This one's for SP.
If you are a female of the human species, there's a 66.7% chance that you feel that the majority of people you know, just don't ever seem to know what you want. And that's not necessarily a patronising, mysogynistic or sexist opinion; merely a humourous observation, but if you're still female (sometimes people change their mind from sentence to sentence) chances are you'll be reading this as one of those three things. But it's okay. You may change your mind about that too.
The fact is, the women I've known have complained excessively and repeatedly that the men in their lives just don't seem to 'get them' or know what they want. They complain passionately that men just don't read the signals right. They need manuals to decipher what it is a woman wants.
But I've found that most of the time, men don't know what women want because women themselves don't really seem to know what they want. And I don't mean for the obvious things like the dream job/partner/cash balance/shoes/holidays/celebrity top ten list or designers. On all those scores, women seem to have their tick boxes checked and visions manifested of what ideals they'd absolutely love to have. When I say women don't seem to know what they want, I mean in moments such as right now. Or the moment after that. Or the moment after that. When it comes to the here and now, women are a wondrous confusion of jumbled choices and near decisions - a hulabaloo of the fickle and the whimsical. Again, this might not be you, but then again I couldn't be sure.
And I don't mean this badly. Again, one of the most wonderful things about the women I know is that they have capriciousness molecularly fused into their DNA. It's kind of what makes them incredibly exciting the first time you meet them. And if you happen to meet someone like this, it's all a bit awesome and indecipherable - it's part of the chase, the hunt, the exchange of signals and the titillation of the senses. 'Wow!' you think, 'she's so confusing! So spontaneous in a way.'
Yet, when you start that relationship, the indecision actually gets in the way of getting anything done. The bed starts wearing more clothes and accessories on a night out; the holiday choices stretch from Beijing to Buenos Aires and the meal choices...oh God the meal choices. But when it begins to get a bit annoying, because you're gallant of course, you tell her it's cute and it's part of her charm. And when you finally marry the girl who can't make up her mind, it becomes the bone of contention. You make up her mind most of the time because she can't decide whether she wants lamb or chicken. And then she despises you for making all the decisions. And orders the steak or lobster just to spite you. Ah, that cute temper and sulk. We'll get to that another time.
I love women. I really do. But in the middle of all that sugar and spice and malice and mascara there's a whole lot of indecision. From moment to moment it can be cute, but soon it gets incredibly annoying. And I'm not so sure I love that.
See - now even I'm doing it.
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3 comments:
I can't speak for all women but i definitely don't know what i want. Particularly when it comes to the big things. And yeah, my holiday plans definitely jump from one continent to the other in the same breath.
I'm curious though - do you think all men know what they want? Or are they quicker to buy into what they're supposed to want? Or conditioned to think that they must make quick decisions and appear assertive, lest they be perceived as too girly?
There's a 99.9% chance that a guy throwing a dozen outfits on the bed on a Friday night would be told to stop being such a fucking girl and just put a shirt on. Right?
Perhaps we're just allowed to be ourselves - free to express that we have no clue at times, whether it comes to what to have for dinner to what we want to be when we finally grow up.
Hey Sarah
I'm glad you have a sense of humour. You also seem angry. This makes us friends. Welcome.
It's funny you mention the girly-man. I've just written a few rants on how men have in fact become less masculine in today's age. We do not necessarily know what we want and we have long stopped acting masculine without being laughed at by our better halves especially when shirts, concealers and all variety of moisturisers litter our beds and vanity cases. Still - the girly remark stands as you guys got there first and so retain the stereotype when we behave a little finicky. We've just decided late (like men) that being girly is secretly fun and are fighting you for rights over it - man-bags and all, but through the clever guise of metrosexuality so we're not called gay (even though we are - no disrespect to the better dressed amongst us). Moot point or debatable is debatable.
Men do however still retain the hard-wiring for impulse cost-benefit analysis and 'non-emotional' thinking. It helps that most decisions then tend between 'what saves us most money?', 'what makes the most noise?' and 'what has a higher alcohol content?' The rest is simply elementary.
Harper's Bazaar India is aiming to publish a survey with the question, 'What do women really want?' I'm willing to bet that the results will be inconclusive. If they aren't, somebody's lying!
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