Francois Sagan did say,

“I like men to behave like men. I like them strong and childish.”

The proverbial honeymoon comes to an end (proverbial, I said. That means its metaphorical, people. I retain my ‘unmarried girl’ status). Life with Mr.Everyday means some rainy days among the sunshine. The wonderfuller-than-life boyfriend proves himself to be a typical guy.

It started a couple of weeks back when I came down with the monsoonitis, that kuff-kuff-sniff-sniff-i’m-burning-up vestige of Mumbai rains. Plans were accordingly changed (at which point I digress to say I’m the one who makes the plans while the man likes to ‘go with the flow’, read ignore anything less interesting than Predators, XBox, beefsteaks and me). I warned him that Mumbai rains were viral and not romantic, that God made umbrellas for a reason, that dampness was catching. *Sigh*

On Sunday, after many reminders and patient chipping away (mine) on stubborn resistance (his), boyfriend was induced to wake up early to catch a morning movie. To his credit he did manage to make it on time….to the wrong theater. It took him another 25 minutes to get to the right place, by which time the movie had begun and we missed getting good seats. Well, what do you do with a man who listens to every thing you say (no kidding, even my obsessing over long-lost friends, whining about public transport and PMSey complaints) except directions? Shrug and accept that he still is a man after all.

Mid-week the realisation came fully to fore when those tricky monsoonitis germs finally shifted their focus from my lungs to his. Mr.’Arre-don’t-worry-nothing-happens-to-me’ sniffed and sneezed his way into fludom. And voila, transformation! My otherwise placid, stoic, independent, sensible boyfriend was transformed into a classic literary character. The Dr.Jekyll self was MachoMale with manly shrug of shoulders, albeit a refusal to acknowledge that I really did tell him to stay out of the rain, not fall asleep in wet clothes and avoid suspect food. I did tell him so, I did, I did! (Okay, I am after all human female too).

I had to drag him to the doctor, I kid you not. Once there, we went over the vaguely familiar “Can we leave now? Now? Now? Can we go? Please? Please?” And then Mr.Hyde truly showed up in the form of BigBabyness. First the irritability. Then the refusal to eat sensible sick food. Cold pepsi for dinner, pizza for breakfast and tomato soup for lunch all with medication!!! Then aggravated sickness leading to further irritability. Finally culminate in guilty feeling semi-compliments alternated by irritable ‘I can take care of myself!’ type remarks (yeah, right). *End of mommy-like rant*

Which brings me to the firm realisation that men are genetically incapable of being their normal selves while unwell. I don’t mind mood swings; I mean, I’m a woman, after all! But men uniformly turn into that MachoMan/BigBaby combination. I’m not exaggerating. Even dad, the manliest man of them all is prone to this when his acidity attacks strike. Why do men roar and growl exactly when their throats (and tummies and heads and various other bits and pieces) need rest?

One of my friends did warn me to not mother the boyfriend but really, what is a woman to do with this? Boyfriend has duly been rechristened Babyfriend and I don’t care what he says but he has to clean his plate and take his medicine before I’ll return his XBox controller to him.

                          

My friend Nikhil (okay, no pun intended there, that’s really his name!!!) told me about a project that his firm was working on recently and I thought it would be interesting to the Gaysi community. This is Fabulis, a social networking site for gay and gay-friendly people.

Fabulis appears to sit on top of the Facebook framework (it requires a Facebook account to login) and works more like an extended application than a network in itself. I guess this has its advantages since Facebook is an Internet phenomenon now and anybody who is anybody is on it (or is that Twitter, again?).

The site asks you to provide an email address and a location. My first entry threw up the following error message:

“Oops! Please enter a valid city. Please enter text as Boston, MA or Paris, France”

But when I started to type ‘M’ (since that looked closest to Mumbai even if Mumbai doesn’t abbreviate to MA), the drop-down menu of suggestions did list other cities including my home city.

When you sign in, you are asked to identify yourself as either a ‘gay man” or a ‘friend to gay guys’. Barring the obvious oversight in leaving out gay women, it’s a nice enough start. You’re also asked to enter tags to describe yourself and your interest with a default tag of ‘friend to gay guys’. I changed this to ‘friend of gay people’ and happily found that the drop-down menu of suggestions contained various versions of it.

