Friday, September 01, 2006

A Reluctant Ode..

Things finally seem to have settled.. One year... its taken me that long to finally understand the dynamics of professional life and the changes in personal life that come along with it..Anyway, apart from a few falls and mishaps, the past one year has been a treasure of experiences, both pleasant and bitter.In retrospect, I really have very few regrets; just one or two stray decisions which I took due to coaxingly coercive misguided do-gooders...but that’s ok... taught me a thing or two about human psychology.

In my 23 years of mellow existence, (out of which I spent the first 5 years enjoying life, the next 10 years enjoying school life with an intensity only slightly lesser than the first 5 years, the next 7 years enjoying +2 college life and graduation, with as much voracity as previously, barely having time to philosophize about the moods and methods of the human mind), after traversing the past year, I have come to an unwelcome conclusion.

I say unwelcome because the conclusion is not conducive to my kind; my kind meaning the female kind.Since the last year, I’ve realized that I get along more with guys than girls. I seem to think more like them than like girls. I've even been euphemized as 'a good looking gal with a guy's brain'..Hmmmmm.. That’s a compliment I really liked :)..

Guys live in a totally alternate universe of mindsets; their thoughts, their methods, their strategies are all clear cut - straight and forward...no curves of artifice or cunning present to mar their direction of thinking. They don't believe in hiding their feelings - be it anger/frustration/annoyance/hurt. In a way its good.

Ever witnessed a fight between to guys who are friends?? Few words, one punch, one look of disbelief, another punch, a feeling of having vented out one's feelings, and voila! They are back to being friends again. Some call this caveman technique and label it as uncivilized. Well, I guess the cavemen must have been really happy if that’s the way they solved quarrels – I agree it could lead to injuries detrimental to the health of the parties involved but isn’t a little physical hurt much better than the endless mental disturbance of continuing a cold war? Having some things to the other person and yet not expressing them for the sake of appearances – that’s what we girls do (mostly).

(In the lines ahead, wherever I’ve said ‘we’ I’ve meant the female species in general)

It’s mostly about the ego…. If we have a problem, we expect that the person, who might in some way be responsible for the problem, should automatically understand and sense it and rectify the issue, or at least apologize. If the other person is a girl, well, then we’re at a universal deadlock…. By some il/logical reasoning she’ll conclude that she has done no wrong and if anything the other girl should say something to the effect of sorry… Herein starts the clash of egos… leading to cold war… and then if neither melt down…..to a final detachment. It might have been some very minor issue, which could have been resolved by a direct conversation bringing out whatever each one has against the other…. But no! That’s not how most of us do it.

Had it been a guy at the other end, well than maximum chances are, the problem would have been solved within the space of a week if not earlier. Why? Because, he’d notice something weird in her behaviour (which she would invariably portray, not trying in the least to hide her obvious displeasure), ask her directly. She’ll scream at him, speak about what wrongs he had (or maybe had not) done; he’ll soothe her with a few choice words of apology, and maybe a few flowers….and there the matter is closed.

I feel that the root of all differences is the fact that most of us are a little too touchy and overly sensitive sometimes. A major part of our miseries are caused by trivialities…
’She didn’t call me’,
‘He didn’t pay his share’,
‘She didn’t wish me on my anniversary of the day I was proposed to’,
‘I’m not going to her party; she called me at the last minute’,
‘I hate her – she always teases me about my clothes/dressing sense/makeup/shoes/etc./etc.’,
‘She’s way too friendly with my guy’,
‘I don’t like the way she acts as if she is the queen’,
……

Unfortunately I could go on…
But I don’t want too…

With guys, I think its more open and maybe a little too direct ….Being a female myself, I say ‘a little too direct’, because we are hardly ever capable of directness and so we count even a little frankness as ‘a little too direct’..
If a guy has a problem with another person (be it a male/female), 95 times out of 100, he’ll go and confront that person –
‘What is the matter’,
‘Why are you behaving differently?’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Is there a problem?’
….. (These are probably the politest quotes that they use, in all probability, with a person of the female gender…
If it’s a guy, the quotes would have been somewhat different and spiced up with a vast vocabulary of profanities and abuse… and the best part is that the other guy would have answered in the same swearing dialect without the least hesitation – he wouldn’t have become outraged at the usage of such unmentionable words…. Hahaha….not that I advocate such language…)

Hmmmmmm, its not that guys have it good all the way….but right now.. I’ll leave it at this point..
Let the guys feel a little light… a little heady……
Praises showering for them…
Eventually, they will come back to earth , maybe after reading a subsequent post I’ll write….
Let that remain in the shadows for now.. because I, myself don’t know when I’ll write about the intricacies of the female kind…their thought process, their compassion, their essence which sets them a gender apart..
After all there’s so much to say about us….

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