In his book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, John Gray indicates that men and women have such diverse backgrounds—being from different planets and all—that a conversation between a man and a woman can be a "cross-cultural" event.
Is Anything More Baffling than we try to say something nice to another—only to have that one take our comment as an insult? It not only hurts us both, but we also have no idea how to prevent it from happening again.
Picture this scenario: a woman is leaving a house where her brother-in-law and his family will be staying. Being helpful and full of the sort of advice that she appreciates receiving from others, she tells her brother-in-law that there's a child's wagon in the basement that his little boy will enjoy. Later she proceeds to tell him what food is in the refrigerator. She's expressing love in the way she likes it expressed to her; but that isn't the way her brother-in-law takes it! He accuses her of insinuating that he and his wife can't take care of their own child without her help, and that they are too incompetent to figure out what food is in the house!