Fabulis pulls the information from your Facebook account (including privacy settings), imports photographs and also shows you which of your friends are already using the application. It also draws up information from your Facebook calendar and posts updates of your public events inviting responses from other users of the community.

Once you’re in, the network works a little less like Facebook and more like Twitter. That is to say, you don’t exactly befriend people. You can follow them and/or be followed by them. The privacy settings allow you to raise the bar on who can follow you.

In addition to the obvious networking features, it also has its own network currency of Fabulis bits. Fabulis bits can be earned by participating in activities. Similar to the Zynga Games model, you can also earn by engaging in side-offers. These are plowed back into the monetary ecosystem as you spend them on answering other people’s questions or helping them along in their contests. You can also use Fabulis bits to buy upgrades and cheat codes for the games and contests. And finally, Fabulis bits are what you spend if you really, really want to follow someone who is ultra-picky about their privacy and has enabled the setting that forces followers to pay for the privelege.

I also tested the account deletion options (after an unsavory experience with ibibo.com which still refuses to let me go and insists on bombarding my mailbox with spammy messages). Happily Fabulis doesn’t believe in clinging on and the detachment process if fairly simple. You just click on ‘Settings’ under your profile name on the top-right which takes you to a list of options. The last of these is ‘Close Account’ with the expected “Are you sure?” message. Do note though, that if you choose to leave the network, you’ll have to go to Facebook and delete the application from having access to your account. If not, your Fabulis account will still be connected a la social networking on life support systems.

The prizes for the contests are apparently available to users in every location and are supposed to be very attractive to the gay community. I can’t confirm this myself since I haven’t participated in any of the events but it sounds like an interesting way to target the community. I guess a social network undergoes a collective learning process. Identifying itself as a network that addresses itself to this community is the first step and it will probably depend on the user group and how they choose to utilize the features that the site offers.

Fabulis is also on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

* Cross-posted on Gaysi and The Idea-smithy.

                          

I miss being fabulously single.

I’ve been it for so long, it has become a part of my identity. A huge, glamorous, proud-of-it, reveling-in-it part which is the one thing that conflicts with being in a relationship. A good relationship is wonderful in a number of ways. But it still involves a lot of adapting and even letting go of other things that were good in their own right. And that’s not always easy to do.

Fabulousness came to me as a concept through the pop culture interventions of SATC and chick-lit. It encompasses being successful, smart, stylish, sexy, confident, independent and cool. It is the epitome of ‘having it all together’. It isn’t quite the same as ‘the swinging bachelordom’ but it’s probably a female complement of the same thing.

It’s not that I’m not happy. It’s lovely to have someone, just have them. The closeness, the togetherness, the delightful joys of being part of a couple…I haven’t grown up so much that I’ve lost the ability to love those. It’s a fairytale dream come true. Friendship, laughter, trust, shared interests, freedom.

It’s just that this is a new shade of happy, one that supposedly replaces the older ways I devised of doing so. It may seem materialistic and frivolous but my old life was a polished, complete packaged finished just the way I wanted. I had my downers, my deep wells of loneliness and the clashes with locally accepted norms of what my life should be. I braved them all and I emerged as someone I was really proud of being.

Oddly enough, what I miss is not what you’d think. It’s not the freedom to date anyone I please that I actually miss. Really, being with the right person is so much better than twenty fun dates with different guys. But being fabulous is living the knowledge that you have truly and well put it all together all on your own. It’s the heady high of breaking the rules as well as the sheer power of making new ones of your own. It’s the solid comfort of an identity that you’ve defined for yourself, outside of your relationships. It is the arrogance of knowing that you rule the world you live in. This is not a feeling most girls grow up with. It’s not something most women ever have a chance to experience in their lifetimes. I have and it’s so amazing, I’m having real trouble letting it go.

There are times when I slip into my old self. Snarky, biting-sharp. It’s not always meanness, some of that has become part of the way I am, quite literally my biting wit. But that way of being is only possible when you’re really and truly a loner. You hold the world at a distance and it keeps you on a pedestal as well. You entertain, you protect yourself and you bask in the attention. It isn’t a bad thing. I enjoyed every minute of it and I’m not apologetic about missing it.

