Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Debate on men and women

23rd October 2006

From the Desk of Raghunandan Jagdish aka Raghudon

Raghu@hi-lift.biz

Site: http://raghudonspeaks.blogspot.com

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Happy Diwali to all. Diwali is the festival of lights and action. In this lighting (and noise) I thought of writing something weird from what I normally do :=)

About Men and women – Hum/Tum. I am not a professor at this subject and also my knowledge is limited but I learn from others mistakes. So this is a small thesis from me.

For those who don't know till now, I write a regularly updated blog http://raghudonspeaks.blogspot.com This is updated regularly and you can also get the latest episodes delivered to your email if you send an empty email to raghudonspeaks-subscribe@yahoogroups.com You will be added to the list. Also I appreciate getting feedback – either on email or directly on the site using the comments section. So please use it. I hope to write in at least once a week when I have the time. The topics can be esoteric – philosophy, forwarding of nice poetry, some latest news, debates. Etc. I assure you its NOT spam! Thanks to a certain someone to inspire this effort! As effortlessly as a chameleon J

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A Dear friend and me were having a talk about men and the kind of women they are with as well as women and the kind of men they are with. My dear friend was a "she" so there was views from both Mars and Venus!

She's a drop dead looker. She has an amazing sense of humour and empathy. She is a real nice person so to speak. But she always had the wrong relationships. I am … well… I AM… and I too have not really found the relationships that sustain and last… so out of the talk, there was a slight semblance to some new logic we could see.

1) There are theories that nice guys finish last. It may be true if the nice guy has NO OTHER qualification. Just being nice will not take him places! Otherwise there are lots of nice guys who may begin slowly but then at the end of the day all around them people ae proud to be associated with them.

2) There are theories that girls always like the jerks and not the nice guys. I think this is because the jerks always believe in the law of averages. They ASK… and they know that there can only be two choices – yes and no… so it's a 50% probability… so worth the chance. By the time the nice guy has made up his mind, the girl already has a swoolen tummy from here first child! Its this indeciciveness that kills his chances.

10 Reasons Women (who aren't Heartless Bitches!) Date Jerks Instead of Nice Guys (source : http://www.heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/datejerk.shtml )

a. It's more fun to complain about them to her friends.

b. Guys who actually like her just aren't challenging or exciting.

c. When she does date nice guys, they turn into jerks anyway, so why not save time and go for the jerk in the first place?

d. She won't get as emotionally attached to a jerk, so she'll be more in control.

e. All the other women want them, so they must be worth having.

f. Affection means more when it comes from a guy who doesn't normally give it.

g. Guaranteed to cheat on her so someone else can endure his lack of lovemaking skills most of the time.

h. No need to feel guilty for abusing or deceiving them.

i. Jerks will actually tell her when they don't like what she's doing instead of getting mad about it six months later.

j. She was looking for someone she can't trust, and won't care about too much, who will abuse her mentally and financially, but she didn't know any lawyers.

3) Also what is the frequency with which the nice guys turn into jerks and vice versa? I think sometimes in my life I have acted like a jerk and in hindsight it makes me feel bad… but at other times I was a nie guy. What causes this transformation? Maybe gotta think harder and it's a food for thought after I get replies (of course more brickbats then boquets J )

The Man With No Spine - A parable for "Nice Guys"

There once was a man without a spine.

He was a very likable guy. The advantage of not having a spine was that he could fit himself to anyone, and he frequently did. He could flex this way and that.

But he couldn't stand up ...

...and being kinda mushy and flat most of the time, people often walked on him without realizing he was there.

So he got sad, having this dreadful absence of a spine, and he was resentful too. He wondered why other people couldn't fit themselves to him the way he fit himself to others, but that was silly because he never felt he had the right to ask anyone directly to fit themselves to him. He was formless, what was there to fit to anyway? In cyberspace he talked tough as if he had a spine, but people could clearly see by his rage and resentment that he didn't have one in real life, and he perished in the flame wars he provoked and only came out feeling more ashamed and ineffectual.

He wished he could be with a woman, to help him the way a spine would. If he clung to a woman with a spine, he could stand up, but women didn't like it when he did that. He often called them "bitches" for the women with spines coldly asked him to let go of them, or unceremoniously shrugged him and his issues off onto the ground telling him to get his own spine.

