Straight Men Can't Gossip

That's the rumor.

Ask 'Where is he?' first, and go from there.

Calvin Trillin once said:

"The difference between men from the 1990's and the 1950's is that in the 1950's men didn't complain and they didn't dance in the end zone."

Sounds like you're up against some folks who know their business and how to mind it.

Might not have anything to do with whether the guys you're pumping for information fuck men or women.

Could be they just don't want to leak info to someone they know will "inform other people."

I'm sorry, Hugh. I know you hate generalizations, and this was a really insensitive and unclear way to state my problem. Please allow me to explain.

When his family asked for help finding him, it was a group of women working a phone tree. After he was found, all information flow suddenly stopped. We know he's alive and everything, but I have people asking me where they can send cards or visit or whatever while he's in the hospital/whatever.

I've accepted that I have to tell them that he either doesn't want or can't have any contact with anyone.

I just wish I knew if that was true, or if it's what these other guys surrounding him think he wants. I'd think it'd be a heckuva thing to be Away and not hear from anyone.

I'm really not a meddler by nature, of course nobody here has any way of knowing that.

Honey, I hope you get some answers from guys here - but if not, maybe post again with more details?

I was all ready to post some of my personal ideas about how much men are or aren't gossips - but then realized that this is not at all what you are really asking.

Yeah, seconding taz -- it sounds like a really complicated situation, and a post with more details and fewer people-as-stereotypes might help. (Not that I think you were ill-intentioned at all, just that the post comes off a bit snarky or uncaring or something, and seems vague enough that it's hard to answer.)