I still can’t get used to the idea that I don’t have to keep an eye on my watch when I’m out so I can get home by myself, that there is someone who’ll see my home safely. I’m still grappling with the awkwardness of the extension of my identity, where I find myself having to explain my new relationship status to friends who’ve been out of touch, to people I bump into at social events.

Last week I had a very brief and timed chat with Adi. It had to be since I was getting ready for an evening out and he was on his way to a date. Our schedules have not matched for a few months. Add to that, weekends devoted to the significant others, evenings for other social dos, one working while the other sleeps….and we find we haven’t really spoken in months. But it was Adi after all, so we were able to laugh about it. Then we spent the last 5 minutes of the call figuring out a time when we would both be free to talk without having to get back to work or falling asleep or neglecting our important others. Co-ordinating two busy people’s schedules wasn’t easy; now it’s four calendars to be matched.

If I’m not single anymore, can I still be fabulous? Why would I need to be, I can hear the voices of dissent ask. But that’s the crux of it. Being fabulous may have seemed like a consolation prize for being in a relationship but it turned out it wasn’t. I genuinely enjoyed the life I had and I miss those wonderful parts of it. Maybe it is possible to still be my fabulous self as well as one half of a happy couple. But I haven’t figured out that balance yet. You see, fabulousness just is such an extreme, self-involved idea, I can’t put it together with concepts like moderation and sharing.

                          

How similar do people have to be to get along? How different can they be?

He is a loner, doesn’t like too much attention and prefers minimalism. I’m the original social butterfly, I thrive on company and drama is my style.

On the surface, our interests seem to match. But scratch that and we uncover big differences. He likes literature, thinks Shakespeare had the groove and enjoys Charles Dickens. I’ve never actually read any Bard originals (yes, kill me) and I couldn’t decide if Oliver Twist or David Copperfield was the most depressing thing I’d ever read (then I read Thomas Hardy who won hands-down). I love pop culture, the flash and dazzle, the kitsch and even the fleeting impressions it barely leaves on our psyche. He has a mild disdain for anything not deep or meaningful.

I read him a bit of my novel. He listened carefully, offered his thoughts and then admitted quite truthfully that it wasn’t his thing. That stung but only in the way that it stings that my best friend doesn’t read my blog or that my dad is never very impressed by anything I do. It’s a sting at best but it doesn’t really hurt. Not really.

To my great surprise, he doesn’t feel very passionately about writing and literature even though I know that he can write (well) and does appreciate the fineness of literature. It seemed quite inconceivable to me that someone who knew this world could fail to be deeply moved by it.

But then we got to music and it started to make sense. I’ve been singing since I was 4, had classical training and guitar lessons and even performed on stage. But it has never been anything more than a pleasant hobby, one I really can do with or without. It doesn’t even rank as highly as art on my list. He, on the other hand, is deeply devoted, nearly fanatical about music. Hip-hop to be precise, a genre that I never understood or (in all fairness) paid much attention to. But it surrounds him where he goes, on his phone and his computer, plugged into his ears whenever he’s waiting for me and in most of his conversational references.

I watched him perform earlier this week, freestyle rapping at a musical Open Mic. Even if this genre is new to me, I can appreciate the gift of spontaneous performance, the ability to hold the audience in the palm of one’s hand. He’s good, very good and that’s something even I can tell. I was terribly proud of him, thrilled at the applause that followed his act and struck by that slightly lovesick thought of,

That’s who I’m with? How did I ever get so lucky?!

He finished, bowed and turned around. A number of people rushed up to him to speak and suddenly, right there, was my Mr.Everyday, shy all at once and unsure about how to handle the bright spotlight. He’s a performer all right but off-stage, he’s just a regular, sweet guy with no fancy airs about him. It was both a sobering and a sweet insight.

He slid into the booth beside me, clearly thankful as the crowd’s attention shifted to the next performer. Then he talked about his performance for a bit and I listened. And we watched the other musicians. Towards the end of the night, he leaned over and said,

“I just realised that you like me, the person much more than you like me, the performer. I like that.”