If he fancied a spineless woman, on the other hand, he couldn't get her interest because they were looking for men with spines that they could cling to. But the spineless women would hang around with him for sympathy, and he'd be their platonic male friend and play "therapist" though he was as sick as they were. He'd often call himself a "feminist" and lecture these spineless women how to stand on their own when he had no idea of how to stand for himself.

With all the bending and flopping around he did, a spine never could get a chance to grow.

Then one day he had a brainstorm, he decided he'd make himself a spine.

He took a long stick.... and he put it far up his ass.

It was an improvement, though uncomfortable. It was the first time in his life he could walk tall, if not a bit stiff. He found he could have opinions at odds with others, and stand for them. He found out that he didn't have to be liked, that the world didn't end if he pissed someone off. He didn't want to fit easily with other people anymore, in fact he became inflexible.

People commented on the change, some people didn't particularly like him with the stick up his ass but they did notice him more. Some people felt that at least they could respect him, even if they didn't always like him because he did less whining. At least nobody stepped on him by accident.

However relationships still didn't come easy, it was hard for a woman with a spine to love him with the stick up his ass. He was stiff, cold, brutally opinionated, condescending, and self-righteously hostile. But eventually he did attract a very pretty woman without a spine who saw him as a tower of strength to cling to.

At first he loved this woman, he thought the stick up his ass was the answer to his dating problems. He was finally being loved the way he once loved others. At first it was great, and then it was good, and then it was ok, and then it was uncomfortable, and by the end of a year it was infuriatingly suffocating. The spineless woman clung like a straightjacket. The horror!!! The horror!!!

But the stick up his ass made him so inflexible he didn't know how to get the spineless woman off of him, If only he could bend. He was trapped, upright in his "obligations", "duty to her", "guilt", "pride in his commitment", he spent months with his arms helplessly flapping about trying to get her off of him and trying not to look like he was doing that.

He was hoping that she would leave by hinting her indirectly, he used sarcasic tones, said mean things that were "just a joke", neglect, "constructive" criticism intended to insult. He only made the spineless woman feel more insecure, so she clung HARDER.

Spineless men envied him, called him a jerk for the way he was treating her, just the way he remembered how he used to envy other men before he had the stick up his ass (when he'd play consoler to their teary-eyed spineless girlfreinds). If only they knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a spineless person's embrace they'd understand. He wished she'd leave him for one of the spineless men who envied him. He felt ashamed for the way he must have made women feel in the past when he was trying to cling to them, he knew that they weren't so evil after all.

One day he decided that there was only one way to be free of the spineless woman once and for all, the stick up his ass had to go.

So he pulled the stick out, and to his amazement a miracle happened: he was still standing! All of the years of inflexibility allowed him the chance to grow a spine. At first he was still a bit stiff but eventually he had the flexibility to contort a bit and yet maintained the firmness to struggle, push, and wriggle from the spineless woman's grasp (though she protested much). He stayed far out of her reach and the reach of other spineless women so that he could never be grasped by one again.

He was overjoyed with his new-found freedom; he could bend sometimes like he used to (but not too far) and also he could stand tall. He went out, partied, enjoyed life to the fullest, and eventually found a woman with a normal spine like his.

They stood together as separate individuals giving mutual support and enjoying time alone too, and lived (relatively) "happily ever after"...

The end :)

7 comments:

Suba 5:59 PM  

I really liked the parable. But it can easily be converted to show a woman without a spine goign through all that :):) It doesn't matter whether it is a man or a woman, it's just about a spineless human.
As for why women date jerks - I'd read it for the humour at best. Yes, "humans" are attracted to the bad ones, but isn't that just for fun and for a fling? How many do it to get married and settled down?

Raghunandan Jagdish 8:56 PM  

Suba:
Thanks for your comments. Agreed, thats exactly my point... why cant there be a first time right policy? why cant two people of the same kind meet and stay happily ever after?
is it that in the initial stage, the similar will repeal and opposites attract? and then when people are erious about stability, they look for a semblance of compatibility?

and you are right, it can be about spineless "humans" ... i wrote man as i was thinking about it from the male perspective.

