Men don’t know how to ask questions.
At least that’s what a trove of women are saying online as they post about their partner’s lack of follow-up questions.
Here’s the crux of what’s happening — men will tell their girlfriends or wives an incredible story about their close friend or coworker, and when the woman has a very natural follow-up question, the man has no answer.
Consider this micro-conversation between a TikToker and her boyfriend.
The woman says, “Your friend and his girlfriend broke up after 10 years of being together, what happened?” She went on to ask a few more follow-ups like “Did someone cheat, did he say what the reason was or who broke up with whom?”
The man responds, “I don’t know actually… He just told me ‘It’s done and I’m free to golf this weekend.’”
This simple interaction — and thousands of others like it — has become so familiar in couples that it’s now a TikTok trend dubbed “POV: Men.” Wives and girlfriends are even baiting their spouses so they can post about it online.
So we are asking the question — is this just another silly TikTok trend, or is there something else happening?
The Post spoke with Dr. Maritsa Yzaguirre-Kelley, a Florida-based counselor with over 25 years of psychology experience, who told us — look to the man brain.
“It’s neurological before it’s personal,” Dr. Yzaguirre-Kelley told The Post. “When many men retell an experience, they encode and retrieve the gist — the headline, the outcome, whether it was good or bad.”
Their female partners, however, are listening for something else — sequence, motive and emotional detail. The parts that Dr. Yzaguirre-Kelley says never got stored in men’s brains.
According to the licensed mental health counselor, working memory plays a role too.
“A detail that isn’t rehearsed or emotionally tagged in the moment tends not to make it into long-term memory, so when the follow-up question comes, it has nowhere to land — he’s not withholding; the file was never saved,” she told The Post.
For example, TikTok creators, Phoebe & Dan, are a New Jersey couple who have been together for three years. Newly engaged, the couple makes tons of videos poking fun at how men and women communicate. The videos usually show Phoebe playfully ragebaiting Dan.
In a recent TikTok — which was captioned “Men never asked for details” — Dan recalls a story where he was golfing with a buddy who mentioned he and his wife had a baby. Phoebe then asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
Dan said, “I don’t know, I didn’t ask.”
Trying to prove a point, she asked a series of other questions including: “What’s its name, when did she have it, how did the birth go,” and so on.
To each question, his answer was something along the lines of, “I didn’t ask.” At the end of the TikTok, Dan said his buddy told him “Everything was good, so I’m assuming everything is good.”
Dr. Yzaguirre-Kelley says Dan’s response is completely normal and may be the classic case of gender dynamics and information storage.
The Florida doctor said attention is selective because of how information is received — through the five senses.
“If we took in all of that information, we’d have sensory overload,” Dr. Yzaguirre-Kelley said.
Instead, men tend to look for information, not connection. The behavioral strategist said some people approach conversations primarily as exchanges of information, while others use questions and details to develop a deeper understanding and sense of connection.
If we go back to the baby scenario, the doctor shared what she thought was going through Dan’s brain when his buddy told him his wife just had their child. And it’s pretty simple.
“Congratulations, cool,” Dr. Yzaguirre-Kelley said. “You don’t look for pieces if you think you have the whole picture.”
Meaning, Dan had all the information — his friend had a kid and if there was anything else his buddy wanted him to know, it would have been shared.
“It’s not that they’re not happy for them and not congratulatory, but [extra] information is not relevant. Like why would he need to know any more information,” the doctor told The Post.
Dan confirmed this with The Post — admitting that he doesn’t realize there are details missing until Phoebe starts asking him questions later.
“I think guys just don’t really get into as many details when hanging out, and we don’t always talk about our feelings,” Dan told The Post. “When we do talk about personal things, it’s usually pretty vague and straight to the point. We just don’t think to ask a million follow-up questions.”
So is this major difference in communication a problem? The mental health counselor said it depends on two factors — the relationship and curiosity.
If a man has a great relationship with their spouse or with their friends and remains curious about their lives — not asking follow-ups is not a huge deal.
But if men lack communication skills and fail to foster relationships and friendships, that could become a problem.
The doctor’s advice to all men — don’t treat communication as the exchange of information — start treating it as an opportunity to build connection.
So how does one do that? Funnily enough — by asking questions.
An easy way to start, the Florida doctor said, is by asking one more question before moving on. That one question can lead to maybe two questions — and a deeper connection.
“Practicing curiosity. Not just listening to what somebody is telling you, but get curious about it. Like, how does that make you feel,” Yzaguirre-Kelley said. “Curiosity really communicates something that words alone can’t.”