I found a great guy, I did. Someone who sees both himself and me, beyond our professions and talents and makes it possible for this relationship to be between two real people instead of a competition.

To come back to my original thought, I guess I now understand what people mean when they say they are grateful for their differences. His non-starry-eyedness about my dreams and talents gives me perspective and keeps me grounded and (hopefully) I do the same for him. We have different worlds that we each rule but we walk alone in them. And when we meet, we form something together, that belongs to both of us equally. I never realized sharing could be so much fun.

                          

Movies are a complicated business these days.

There is the hysteria of the Fridaygoer who will all but maim in a bid to get to the box office first and then spend most of the movie updating his Facebook status from his phone. Then there’s the desperate reek of a Saturdaygoer who didn’t get any party invitations, doesn’t want to spend over a grand at a pub entry fee and will spend it instead on overpriced, stale multiplex food watching what everyone else pretended to watch the previous day. And of course there’s delightful Sunday characterised by screaming kids and loud aunties yelling popcorn orders to their husbands in the aisles. Weekdays used to be saner but now thanks to the kuttewaala network, Tuesdays are a mad melee of excitable collegians! That leaves Mondays when it’s too early to legitimately enjoy anything in this workaholic city. Wednesday is the sole movie night for the sane-and-wanting-to-stay-that-way.

Of course even this elaborate (and much elaborated-upon) decision complicates manifold with the arrival of the significant other. It quite makes one wonder what one ever thought one had in common with the other and exactly what the stuff of those endless conversations must have been. Do men change post-relationship or do we both?

Take this week’s movie date. The weekend scan of the listings had us at a standoff at the box office. Perhaps that’s why, in sheer desperation (or lack of foresight…we’re waiting on that one), the boyfriend rashly offered a compromise,

I’ll watch Eclipse with you if you’ll come for Predators!

Much to his amazement, I nodded. He hasn’t yet learnt about how patient even this impatient one can be….it’s early days, after all. Not a minute wasted, he rushed off to get the tickets. A few minutes before we entered the hall, better sense appeared to have prevailed and he asked (in a super-hopeful voice),

“You were just kidding about wanting to watch Eclipse, right?”

I fixed him with a don’t-you-dare look. So he tried another tack. (*Sigh* I keep telling the boy to learn to die gracefully)

“If you like this movie, it doesn’t count, okay!?”

“Predator for Eclipse. We had a deal, dude!”

And suddenly, the man next to me shook his head violently and addressed the boyfriend.

“You DON’T even want to think about it! Such a waste of time!”

Before I could glare at the boyfriend, rap strange man on head for butting in or yell ‘foul!’, they two had launched into a comparative bashing of Aisha and Eclipse. When they finally broke it up, boyfriend grinned back at me triumphantly and said,

The masses have spoken, see!

My characteristic ‘as-if’ eyebrow shrug before I said,

Thank your stars I didn’t ask you to watch SATC2 with me. Now let’s get this over with.

I sat through the movie without comment. And when the lights came on, he had to admit that it really hadn’t been a very good movie, after all.

Weekend booking plans start now. I’m going to wrangle a double-or-nothing deal out of this one. SCORE a point for the lady!

                          

The strange conversations with friends are alarming at first and then amusing. Picture this. A lazy Sunday, post-lunch langour, the blissfulness of knowing its icky-raining outside but you’re safe and dry indoors. The phone rings. The hand is reluctantly moved to hit the ‘answer’ button.

Hello? Yeah. Yeaaah. *Grin in my direction*. Haan. No, no. Yeah. Yeaaaah. Listen..oh, okay. Yeah. Yeaaaah. *One eye in my direction* Accha, sun. Haan. Yeaaaah. Okay, listen, I’m with IdeaSmith. Yeah. *Wide grin* Yeaaaah. Na, no problem. *Wider grin* Chalo, bye.

The grin is now self-satisfied. End of picture.

