Tuesday, May 31, 2011

What is he?

Is he gay, is he bi, is he straight? Or is he just superman? How does one ask this question in this day of political correctness? Aren’t we supposed to be cool with whoever that person is and engage with the entire personality rather than one bit of the identity? Especially since that is what I am constantly telling people in all the workshops that I do. “Let people choose their own identities, do not foist one upon them. After all behavior is not indicative of what the person actually believes in” blah, blah and blah. But when it comes to the crunch, one should know.

So boy meets girl and both hang out together. They have fun and seem to have some common spaces they inhabit but lots of uncommon areas too. Girl is busy trying to figure this man out since it has not rained men in a long while and she is now getting a bit anxious about meeting “someone interesting”. Now that she has, she is racked with the lack of knowledge of the swing of this one person. She cannot ask around since that will surely get back to him and he would figure out she is interested. And how awful that would be if he was straight – she would appear to eager, if he was gay – she would appear foolish and if he was bi – that would be wishful thinking!

I know countless women who are searching for that “one” person they could engage with. The constant refrain I hear is that men today are gay, married, confused or all of the above. What is a woman to do then? Married men are easier to spot since they often have tell tale signs but in these days of metrosexual men, nothing is quite clear.

Men on the other hand are constantly cribbing about the lack of women. Their complaint is not that the women are lesbian, they just find them too competitive and independent. Why can’t women be just women and be happy with having doors opened for them and being taken out for meals. Occasionally, they want the intellectual discourse but for the rest of the time they are happy just having a “woman” around who is what she is meant to be – according to the male lexicon. None of this strident feminist stuff, makes the women look ugly; they should be sexy and smart and be available when the men are ready to engage. Ideally, there should be no talk of commitment, because that scares them so. But if the woman does not appear needy, then who knows commitment may follow!

So here we are in a world, where the available men are not the men we want since we do not know where their preferences lie and the women are not the women that men want since they are not women really! All operating at cross purposes and the search continues eternal!
May 29, 2011

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