Sports talk: The emotional language of men?

If men have an emotional language, sports is it, writes Ethan Todras-Whitehill in his Punch for Punch column on the Crucial Minutiae blog. "When men interact, it’s pretty much a given that we’re going to talk about sports...It’s how you deal with a double date when the women are yammering away about underwear trends," he writes. "It’s how... you keep the conversation going with your best friend when you’ve both run out of things to say."

The explanation for this use of sports as an emotional outlet lies in boyhood, he believes, and he quotes the following from Dr William Pollack's book, Real Boys:

"For many boys, sports are a form of intimacy and a way to be honest. By temporarily freeing boys from the Boy Code—especially from the rules that say boys shouldn’t express feelings, show affection or expose their yearning for connection—sports can become one of the most important activities through which our sons, as their genuine selves, can relate closely with girls and other boys." .....