Virendra Mohite 6:10 AM  

I would like to express my opinions on this topic and thanks to Raghu for providing this opportunity.

I agree...the spineless can be either a man or a woman...coz I have seen both kinds. I just dont like the term spineless. These people are not cowards...they are just inexperienced and have no idea what to do.

We hear it all the time that you have to be yourself in a relationship etc. but I believe that you also need to be slightly manipulative. Not to hurt or take advantage of the other person..but just to maintain a balance in the relationship.

Ok here we are talking about nice guys finishing last. Well to start with the so called nice guys need to understand a few basic laws:
1. We tend to follow things which elude us
2. If we get something easily we start doubting its worth and credibility
3. (the most important law) Value is proportional to Demand/Supply

These are not some new laws...we all know these. But we think that these do not apply to relationships. As a matter of fact they do.

People confuse attraction with logic. In reality they have little or no relation to each other. First and foremost liking depends on that particular person. Obviously one man's food can be other man's poison. we like/love something depending on our past memories/experiences and what we perceive to be important and lovable. The little relation to logic is that the person has to meet our bare minimum thresold for lovability...but even that is not hard and fast...e.g. a girl might not be very pretty as per my opinion but her smartness or the way she presents herself or something else will easily compensate for that. But let us imagine a situation where say there are 5 girls which meet our so called minimum criteria in core departments such as beauty, brains and character (within a sufficient tolerance band)....but you might get attracted to one particular girl. So what does that one girl have more than the other 4? I think its just that we think that this particular girl evokes a special feeling in us....an attraction which might be difficult to explain. And this attraction is not something which happens at one point of time. Frankly speaking and I am sure others will agree that Love at first sight only happpens in novels and movies. Its a gradual process and it depends on how the 2 people involved behave with each other.

It might be helpful to look at the above stated 3 laws for a possible explanation of attraction which may or may not be followed by a relationship. We are usually attracted towards and pursue things which elude us. So if that girl/guy maintains his own distance but yet is good to the other person...the perceived value of the person goes up. If the guy/girl is always at a beacon call from the other person then that person starts doubting the value/worth of the relationship. So it is very important to maintain that sacred demand/supply ratio. The person who has the lower self confidence of the two usually commits the mistake of increasing the supply without demand. This results in a decrease in the value perceived by the other person.

On the question as to why there cannot be a right the first time situation. Well...once you have the intial attraction going one has to meticulously and carefully maintain the sacred ratio if he wants the relationship to survive. I am not saying that we become deceptive and stop being who we really are...but you have to agree that sometimes we do go overboard. Well its ok to be overboard sometimes...but if you do it everytime then you are calling for a sharp decrease in perceived value of all your efforts. So even if you are succesful in scoring the initial points in attraction department one needs to be vigilant, flexible, patient and controlled in order to keep the perceived value high. Its not that you should pretend to be someone else..its just that you need to regulate the flow of your emotions and your actions. And I didnt say that is easy.

Raghunandan Jagdish 7:41 AM  

Viren, very succint thoughts. Thank you for posting them here. I will comment more on your take later.

Unknown 12:17 AM  

What is the meaning of finishing last here??? I mean nice guys finish last.... hmm so does that mean that what is really happening here is that one will be classified as finishing first would be the one who scores the most? If that is the case then the nice guys will always finish last, because they believe in scoring very less...and probably just once, so that their choice is perfect to last a lifetime.

If that is not the criteria for classification then what is it... being able to win a beautiful girl's heart is the criteria?? If I get it right, then there is this beautiful girl up for grabs (pardon the pun) and there are a number of guys vying for her attention, so the nicest guy would be picked last by the girl...sorry if that is the case then the girl is a dumb blonde...just in the same way when a guy goes all out to be with a girl just because she looks gorgeous. I can understand these hormonal imbalances when girls and guys are in their teens, but not when they are grown up...I mean above 22..

I have heard so many cases about women putting up with nasty guys in the hope that they will change, even knowing fully well that the chances are next to nothing. Not that these women are not independent, and they have to rely on these bullies. There seems to be no logical explanation and all I can think of is women are much more conscious about what others will think of them and their actions than men.

