Two Tales - of Men and Mortals
Coming home from TNDC (Thursday Night Drinking Club) it suddenly struck me. There is a definite trend: men are much more crap than they used to be. And as the following two tales show, the problem is a global one...
Over a couple of "Mr Big" martinis pre-TNDC, my friend AsianStudiesMeredith told me how, a year ago this weekend, she met a dude at Darden Days.
Darden Days, for those who have not had the pleasure of experiencing them, is a weekend in which technically speaking, admits - people who have been made offers to attend the school in the fall - can come and look around and decide if they like it. Non-technically speaking, it is full of male admits coming to check out to see if there are any hot women. I went to Darden Days in 2001 with KiltGuy. We both thought that the fixed grins and relentless enthusiasm was somewhat reminiscent of Stepford. This year, I anticipate even fixed-er grins than usual, given that applications are down 20% and they are literally searching under rocks to fill 300 places.
Anyway, AsianStudiesMeredith and the admit (who hailed from a country south of the equator that speaks Portuguese) got together on the first day of DD and henceforth were inseparable for the rest of the weekend. When she went off to Japan for six months, as AsianStudies people are wont to do, the admit was determined not to lose touch. He phoned. He emailed. He sent postcards. He instant-messaged. "Oh, I read in the paper there was a typhoon in the Far East - are you OK? I've been so worried about you!!" And so on.
I don't think ASM can be blamed, therefore, for expecting at least a minor league gesture of enthusiasm from this dude when she returned to Middleofnowheresville around Christmas-time. And indeed, on email and IM, enthusiasm was the order of the day. But as soon as ASM suggested meeting up for a quick coffee, CrapGuy-from-south-of-the-equator reacted as if she had proposed marriage. "Why do you have to rush things, I want this relationship to happen naturally!" he bleated.
Then the serious crap started to go down. Details of the 23 year old girlfriend, who had been on the scene all along, suddenly emerged. CrapGuy blocked ASM from IM-ing him (the ultimate gesture of hostility in the modern world). CrapGuy started making cryptic comments to ASM's male friends, along the lines of, where is she, don't tell me, I want her, I don't want her. One year on, with this crap still going on (as recently as two days ago), ASM has no choice but to ask herself: what was that all about?
***
The second story involves my sister, B__k.
In January this year, she met a nice guy, M_, they went out regularly: he seemed very keen.
After about six weeks of everything going great, B__k, who works for a major international airline based in Britain, started wondering to herself if she should make him her Designated Travelling Companion. (DTCs get a 90% discount on airtickets). She knew it was early days in their relationship, but her airline is very strict about only letting you designate your travelling companion once a year, on March 1. And she felt like if this really was going somewhere, she would kick herself later if he wasn't able to accompany her on flights. So, without mentioning it to him, in mid February she filled out the form and designated him.
Two weeks later (on March 5), they arranged to meet up to go shopping in Selfridges. They had a great time. As they said goodbye, he said he would see her the following day, a Sunday. And then he disappeared: and that was the last she ever saw of him.
In some ways, I wish the story ended there. But it gets worse. A couple of weeks later, B__k having spent some considerable time begging her employer to let her change her travelling companion, on the grounds that her Designated One had vanished off the face of the planet, her mobile phone rang.
"Where is he?" an unidentified woman's voice demanded.
My sister replied that she thought the woman must have the wrong number.
"No, I don't. Tell M_ I know he's there! This is his wife speaking!"
My sister had no choice but to reply, truthfully, that there was noone called M_ at that address. And ended the call post haste. It was clear that even under the most generous of construals, M_ (who had claimed he had been separated from his wife for some time) had not been strictly truthful with her; and all things considered, she recognized she had had a lucky escape. But she still wonders to herself: what was that all about?
***
Driving home, I reflected on these two tales. My own outing to TNDC that night had featured a couple of inexplicable displays of crap male behaviour. What's it all about, for example, when a guy fights his way across a crowded room to your side, insists on buying you a drink, talks to you intently for over an hour, then suddenly announces he is going home now with his mates, abandoning you alone at the bar?
Anyway, here's my theory. These days we women know we need to be logical, not emotional. We know we have to play by rules that men invented. (That's one reason why we put up with two years of business school...) So these days, we subscribe to theories and frameworks, such as HJNTIY and the dreaded Rules, all designed to help us recognise, compartmentalise, rationalise and respond appropriately to various forms of acceptable and non-acceptable male behaviour . In other words, the woman of today knows she is not meant to dissolve into hysterics everytime someone doesn't call her when he said he would.
But the difficulty with the kind of behaviour as displayed in exhibits 1 and 2 above is that it is displays absolutely no logic whatsoever. As Dr Spock might say, "it does not compute." Even the most rational of women cannot make any sense of it. It's almost as if men are rebelling against being rationalized: they are regressing into randomness and whim just as women are becoming more Vulcan-like than ever.
