As young children, boys and girls tend to play with kids of their own age and gender. These sex-separate groups have different organization structures and interactive norms in which causes communication problems between the two. Deborah Tannen's essay, Sex, Lies, and Conversation explains how systematic differences in childhood socialization between men and women creates cross-cultural communication. Differences in cross-cultural communication between men and women are prevalent in linguistics, conversation, and body language.
             Men and women tend to differ in aspects of linguistics. Women believed that "intimacy was the fabric of relationships and talk was the thread from which it's woven." One example illustrated that little girls created and maintained friendships through secrets and women believed conversation was the cornerstone for relationships. On the other hand, Men's relationships were based less on talking and more on doing things together. For example, Tannen explains that some men just don't like to listen because it makes them feel inferior. Since boys' groups are larger and more inclusive, they must struggle to avoid that subordinate position. It is differences like these, which cause misunderstandings between men and women in communication.
             Patterns in men and women's conversations are similar to those of children's groups. One of the patterns talked about by Tannen was conversation's topical alignment. For girls, they would often talk for a length of time about a certain topic. On the other hand, boys tended to jump form subject to subject, spending only a short amount of time on each. One study revealed by Tannen, was that second-grade girls exchanged stories about people they knew. This study also showed that second-grade boys teased, told jokes, and talked about games to play. The sixth-grade girls talked about problems with a mutual friend, whereas sixth-grade b...