So when it so happens that they land up with the wrong guy, they put up with them more than it is required. Frankly I have no pity for such women, because they set up a very wrong example for their children.

Unknown 12:18 AM  

What is the meaning of finishing last here??? I mean nice guys finish last.... hmm so does that mean that what is really happening here is that one will be classified as finishing first would be the one who scores the most? If that is the case then the nice guys will always finish last, because they believe in scoring very less...and probably just once, so that their choice is perfect to last a lifetime.

If that is not the criteria for classification then what is it... being able to win a beautiful girl's heart is the criteria?? If I get it right, then there is this beautiful girl up for grabs (pardon the pun) and there are a number of guys vying for her attention, so the nicest guy would be picked last by the girl...sorry if that is the case then the girl is a dumb blonde...just in the same way when a guy goes all out to be with a girl just because she looks gorgeous. I can understand these hormonal imbalances when girls and guys are in their teens, but not when they are grown up...I mean above 22..

I have heard so many cases about women putting up with nasty guys in the hope that they will change, even knowing fully well that the chances are next to nothing. Not that these women are not independent, and they have to rely on these bullies. There seems to be no logical explanation and all I can think of is women are much more conscious about what others will think of them and their actions than men.

So when it so happens that they land up with the wrong guy, they put up with them more than it is required. Frankly I have no pity for such women, because they set up a very wrong example for their children.

Unknown 1:28 AM  

Humourous and well written. With my experience, rather, the lack of it thereof, excuse what I've conjured up a "moral of the story". It is as under...
A "stick up the ass" is a metaphor for a spine on steroid. It assumes an artificiality of sorts. An artificiality that festers and feeds off the reaction that it garners from others. It's a mix of temporary allure and shock-and-awe. For a moment in time, you dispel the myth that you are a push-over. On the contrary, you feel like you're creating push-overs of those who surround you. You think you can really "stick up" to people and "stick down" your nose at them. You're doing a darn good job of it too. After all, as the old adage goes, it isn't a lie, if you believe it's true. Or something to that effect. I mess up quotes sometimes. Excusez-moi.
Point is, as all things do, this too passes. When your spine on steroid starts to have an overbearing influence on others, you think that perhaps, you must start letting up a little. You obviously wouldn't want a host of flies swarming over you and clinging to you like you're delightful shit-pie. The other extreme being, you wouldn't want to piss them off beyond reconciliation or keep the numbers in check atleast. You're bound to piss some smart arses off for sure, because they've been there before and they know your game.
And anyway, golden rule, when someone accuses you of using dope, you vehemently and categorically deny all charges.
Just as when the spine, fresh on dope, recorded activity gaining in intensity in quick time, so does the activity start to die down. Once you've acceded to the thought of letting up a little, it's all spiralling downwards.
You're grandiosity crumbles bit by bit and a new man / woman emerges (whichever applies). Improved, imformed, resolute and strong, yet reformed and sensitive to the feelings of others.
Wow, as I am writing this, I am reminded of Nietzche's "Ubermensch" or "Superman". Note to readers, if any : This was not a conscious attempt to ape. I must, however, admit, that as I am applying my logic to this, I am more so convinced of Nietzche's viewpoint.
Anyway, I think one needs to experience both to assimilate the pros and the cons of being in both situations at different points in time and then arrive at the all-too important "balance".
Further, being on either side is the result of free will. You make conscious choices. It is not a question of who you are and who you are not. It is a question of what you can do to achieve the purpose you wish to achieve going by either option. Human as we are, we wish to achieve different things at different points in time. Hence, the lack of focus, constant moulding and meandering until we've been through a range of experiences that parallel each other and finally, as in this case, we "pull the stick out". Or going by my metaphor for it, you go into rehab mode to achieve the aforementioned "balance".
I see this as inevitable not because it's unconscious but because it is conscious.
Of course, I'm not fixated with my opinion in this matter, after all, I am but a child and so I can consciously change it :P
I'd apologise if I thought that this might be perceived as a big waste of time and that I'm unnecessarily wordy and garrulous.
But you see, I am but a child and I can't consciously come up with that yet.
Hehehe... solid confusion. I'll stop now.
Good read again, Mr. Raghudon. Later.

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