It's incredibly frustrating: I have to say, I'm with the man with the ears.
Over a couple of "Mr Big" martinis pre-TNDC, my friend AsianStudiesMeredith told me how, a year ago this weekend, she met a dude at Darden Days.
Darden Days, for those who have not had the pleasure of experiencing them, is a weekend in which technically speaking, admits - people who have been made offers to attend the school in the fall - can come and look around and decide if they like it. Non-technically speaking, it is full of male admits coming to check out to see if there are any hot women. I went to Darden Days in 2001 with KiltGuy. We both thought that the fixed grins and relentless enthusiasm was somewhat reminiscent of Stepford. This year, I anticipate even fixed-er grins than usual, given that applications are down 20% and they are literally searching under rocks to fill 300 places.
Anyway, AsianStudiesMeredith and the admit (who hailed from a country south of the equator that speaks Portuguese) got together on the first day of DD and henceforth were inseparable for the rest of the weekend. When she went off to Japan for six months, as AsianStudies people are wont to do, the admit was determined not to lose touch. He phoned. He emailed. He sent postcards. He instant-messaged. "Oh, I read in the paper there was a typhoon in the Far East - are you OK? I've been so worried about you!!" And so on.
I don't think ASM can be blamed, therefore, for expecting at least a minor league gesture of enthusiasm from this dude when she returned to Middleofnowheresville around Christmas-time. And indeed, on email and IM, enthusiasm was the order of the day. But as soon as ASM suggested meeting up for a quick coffee, CrapGuy-from-south-of-the-equator reacted as if she had proposed marriage. "Why do you have to rush things, I want this relationship to happen naturally!" he bleated.
Then the serious crap started to go down. Details of the 23 year old girlfriend, who had been on the scene all along, suddenly emerged. CrapGuy blocked ASM from IM-ing him (the ultimate gesture of hostility in the modern world). CrapGuy started making cryptic comments to ASM's male friends, along the lines of, where is she, don't tell me, I want her, I don't want her. One year on, with this crap still going on (as recently as two days ago), ASM has no choice but to ask herself: what was that all about?
***
The second story involves my sister, B__k.
In January this year, she met a nice guy, M_, they went out regularly: he seemed very keen.
After about six weeks of everything going great, B__k, who works for a major international airline based in Britain, started wondering to herself if she should make him her Designated Travelling Companion. (DTCs get a 90% discount on airtickets). She knew it was early days in their relationship, but her airline is very strict about only letting you designate your travelling companion once a year, on March 1. And she felt like if this really was going somewhere, she would kick herself later if he wasn't able to accompany her on flights. So, without mentioning it to him, in mid February she filled out the form and designated him.
Two weeks later (on March 5), they arranged to meet up to go shopping in Selfridges. They had a great time. As they said goodbye, he said he would see her the following day, a Sunday. And then he disappeared: and that was the last she ever saw of him.
In some ways, I wish the story ended there. But it gets worse. A couple of weeks later, B__k having spent some considerable time begging her employer to let her change her travelling companion, on the grounds that her Designated One had vanished off the face of the planet, her mobile phone rang.
"Where is he?" an unidentified woman's voice demanded.
My sister replied that she thought the woman must have the wrong number.
"No, I don't. Tell M_ I know he's there! This is his wife speaking!"
My sister had no choice but to reply, truthfully, that there was noone called M_ at that address. And ended the call post haste. It was clear that even under the most generous of construals, M_ (who had claimed he had been separated from his wife for some time) had not been strictly truthful with her; and all things considered, she recognized she had had a lucky escape. But she still wonders to herself: what was that all about?
***
Driving home, I reflected on these two tales. My own outing to TNDC that night had featured a couple of inexplicable displays of crap male behaviour. What's it all about, for example, when a guy fights his way across a crowded room to your side, insists on buying you a drink, talks to you intently for over an hour, then suddenly announces he is going home now with his mates, abandoning you alone at the bar?
Anyway, here's my theory. These days we women know we need to be logical, not emotional. We know we have to play by rules that men invented. (That's one reason why we put up with two years of business school...) So these days, we subscribe to theories and frameworks, such as HJNTIY and the dreaded Rules, all designed to help us recognise, compartmentalise, rationalise and respond appropriately to various forms of acceptable and non-acceptable male behaviour . In other words, the woman of today knows she is not meant to dissolve into hysterics everytime someone doesn't call her when he said he would.
But the difficulty with the kind of behaviour as displayed in exhibits 1 and 2 above is that it is displays absolutely no logic whatsoever. As Dr Spock might say, "it does not compute." Even the most rational of women cannot make any sense of it. It's almost as if men are rebelling against being rationalized: they are regressing into randomness and whim just as women are becoming more Vulcan-like than ever.
It's incredibly frustrating: I have to say, I'm with the man with the ears.
posted by alranson | 4:23 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting take.. and By the way. Yes you are now on.
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