Y lad and lass don't communicate well

Disclaimer: This post will be gender biased. XD

I think i finally can explain y lad and lass don't communicate well together. Because lass break the maxim of cooperative conversation. XD Grice proposed that there are four maxims to cooperative communication which are:

a) Maxim of quantity - information should be at the quantity required. E.g. when people ask what u eat, saying chicken rice is appropriate. U don't say something which has too little information like 'food' or too much like 'rice cooked with chicken stock and with roast chicken'

b) Maxim of quality - we try and say things which are true and we don't say things we believe to be false. Self explanatory

c) Maxim of relation - should be relevant. If i ask where to go eat, u don't answer let's go shopping.

d) Maxim or manner - avoid ambiguity. Be clear, brief and orderly.

Well generally i think sometimes it's hard talking to girls or to understand what they really mean when they say things (this coming from a lad's perspective, as i said so in my disclaimer, it's gender biased)

Consider these 2 situations

Situation A

Lad: Hey, what do u want to eat today?
Lass: Anything lah
Lad: Owhkay, so let's go eat... mamak
Lass: Mamak again?
Lad: ok ok .. how about wantan mee?
Lass: Don't 1.
Lad: then u got any idea?
Lass: Anything lah

See, in this situation, the lass violated maxim or quantity, quality and manner. 'Anything lah' doesn't mean anything lah. It means u have to sorta kinda guess correctly what she wants. At this point, most guys, like myself, would be at a total lost on what to do. According to Grice, people would want to end conversation with people who violates maxims, well because u don't know what to or how to answer them back.

Situation B

Lass: Dear, tonight i have to go to my friend's party. Would you want to come along?
Lad: Sorry dear, tonight i promised my friends that we will be going *somewhere*
Lass: FINE!
Lad: Don't angry lah. I already promised them beforehand.
Lass: I AM NOT ANGRY!

'Fine' is a very fine word to be used by lass. it usually doesn't mean 'fine' at all, especially when said with a high pitch voice. :x the last sentence is hard to interpret, because the nonverbal and verbal is incongruent. Here, violation of maxim of quality (lass say not angry when they are) and violation of maxim of manner (ambiguity) is occuring. Often times, this leaves the guy very 'mao dun'. Don't know what to do. Should the lad trust her and therefore don't comfort her? or should he comfort her, which the assumption is that she is not telling the truth? should she be left alone or not? :x

As stated earlier, violation of maxims will lead other people to avoid conversation, and when guys violate maxims, that's what they are trying to achieve. Typically. They want to be left alone, because they know they are not in good mood. Girls on the other hand is more puzzling. Violation can sometimes signal wanting to end conversation, or could signal for more attention.

Seemingly, girls have better understanding of how to understand violation of maxims between themselves. Probably if these can be analyzed, and then taught to guys, there probably would be less argument between both genders. Of course, learning the violation of maxims by guys and then teaching girls will be great as well.

God Bless~