The unfair sex

When I went for the orientation programme for my Master's course, and looked around the lecture theatre, I got the shock of my life! Everywhere I looked, a female face looked back at me. There were no freakin' guys in there! And for a moment, I freaked out. I freaked out at the thought of being in an all-girls' class. I freaked out at the thought of three semesters without any guys in the class. Man, I actually freaked out.

For someone who's spent most of her childhood hanging out with the guys, bashing them up, climbing trees, spinning tops, flying kites, and balancing atop the narrow parapet walls, and most of her adult life (so far) gallivanting around Singapore, Cambodia and Malaysia with a buncha guys, this was scary. Now don’t get me wrong here. I am not anti-girl or anything. I am all for the ya-ya sisterhood. But sometimes, I get scared of fully female company (unless I know all of them very well, and I like them, which would make them at least a little bit similar to the kind of girl I am).

Ok, why do I hang out in an all-guys' group, and why do I run in the opposite direction when I see an all-girls' group? Well, here’s the thing. I believe (rather strongly at that) that girls bring out the worst in each other. For one, girls are complex. Face it. They are. They cry. They say one thing when they mean just the opposite. They can't make up their minds. And then they play games with guys, and politics with each other.

On the other hand, guys are relatively simpler to understand. They have no hidden agenda. They don't judge you on every little thing. In fact, for most of the time, they are lost, clueless creatures who don't get why we cry, why we make those incredibly complex hard-to-decipher statements, why they can’t talk to us while looking at the sports channel, why we try to find the 'hidden meaning' in their words (when there isn't any) and why we expect them to be able to read our feelings. Not to even mention how freakin' difficult to understand we are. And if all this is not enough, we have pms. That’s a lot of things they have to deal with!

So frankly speaking, when there are too many girls around me, I actually feel ‘unsafe’. Maybe I am afraid that my hidden girly traits will take over and I will turn into one of "them".

To all guys whom I've confused and annoyed (to the point of utter frustration) with certain extreme girly behaviour at times, I want to apologise. I would like them to try and understand that much as I am 'one of the guys', sometimes it is hard to shake off all girly characteristics, and some of them do surface now and then.

Let's face it now -- we girls can't live without guys. And I am not just talking broken light bulbs that need to be fixed. I'm talking about the absolute need to have different viewpoints, different ways of thinking, and different ways of reacting to situations. The Venusians need the Martians.

To all those who say that in ten years' time, women will no longer need men, here's my reply. B-U-L-L! We need them as much as they need us and that's the whole truth.

Think about it -- we really give them a tough time, and yet they still manage to love us.

Ladies, let's cut the men in our lives some slack.