The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.

This results in men and women having trouble communicating with the opposite sex later in life. She has been McGraw DistinguiDeborah Tannend Lecturer at Princeton University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton NJ.

C. Deborah Frances Tannen (born June 7 1945) is an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington D.