Tip number 1: There are no tips. In fact, I don’t have a clue. In all these years of trying I have yet to figure out how to understand women, just like my female friends and acquaintances have been unable, despite their tireless efforts, to understand men. I have given up. Most of us apparently haven’t. [break]
This desire to ‘understand’, I suspect, stems from our tendency to find easy fixes to what are essentially incredibly complex problems. To want to explore is a universal human desire. But when it comes to relationships and trying to understand the opposite sex, we might be looking at all the wrong places. What the popular magazines and webzines we turn to for succor do is normalize all relationships, offering one-size-fits-all answers to what are knotty philosophical conundrums with no clear answers. If only you tried to understand his or her mindset a wee bit better, they tell you, most of your relationship problems would be solved. If only things were so easy!
Short of sex change (I not sure even that would work), men might never be able to truly understand women.
A German study earlier this year found that it was twice as difficult for the men to accurately guess what the women were feeling as it was for them to guess what the men were feeling. The researchers attribute this discrepancy to evolutionary imperatives: “As men were more involved in hunting and territory fights, it would have been important for them to… foresee the intentions… of their male rivals.” But save for very limited areas, I seriously doubt if men are all that good at understanding other men. When it comes to trying to understand the opposite sex, the situation can be truly hopeless.
A friend of mine (who I suspect ticked all the relationship do’s) recently got dumped by his girlfriend. He was heartbroken. The poor chap never saw it coming. He loved her to bits, did everything in his capacity to keep her happy. But one fine day, his girlfriend decided to walk out on him. She didn’t just walk out. After four years together, as she was leaving, she literally kicked him aside, as if “I was a piece of trash!” Now this most down-to-earth man believes that all women are cruel and unreliable and you should not hesitate to get what you want from them, while you still can. Another friend was listening to my first friend choke on his words. The best way of ‘extracting’ lasting commitment from a Nepali woman, the second friend offered by the way of consolation, was to have sex with her because although she might not say it, “she is dying to do it, just like us!” These are both educated, urbane men.
I know of many women who have been forced to revisit their views on men and relationships after heartbreaking breakups. Again, the script is pretty much the same: Men are cruel and unreliable and can go to any extent for sexual satisfaction.
I am not sure there are universally distinct male and female characteristics the knowledge of which can help us understand each other better. In my experience, both men and women share common human strengths, but also some of the same weaknesses: the ability for unbound love, but also for bitter hatred; for great acts of kindness, but also the capacity for unbridled cruelty.
Yet the remarkable thing is how different each of us is despite some of these shared traits. This might be because no two people have the same genes, or the same upbringing. No wonder we are divided into such a wide spectrum of personalities—the most commonly used ‘personality indicator’ divides us into 16 groups, with room for further subdivision.
Now an attempt is being made to try to understand this incredibly diverse group of people by placing them into two neat groups, men and women, each with fixed but distinct character-sets. In the process what we are essentially doing, whether we realize it or not, is trying to stamp out all surprises from the ‘other’ camp, with men trying to predict women’s behavior, and vice-versa.
As in life, the surprises in relationships are not always pleasant, but they are inevitable. Rather than accept them, and realize how they add to the richness of our lives, we are trying to avoid them. Hence the perpetual quest to understand the opposite sex and forestall any possible hurt. But this is self-defeating, no better than trying to gaze into the future by looking into a crystal ball. Chances are you will see nothing. You knew you wouldn’t. The question is: Would you have been happier if you had actually seen your future in clear details?
The writer is the op-ed
editor at Republica.
biswas.baral@gmail.com
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