In Mars We Trust - XII

As in every other facet of life, I believe that there is no clear black and white in the field of lying and that there are degrees of lies. Now we men swim through, in our lifetimes, a virtually incessant stream of lies. Starting from the time some weird nurse or doctor or – if you were more fortunate – midwife, picked you up as an infant and actually refrained from telling all around just how abominably ugly the new arrival was, life and the various actors in it keep the momentum going.

Now, without getting into a blow-by-blow account, let me just say that I do believe that most of these lies are – in the eyes of the assorted liars at least – harmless. Like when your parents tell you that you can’t have a video game because they love you so much that they would rather you actually speak to them rather than lose your soul to the Nintendo. Or when they tell you that beating people up is bad and that little boys who fight will go to Hell and will not actually get rewarded with the ice-creams of the victims. Or when they try to tell you that getting into a good Engineering college is the last time you will actually have to work hard and that life will be like sex on toast after that.

Nothing that a man encounters in his constant battle for the truth though, quite matches what he is subjected to by the women that attempt to ensnare him. Women, in my opinion, are not just consummate liars, but are colour-blind too. Not to mention their being the truest and purest sadists ever. How else do you explain anyone making the statement “Pink is the new blue”? How on Earth can pink be blue? Quite aside from the obvious difference between the two, pink is – without wanting to sound homophobic or anything – completely and indubitably gay!

Women these days seem to just yearn to buy their guys some pink shirts and I can’t for the life of me imagine any well-wisher buying the object of those wishes anything pink in colour, particularly if the object in question happens to be male. Can you imagine any woman wanting her man to look like David Furnish (I just googled up his name and will not tell you who he is. Google it yourself!)? The only other category such a person would fall into would be an African-American rapper or a pimp or doped elephant! And then they try telling us that it’s because pink is the new blue! Surely even the most lovelorn idiot should be able to tell that as a blatant and image-threatening lie! Pink is blue? Can you imagine the NYPD traipsing around the city wearing shocking (in more than just colour) pink uniforms? Unedifying thought, eh?

However, I digress. The point I was making, before the aforementioned digression, was about the lying, which was meant to lead up to the point that it finally has led up to which is that women consistently and unfailingly – not to mention unflinchingly – manage to say things that they themselves do not truly believe! As an example, how many women do you see wearing pink shirts to office as compared to blue ones? In my experience, it’s the blue that the women themselves prefer to wear, while guffawing in delight at all the poor unsuspecting victims of their “new blue”.

The worst of this duplicity though is seen when women start describing the kind of qualities that they want in their men. For example, every woman starts off by stressing just how much she hates and detests the possessiveness of her ex-boyfriend and how she just yearns for a man who will let her be her own person. Well, we all know how that turns out, don’t we? The first step is the complaining of the “insensitivity”. It’s what I call the “You don’t care about me” stage. It’s a lose-lose for the guy of course (as is every situation involving both genders simultaneously, unless there’s sex at the end of it all). If you ask whom she is out with, for example, you’re liable to be told, “Aaaah! Jealous are we? I won’t tell you who I’m out with! They’re just friends!” On the other hand, follow your instincts and continue to watch the match and don’t ask and you get the classic, “You don’t care about me at all, do you? You don’t even care who I am going out with!!!”

This stage extends till the woman decides she’s met a guy whose looks+money score is higher than that of her present companion at which point the present companion is either labeled as over-possessive or insensitive, depending on whether or not he asked her where and with whom she was on the various nights she spent scouting the town for the guy with the highest looks+money score who was interested in her. Women, as you can tell unless you’re blind or single, are quite adept at getting the best out of any situation. They even got the Creator into a corner and made him give them exclusive rights over headaches and “that time of the month” to avoid unwanted sex…

Now, a load of women I know, stress that they can’t stand men who are not decisive. They would like, they claim, to have men who make decisions and who do not allow the woman to make all the decisions. Now, this, as any man would willingly aver – apart from the men who are now hopelessly caught in a woman-woven web of duplicity and deception – is the biggest load of bunkum ever spoken since the time that Hitler spoke of his great love for all things Jewish. It all dawned upon me a few days back in the most ironic circumstances:

P: I really liked him and we were really perfect together. Everything was just so perfect, but there was nothing to be done. We just could not have survived together.
Me: Umm…pardon my asking, but does not the word perfect seem to suggest that there was nothing wrong, thereby implying that…
P: Shut up! You idiot, I obviously meant that we were just incompatible!
Me: But you just said you were perfect!
P: No, no! I said everything was perfect and it was (Typically irrational woman-speak, as you can see) except that he used to allow me to make all the decisions!!!
Me: Ah! So that is why you liked him so much, eh? I always wondered how…
P: NOOOOO! You really are stupid, you know? I can’t stand men who allow me to make all the decisions. It shows that they don’t have a mind of their own!!!
Me: What? Are you – the consummate control freak, if there ever was one – telling me that…
P: Shut up, I tell you! I am not a control freak! Anyway, I told him that the only way it would work out was if he was a bit more decisive. And he called it off…
Me: Well, you can’t argue with that being decisive!!!
P: You are so irritating!

Now, take me out to lunch.Now, this, I must admit, was where I decided to be decisive. You know how every one of us has these urges at times to try breaking down a brick wall…

Me: OK. Let’s go to the ‘Devil’s Kitchen’ in Ptolemy’s Gate compound then.
P: No! I don’t like that place.
Me: Hmm…what kind of cuisine do you want then? (She’d got me to start wavering already!)
P: You know how I hate people who can’t decide! You decide!!!
Me: OK. We go to ‘Flyover’ then. That’s pretty close too!
P: No. I just went there last week. Why can’t you decide on something nice like ‘Caravan’???
Me: (completely missing the hint in the last sentence) OK, so how about ‘Carlos’’ then?
P: You’re so useless! Please decide fast now! And some NICE place. And I don’t care which one you decide. Just something nice. So, where are you taking me?
Me: ‘Caravan’?
P: Oh good! I like that place. See? I love guys who can make decisions…

Women, you see are consummate manipulators who believe that the ends more than justify the means. That’s why Elizabeth Bathory was a woman! You wouldn’t ever hear of a man called Elizabeth Bathory after all, though of course, the name has nothing to do with my assertion here. If you look at that conversation above, it should be obvious though what women do really want from their men. They want men who will make the decisions that they want them to make. Unfortunately though, women often underestimate the high IQ levels of us men. Women, you see, would like to kid themselves along with the notion that they allow us to make the decisions that they want and that we know nothing of this devious intent of theirs! I have however, devised a way to countering this, which I shall elaborate at length at some not-so-distant time (I hope). Till then though, I shall leave you with an exchange that both proves what I have said about women trying to manipulate us and also formed the beginning for my counter-attacking strategy…

S: So, can we have that wall painted pink then?
Me: No.
S: But it would look so nice!!! OK, you decide what to paint it then…
Me: Fine. We’ll paint it the same colour as the other walls.
S: No!!! That’s so boring. It has to be a different colour. Now you decide which colour.
Me: Umm…black!
S: No! No, no, no! Anything but black!!!
Me: OK then. Ash grey!
S: You’re making me cry now!!!
Me: Awww… OK then, let’s just do it…umm…cream!
S: What? But that’s the colour of the other walls!!!
Me: Yeah well, maybe we could have it a single mini-shade different then…

Sometime between the time we spoke and the time I found my underwear, she got me to agree to paint it “blue”… I promise you though. The moment I put my finger on just what it was that undid me, I'll have the solution in my hands...

PS: Please do not set the hounds on me for the truly dreadful innuendoes in the last line. I vow to try harder next time.