In battle of the sexes, men always lose
He who said that the only thing constant is change, wasn’t a ‘he’ at all. It was definitely a she. Of all things alleged to make the world go round — money, love, lollipops, egg-timers, take your pick — the real answer is change. And women are the advocates of change. I would say perpetrators but I have bounty enough assigned to my name, or severed head.
The thing is, when a man enters a relationship, it is because the woman he is prospecting finds him perfect to be her minion. No woman would take a man under her services without being assured of his usability. So when a relationship starts, men seem to take their positions like a government job and already start looking forward to retiring with a pension.
But women work it like a mega-million dollar global corporate and change the parameters against which a man is measured. Now if there’s anything men resist more than change, then it is possibly yet to be discovered. They like status quo. Why fix the un-broken? Why rock an anchored boat? Why… I could so go on; you get the drift.
And men being men deal with change badly. They react, then over-react, but they never act for that would mean they are changing and they don’t know how long before they have to change again. Aren’t the onslaughts of an ageing physique and a receding hairline traumatic enough to make peace with that they now must incorporate other vistas of change into their existence?
At a deeper level, wouldn’t changing mean altering the person they inherently are? Could a woman then be considered to be robbing a man of his identity? Can such a charge even be levelled vocally out loud without the sure-shot risk of a prolonged nocturnal sojourn on the couch with no chances of being allowed bed privileges this side of the new millennium? Should a man, in light of such a severe and bleak outcome, still try and stand his ground or should he succumb, trying to reinvent his persona along the predefined pattern of his woman-keeper?
Men, you already know the safe answer. Women, rejoice for this round goes to you, too, yet again, and encore. If only there was a bargaining tool that we men possessed, something that could make women see reason and sensibility in seeing that men are nothing if not incorrigible and horribly lacking in the ability to change. They are like that metaphoric old dog that was alien to new tricks. But he was steadfastly loyal, always. Surely women wouldn’t want that to change in their man?
The balance of the two sexes was made in an askew and auto-perpetuated manner. If anything, it becomes a constantly replenishing resource for a column such as this. Outside of that, we need to stop calling it a battle between the two, for it would imply that the men always lose. The best they can do is to lose gracefully, so that the benevolence of their lady-master shines down warm upon them. Outside of that there is little solace one can offer, perhaps its best to take collective comfort in the fact that no man is losing this ‘battle’ alone.
The writer is a lover of wine, song and everything fine
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