialisation and practice.
For many men however, social interactions can feel like a performance rather than connection. You might notice this at gatherings where certain men dominate with monologues about their achievements, missing the reciprocal nature of mature interaction. I recall author and poet John O’Donoghue explaining that most interactions we call conversations today are actually an intersection of monologues, pointing out that true conversations take both parties to new places of thought and consideration neither have been before.
Moving forward means recognising that conversational maturity is a developmental task. It’s about genuine curiosity in others’ experiences and learning to hold space without judgement and without relating everything back to ourselves. When someone demonstrates a high level of conversational maturity, filled with active listening and attunement, you feel it in the room, right?
If you sink in to it, you will feel seen.
And if you learn to reciprocate
you’ll gift belonging to you both
… and in this way, love is made.
My the way, I talk about listening and a lot more on the topic of maturity in my latest podcast. It is Episode 6 on the Terribly Honest with David Tensen podcast
Much love!
David Tensen