… you are away on some trip to godforsaken sprouts land! does NOT mean you can receive a call after 32 hours and talk normally as if NOTHING untoward happened.

… you are on “last” metro with very nasal women does NOT mean you laugh at ME when I’m concerned about you being thrown off the metro for eating fries!?!

… you are with VERY nasal women does not mean you hang up with… “oh I’m sorry I couldn’t call or message… I’ve been running from post to pillar or pillar to post? What is it?… Sorry baby… Wish I was going to Brussels with you…”

… you know I concentrate more on correcting people than being angry you cannot use it to distract me from being PISSED off. ARGH.

… you say you miss me, does not mean you do. Or does it. GAH. It does?

… you are a boy, doesn’t mean you HAVE to be useless ALL the time! Does it? Bleh.

So, these boys/men, the other sex. They cannot see a woman’s tears. Bollocks. Its the phlegm they cannot deal with. Its the amount of concentration required to understand what a person who is crying and blubbering is saying that they cannot muster. Its even the unlimited supply of tissue that they cannot provide. Useless.

“I cannot see a woman cry”! Really? Then why are women who don’t shed tears by default ”one of the guys”? Why are women who don’t cry while breaking up with you some sort of witches?! And why, my dear boy, do they make you whimper? Why is it that when they are mean and bitchy and picky that you decide to shed your tears? All that matters is that they weeped when you were inattentive and non-committal and forgetful (on her birthday!). So, you try to break up with her on your “1 year anniversary” and expect her to understand. But if she tells you, it’s not working out, you start the water-works!

I can note down a gazillion examples of you crying. You all cry, a lot of the times, and I have proof! I have a lot of stories from a lot of women. But that’s note the point. The point is, if I hear you say “Boys don’t cry” unless you are referring to Hillary Swank’s award winning performance, or say, “I can’t deal with girls crying…” then I will kick you in the shin. I will render you shin-less!

Breaking news to all supposed macho jocks. Everyone cries. EVERYONE. And it is okay. I’d prefer if you don’t, but it’s cool. It’s okay. It’s fine. Go ahead, vent, achieve catharsis, get over it by shedding a few tears. I can help. I can make you weep. Really weep! Like a kid whose cotton candy was snatched away by a scary clown at a circus. So, think, really think, before you utter a sentence with the word cry in it! It better not have girl in it.

Tchah!

But that rule. Yes, that one. We need a rule for women as well, yes? We say, ‘Beware of men who have been with women who baby-talk.’ Stay away like talking to them would mean a bad rash or worse still, herpes.

And if you’re the woman who baby-talks. To her boyfriend, Man, Husband. Don’t tell us. Disappear. We don’t want to know you.

***

Dear Boy,

I have lovingly tossed into the washing machine ALL OF YOUR 11 pairs of socks for wash (yes, that magic white machine in the kitchen, the one with a round door which you have never opened – baby, that is not where the green-eyed gnome from your nightmare lives – then why do you vehemently stay away from that door?)

I dug out three of the socks, rolled into cute balls of gunk and sweat, from under the bed. Yes, my back is fine. Oh, you didn’t ask. I even found two of them cleverly hidden amongst the little hill of t-shirts in your cupboard. Baby, I’ll try to explain this one more time. We open the cupboard and put CLEAN clothes in; we then shut the cupboard; we then put the DIRTY clothes inside the laundry bag. I know CLEAN and DIRTY are hard concepts to grasp. The greatest of men haven’t quite got their masculine heads around this one – even Socrates and his companions had lengthy-symposium-debates On How Clean Is a Clean Toga – it’s a toughie, I know. But remember this, darling: Whatever smells like an old egg whipped up with some sour cream dip is DIRTY; without a doubt.

Oh, and I don’t have a cold anymore; and my olfactory senses are back in all their twitching glory. So, when I say the socks are going to generate complaints from our neighbours about leaving garbage out at odd hours of the day, I am NOT being sarcastic. That’s another concept you never fully grasped. When I say things like “Zombie flicks make me want eat my own brain up” and “I will, without batting an eyelid, marry a man who can make a good dosa”- this is NOT me being sarcastic. But, don’t worry about all this too much, baby.

Why else am I with you but to round up and banish all the murky things away from your life; to make it bright and shiny everyday without you even noticing; to joyfully clip on 22 socks onto the clothesline one after the other, with a smile on my face and a glint in my eye.; why else am I with you but to see you fresh and happy just like your freshly-laundered socks? Now, THIS is me being sarcastic. See?