A fortnight ago, we wined and dined with E Vestigio. Drinking happened, talking happened, joking happened and funny things happened. E summoned me out seperately to tell me that yes indeed, she approved especially of that fact that ‘he’s not a fanboy’. Errrm, okay?! Later I excused myself and when I came back, both wore smug grins and were toasting each other and the League of Extraordinary Drinkers while my first glass lay only half down. It is bizarre when your boyfriend bonds with your friends over things that don’t concern you.

He listens in rapt silence (yes, we’re still in that phase) and then says,

You….think too much! Why does it matter what anyone else thinks? My friends, your friends, how does it matter?

I cringe. That makes me sound like an attention-hound. But people do matter. My people’s opinions certainly matter. And his people are, well, his people. They matter to him and hence their opinons do too. He sniffs that he doesn’t care what anyone thinks or says. But how can it not??!!! I want to yell. How can I not care about people who seem to know my name and who I’m closely involved with? How can they not matter to me? He just shrugs and grins back at me and for the time being, the questions are laid aside.

Later in the evening, I speak to E and make a dinner date with her. I add that I invited the man to join but he declined saying that the two of us needed to catch up and bitch about me. She laughs,

“I bet that’s exactly what he’s afraid of!”

“Nope, he’s smug in the knowledge that you like him.”

“Well, that’s true. He’s great.”

“I know.”

I grin. I guess it works out fine whether or not you think about it.

                          

I’ve thought and thought about how and what to do with this post. I actually have another draft but it doesn’t feel right. So I’ll do what I’ve always done with this blog – be honest.

The dilemma is something I did figure would come up someday, in fact I rather hoped it would. What happens to all my male-bashing, my dudette/chick schizophrenia, my girlie fascinations and my single gal rants when I’m not single anymore? Now’s when we get to find out. Yes, you read that right.

I’ve never written about him, either literally (reporting a conversation, incident or experience) or metaphorically (slotting into the character types I’ve painstakingly organized men into). He’s new to me and to this blog.

He’s smart and educated but he’s not a Pedigreed Pup. He’s a bit of a breakaway but not exactly a Bad Boy. He’s not a Male Slut or a Metrosexual Man. He’s a regular guy with his own funny quirks and irritating habits and surprises. I’m going to call him Mr.Everyday.

He’s really the kind of guy you might pass on the street or sit a few seats away from, in a show. Indeed, I very nearly missed him myself on some of these very occasions. It took one unplanned and spectacular conversation to crystallize an everyday guy into someone special, somebody I’d overstep a few boundaries to get to know, someone who might be worth a few risks. Someone I’d like to know, to be with, every single day.

He challenges my assumptions about men, about relationships and about life in general. He makes me laugh and he makes me think. He argues with me, agrees with me, is indifferent to some things I’m passionate about and points me towards things I never noticed before. He is a friend. And more. He’s the comfort of daily rituals with the tiny surprising discoveries of life each day. That’s why he’s my Mr.Everyday.

So this then, is the new man in my life and this is the new me. I was cooling off on the male-bashing theme anyway. Maybe it’s time to hold up a white flag in the battle of the sexes. A time for some fun and a little love.

Until the next post,
Not A Single Gal Anymore

                          

She tells me about her struggle with weight, coming to terms with it. And she quotes another friend who said that she had to stop obsessing over it, to stop making it the be-all or she’d never be happy. I point out that I said the same thing, a year ago. She pauses and in equal measures of honesty, vulnerability and courage, says,

“You are….a slim person.”

I know the unspoken words, I can complete them in my own head. How then, do I explain, how do I prove to her, that I really do understand? Let me tell stories, instead.

~O~O~O~O~

Age 7

“Let’s play StarTrek. I’ll be captain. You be the pointy-ears guy.”

“Who’ll I be?”

“There’s only two women, one fair one and and one dark one.”

“I’ll be the fair one.”

“But…”

“Yes, you can be the fair one. Let her be the dark one. She’s quite black anyway.”

“I don’t want to be the dark one.”

“Fine, go away. No one wants the dark one, anyway.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 22

“You are so black. And all these pimples….13…14…15”

“Don’t count them! I can’t help them.”

“17…18…19…”

“Please stop. Please, please, please stop.”

“I’ll won’t be seeing you for six weeks. Get your face cleaned up by then.”