Love,
Girl.

Because you and I and every other girl we know has been brought up on a diet of romances and happy endings.

Stupid Prince Charming goes all over the world looking for a foot that fits, so all men must be as gallant. The same stupid Prince kisses Snow White (oh! what a big achievement) and hence all men must rescue us from exile, even if it is self-imposed or hormonal.

I read a Mills and Boon last week where this jock-cowboy oozing masculinity rapes, yes, rapes his lady love because he is convinced she is not a virgin. Lo and behold, she bleeds, he cries, he pleads, begs for mercy and she gladly thanks the good lord and takes him back!!!!!!

He rapes her!

But you know what shocked me even more, I read the bloody book right to it’s happy ending. Happy Ending. Shame on me. She married her rapist!

Men in MBs are rude, they are sarcastic, sadistic and they are always, always arrogant. They are always men who never call back, men who never take relationships seriously and men who never pay attention. And for all that, they atone with a promise of love and a forever-after marriage. 

Such fodder has been fed to us through various avatars of Mr Darcy and is so ingrained in our subconscious that our patterns of expectations from men mimic these ludicrous tales.

We are always attracted to Mr Darcy; the rude, obnoxious man with the estate (in high school he’d be the guy with the guitar) and we feel so lucky that he bestows his incredible love upon us, that we forgive being forgotten in exchange for being remembered once in a while.

Prince Charming, whose vocabulary extends from ‘Oh My’ to ‘Where’s my horse’ to ‘Will you marry me’ is undoubtedly the most boring guy in the world, but he slays dragons and jumps waterfalls and so must every prospective guy. As long as he can, once in a blue moon, sufficiently impress us, the man in our lives may be as useless as he likes.

Thanks to fairytale romances we expect him to be great, but those very notions allow us to forgive him his uselessness.

Prince Charming is inane, Mr Darcy is boring old sod… they are useless, as are our boys.

- a one line contribution by May. She says this says more than enough!

So, one was quesy. One had consumed a lot of water in office. One had been to the loo a lot of times as well. One drank some more water. Sigh. One was then requested to join the others for a smoke in the staircase.

What followed was this…

Boy1: “Pythons? Did I hear someone say pythons?”

Boy2: “Dude! Pythons are cool!”

Boy3: “Pythons! Yeah, Pythons are the biggest snake. Other ones are just snakes”

Me: *Guffaw*

Boy1 & 2: *LOL*

Boy1: “Yeah man, that can swallow an entire human being!”

Me: *Don’t think about it!*

Boy2: “And I saw this photograph… Pythons crush the person, then swallow the person, and then the person slowly dissolves inside the python! So they cut up the python who had swallowed a deer and a human!”

Me: “Ewwww!”

Boy1 & 3: “You could see them! Wow! Really!?”

Boy2: *Enacts the pose the human was found in*

Me: “SHUT UP! Nooooo! Stop!”

Boy1: “So cool man! Also… it’s easier for them to swallow men na… Zebras or deers will be difficult…”

Boy2: “Yes, but…”

Boy1: “You can see the outline of whatever the python has swallowed. Its so…”

Me: “Gross! WILL YOU SHUT UP!”

Boy1,2&3: “Blah blah… dissolve… blah! Swallow whole… Blah… crush! So cool!”

Me: “I HATE BOYS! You are disgusting!”

Boy1,2 & 3: “What happened?”

Me: “I AM QUESYYY! I’ve been saying that over and over again. BLEH!”

Silence. Very soft sorries and GIGGLES! They giggled!

HMPH.

QUESY. Very.

***

They also suddenly decided to keep women at home. Make them home-makers instead of administrators (which they were. Grecian times baby!). Have you seen how awesome we are at multi-tasking? You can’t even talk on the phone and take a sip of coffee at the same time. So, I guess that’s one of the reasons why they decided to send women out. To work. To earn. Industrial revolution meets emergence of middle class is just some historians excuse (:P). Apart from making them manage the whole facking house. They also put them in bras, and now they struggle to unhook the damn thing!

***

They go on and on about commitment-phobia but if they decided they are in love, they will be committed to making you feel less loved and less wanted than their toothbrush (most of the time). Worse than that? Yes, I’m getting to it, worse than that is when girls stop paying attention to boys, or move on or get bored. THAT is when they (boys!) shower girls with attention, gifts, songs, phone calls, text messages and emails with poems! But during that one year of you begging for attention, they couldn’t find the time to get in touch with their sensitive side.

***

How is it that they come up things like MILF? Or dwarf porn (?!?!?!). And how or why do they find Pamela Anderson hot? I mean, except for giant attachments and fake blond hair what does that woman have. Please note, I am not questioning Ms Jolie’s or Ms Zeta-Jones’s or Ms Johansson’s or even Ms Lawsons’ hotness which is also slightly dependent on boobage appendage. But Pamela Anderson??!

I also don’t get their obsession with putting women in uniforms! I mean Whaa?! French maid! Air hostess! Nurses! School girl! I mean why do you want to do school girls?! I mean Britney Spears became the stuff of dreams after that pig-tail nonsense she pulled off. Bleh.

Also, did you know that there is a percentage of men who die of this cause: Heart attack during sex. I mean. What a way to die eh? The last thing you remember is an almost-orgasm or an orgasm. Well, hmmm, why did I have a problem with this? Oh. Never mind. It seems like a good idea.

***

Speaking of good ideas. They do get them. You know, the intelligent ones, the geeky boys, the rags to riches boys, etc. But one successful/ good idea and they go through life adopting a how-to-solve-a-linear-equation-thought process.

A man thinks like this:

I like my life the way it is + I am not a phone person = I won’t change my phone habits even if it drives you up the wall (LINEAR)

A woman on the other hand thinks somewhat like this:

I like being with you + (I would love to spend some time with you after a horrid day at work + Oh! I won’t mind a drink) - (I hate watching sports all the time + Beer is not superior to JD) = We can go to the Sports Bar which has a clean loo and serves JD, your treat

(Isn’t that awesome?) (I have presented a circular thought process in a linear manner in order to help boys understand this)

I mean they invented bras! Idiots. Couldn’t they have come up with a more comfortable contraption! Or something that was easier to unhook!? I mean, dude, stop competing! And for god’s sake, if you cannot unhook it with one hand, then this is NOT the time to practice?! Their obsession is incurable and beyond medical help! Point in case, the movie Beta House and the bra unhooking competition was loved by EVERY man who has seen the movie! Don’t believe me? Well go Google it yourself. Or take a survey!

***

What gets me is despite all this. Despite all the commitment phobia; the ability to forget about any person in the room if a cricket match is on (here you can substitute the sport your country/boy is crazy about; the hatred for shopping even when they need things; the ability to forget dates; the inability to multi-task; the fake macho-ness of it all; the bad dressing sense and the need to ask the girl before picking a tie but never being able to help the girl with shoes… the list is endless… basically, despite all (pardon my horrid sentence construction), they still have this urge and need and desire to plant their seed. They don’t want to get married but they want to have babies. They only want to get married to have babies. They don’t mind adopting but one of the kids needs to be their flesh and blood. How? Pray tell! Will you take care of the damn kid if you cannot commit, cannot shop for it, cannot listen to the kid if there’s a match on t.v., cannot let go of your set ways…? Ask them, and their answer? The mom will. And WE are the weaker sex.

BLEH. GAH! ARGH.

Disclaimer: This is a rant. Don’t go all weepy on me. Okay? Okay, you can weep. But don’t give me shit like, “You’re generalising!”, ’cause DUH! I AM. So, to finish what I started, I have managed to find boys (and I adore them and always will) who do piss me off a LOT but will be awesome fathers. All thanks to the great company they’ve kept. No, not me. Their parents. What do you take me for? BAH.

Boys are also very scared of it, fear it immensely, are extremely uncomfortable talking about it and would probably go shopping happily(!) to escape any close encounters with it.

We would like to thank Ms Narcotic for this lovely rendition of Raag PMS.

***

It’s always an easy excuse, ‘You are PMSing, aren’t you?’ or ‘It’s the PMS! I know, I know’. They never quite understand, do they?

Everytime I have had that pathetic pseudo-sympathetic laced with derision line throw at me, I know I have wanted to slap the man with a used pad. Not lady-like, oh no. But hey, I thought PMS validated everything including irrationality.