Two hours later

“Bye, I’ll call you once I get settled in.”

“I brought you a little bye-bye gift.”

“Eraser face cream?”

“My dad recommends it to all his patients. Be sure to apply it every night. I want to see your pretty face without having to count those scars.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 13

“You can’t wear that!”

“Why not? It’s a great print! I love tie-ups!”

“It hangs on you. Look, let me show you how it should look. You…you don’t have the figure for it.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 18

“Put your shoulders in a bit.”

“Why? That’s bad posture.”

“A decent woman doesn’t put her bust out to the world.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 23

“You walk with your boobs thrust out. It’s like carrying a signboard that says ‘I’m easy’.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 23

“You’re ugly. The only reason a guy would be nice to you is because you look easy.”

“You are so ugly.”

“My friends don’t think you are hot. So I don’t want them to know about us. Don’t talk to me when they’re around.”

“Don’t hold my hand. I don’t want to be seen with a black girl.”

~O~O~O~O~

At every age

“No, madam, we don’t stock that size in ladies wear. Your feet are too big.”

“Why do you have to wear those ugly army boots? You just like to scare people, don’t you? They make you look like you have polio.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 12

“What are those things on your legs?”

“My knees are like that!”

“They look funny. People like you should not wear tights.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 16

“Where are you? I lost my friend!”

“Ha ha. It’s a loose kurta, okay? It’s comfortable.”

“You look like the pole inside a tent. Seriously, girls like you should not wear loose clothes.”

~O~O~O~O~

Age 16 onwards

“Madam can I show you something for those scars on your face?”

“Dark people should not wear red.”

“What are those marks on your upper arms (pointing to stretch marks)?”

“Open pores. Blackheads. Acne. You need help.”

“Is that hair on your back? Don’t you wax?

“Bags under your eyes.”

~O~O~O~O~

Red is my favorite colour.
Most of my garments are sleeveless.
I buy facepacks and lotions and scrubs. The skin stays mostly the same, give or take a few spots.
The knees are generally concealed in denims or attention is diverted away by a bold neckline.

No amount of exercise or dieting or bleaching or creaming is going to change my skin. Well…it holds my organs in. I try not to think about it. And I cover my thin skin with a thick attitude.

Yes, love, I do understand. Really.

                          

I love silver. It’s so versatile! Rings, pendants, eartops, hoops, bangles, bracelets, charms, chains, necklaces, stone-studded, filigreed, engraved. The only challenge with silver is keeping it gleaming in a humid city like Mumbai. My open secret is to use ash (the kind that temples give you with kumkum; they’re available in stores if you ask for vibhuti). Scrubbing with coconut coir is even better than your fingers or a toothbrush or any other implement. It doesn’t scratch the silver but makes it gleam instantly. Drinking from a silver cup is said to calm fiery temperaments and promote good health. So, in a nutshell….I love silver!

Which is why, I found Hippy Holly & Simple Sally’s giveaway contest irresistible. The prizes are a pair of smoky-quartz studded eartops, filigreed hoops and a silver pendant on a woven-thread necklace (shown below). The challenge is to write how I’d wear them.

Here’s how I’d do it:

My current look is fusion with a lot of cotton/silk, Indian designs/prints on western garments and kohl’d eyes. All three pieces of jewellery fit the look perfectly.

1. The filigreed hoops are pure tradition. I’d wear them with my chikan-and-hakoba white kurta which is sheer and has a deep neck. I usually wear it with a navy blue singlet inside and team it up with dark blue jeans, mojris or embroidered chappals for a classy fusion look.

2. The smoky-quartz eartops, more versatile could look modern or traditional depending on what they’re worn with. I’d wear them with a full white chuddidar-kurta ensemble for a traditional look. For a modern feel, I’d team them up with  my block-printed miniskirt, a white singlet and black jacket with embroidered sleeves. Alternately, these could really work with a plain black blouse, black harem pants and a dupatta tied around the waist like a belt. Or a plain navy blue dress with other silver highlights in jewellery.

3. The necklace would work with all the looks I mentioned above. Independently, I’d also wear it on a plain tee-shirt with jeans/ cotton pants/skirts. The pendant looks detachable so I’d also try wearing the thread chain around my wrist with charms (or a lighter pendant or two) attached to it.