Dear Disgruntled Boy who makes me swoon,

During ‘those days of the month’, I’m not just a mere homicidal-suicidal neurotic bitch in pajamas. Alongside seeing blood that makes my head spin even if I have seen it all before clot-by-clot, clot after clot for the last decade or so, I also go through excruciating pain that hurts my back and my legs and my stomach in a manner so unbearable that sometimes I wish I were dead rather than wait how-many-ever-years-I-choose-to before I will it away. In exchange for pain, infinite times more. I reckon, in comparison, my current threshold seems like a wimp. You’ll never know about the pain that shoots up my spine, colours my vision pink and leaves me unconscious on the bathroom floor, makes me fall unconscious at the bus-stop. But that’s not what you hear, because when I tell you about it do you listen? It makes you uncomfortable; and it tears away at the image of me you have created in the likeness of Sita and Lakshmi and Pamela Anderson and the Holy Mother of God. Serene, calm and a picture of strength. How did you miss out the ‘fire raging inside me in all its might thanks to those hormones’ bit? A raging Kali with blood at her feet in a demonic avatar is still a feminine form, damnit. Period.

Grudgingly Yours,
PMS’d Woman who you just have to live with

PS. I just wish you figured that it’s the hormones all the way. Whether I’m swooning and slobbering all over myself or am all over the bathroom floor after a particularly bad inflection of The PMS.

Girl1: Hey! How are you?

Girl2: I am sad.

Girl1: Why?!

Girl2: Oh… just generally sad.

Girl1: Generally sad?

Girl2: Yes, yes! It is possible!

Girl1: Bullshit. It’s him, isn’t it?

Girl2: Hmpffff.

Girl1: What did he do NOW?

Girl2: Nothing.

Girl1: Uhuh.

Girl2: Oh, the usual.

Girl1: He didn’t call?

Girl2: He did. He called at 3 in the morning! He made me stay up waiting… and then he dozed off on the phone!!!!

Girl1: And you are sad because of that?!?!

Girl2: NO! I am angry. But I wait everytime. I am sick of it.

Girl1: So, tell him you cannot manage a long distance if he behaves like this.

Girl2: I can’t!

Girl1: BLAH.

Girl2: Yes yes, I know.

Girl1: Us girls are so stupid.

Girl2: At least we are not insensitive and forgetful.

Girl2: Or annoying. Without even trying to be!

Girl2: OR MEAN! I mean! Would it kill him to send me a message? Go to sleep! Gnite… cannot call, sorry. Would it? ARGH. Morons.

Girl2: And what is this “I just called to say Gnite” SO WHY WAKE ME UP TO SAY GNITE.

Girl1: TIMEOUT!

Girl2: Hmpffff. Sorry.

Girl1: Lol. Its okay.

Girl2: NO ITS NOT.

Girl1: Okay!!

Girl2: This girl in office, was going on and on about how this guy keeps on giving her hints. Calling, messaging her and even messaging about making a plan. But the “plan” is never made. And he disappears…

Girl1: And re-appears. Whenever he feels like it.

Girl2: Yes! And so many women agreed with her… some went to the extent of saying, ‘Oh! They are all like that… He’ll come around…”

Girl1: Come around?!

Girl2: Yeah, like its some spoilt kid.

Girl1: Bullshit.

Girl2: Utter crap.

Girl1: Idiots.

Girl2: I wish we could just rant about it. RANT RANT. I am sick of telling you about it.

Girl1: Err.. Thank you!

Girl2: Yeah right! As if you enjoy me ranting.

Girl1: Yes I do. It’s entertaining.

Girl2: ME SUFFERING IS ENTERTAINING.

Girl1: If I were a man, I’d say, ‘PMS.”

Girl2: Girl SHUT UP.

Girl1: Haha. I should write about you.

Girl2: Yeah, why don’t you. Start a blog.

Girl1: Good idea.

Girl2: Oh shut up. I’m going now.

Girl1: Alright then. I’ll send you the link.

Girl2: GAH! Fine. Bye.

***

Girl1: Hey…! How’ve you been!

Girl2: Great!

Girl1:

Girl2: He sent me flowers!

Girl1: Awww…

Girl2:

Girl1: Anyway, here it is http://boysareuseless.wordpress.com/

Girl2: OMG!

Girl1: Heh! Nice eh? Consider it dedicated to you…!

Girl2: Lol!

Girl1: Mail your rant across, once the flowers are shrivelled up.

Girl2: Bitch.

Girl1: Yours truly. Muah.

Girl2: Muah!

*Yes, some editing has gone into this. Okay, a lot. Chats are difficult to edit.