I found this blog mentioned on Purple Peep-toes (spreading the link-love, as they suggest!). If you like dressing well (but not outrageously) and with style (but not necessarily high expense), this blog is for you. Holly & Sally’s blog, on the other hand, appear to focus more on accessories and creative ways of dressing. I enjoyed the Back to Black (well, almost) post particularly for its grey/black/blue themed illustrations. Check them out and participate in the contest if you love silver too!

                          

I feel let down. I put my foot right into my mouth justifying why women want to watch Sex And The City 2 despite the first movie having been such an epic disaster. The second one wasn’t just bad, it was mortifying!

I’m tempted to suspect that the second movie was secretly scripted by men and acted out by guys in reverse drag, all part of the anti-feminist movement. But credit where it’s due (or blame in this case). The SATCmania has spiraled downward into a place where even your best galpals don’t want to follow, or indeed be associated with.

Whininess, cheating (and being condoned), shameless ignorance of and blatant disrespect to other cultures, spoilt-princess behaviour….okay, none of these were ever on the agenda for women’s lib. I feel like I should apologize to all the men I’ve been preaching to over the years about equality and empowerment. This, ah….this wasn’t what I meant.

At another level, I feel like this movie mirrors my own attitude shift in the recent times. A close guy friend (yes, there is such a thing even though he’s straight) said something interesting.

“You know what the trouble with you women these days is? You’ve got your grades and then your promotions. You’re taking care of your families. You’ve got great careers and fabulous lives. And so you believe you’ve achieved everything and that you’re invincible. You know, you still do fall sick, you still need other people too. Everyone does. It’s not a man or a woman thing. But all of you act like no one else matters, run over anyone who cares about you because you think that’s how a powerful woman is supposed to behave.”

I didn’t like hearing that at all. But there was truth in what he said. He was thinking about his ex- who was sacrificing her health for career and lifestyle and refused to listen to his concerns over it. But I was thinking of my own workaholism, my arrogance and ruthlessness. I cultivated all of it thinking I needed it to survive in these times. Well, maybe that’s true or maybe it’s not. But it’s also left me with an unhealthy level of cynicism, I’ve lost a number of good friends over the years, there’s judgement where there used to be connection and oh yes, the health has suffered too. I’m not condoning chauvinism or saying equality was a bad idea. But that’s why this is so difficult. Toughness has meant losing gentleness, caring and indeed some of the most wonderful things about being me, being us.

The other side of feminism was supposed to acknowledge that men had emotions too and could be just as nurturing and caring. But somehow it spiraled into a blamegame, an ugly, vindictive ‘up-yours’ crowing-over. It’s not about equality anymore, it’s one-upmanship (upwomanship?). All of us are losing.

My friend is as torn up over his breakup as I’ve ever been over mine. I just fear his lady is as well but she doesn’t know it or won’t acknowledge it. Remind me again how this is good for any of us? It takes two to build a relationship. How do we proceed when one of us is hungover on power, sado-masochism and inaccessible?

I had another thought about the classic equation of relationships – men trading love for sex and women trading sex for love. At that oversimplified level, all these years were about men reneging on their side of the deal by taking sex without paying back with adequate love while women withheld sex till love was forthcoming. It was a business and it worked with all the bartering, the bad debts and the constantly fluctuating scales on both sides. Today though, it’s women saying they’re not interested in shopping at this market anymore. Why pay for love when you can get its substitutes (power, fame, respect, attention, awe) far more easily? And there are the women who decide to infiltrate the competition and take over the business. Enter the Samantha Jones prototype – a woman who trades for sex the way men have been thought to do.

I’m not going to judge what anybody wants and how they go about getting it. But I do wonder about the fabric of our society, based as it is on the warp and weft of both sexes, the constant barter and transfer of emotions and sex, of needs and provisions.

This is the morning after the party and we’re hungover on that potent mix of power, glory and attention. I don’t think most of us are thinking straight any more. Who’s going to rescue the world now that Superwoman has ousted Superman and killed the collaboration?