Of waves and rubber bands

Once upon a time, there were four blog friends. Two guys and two girls who had never met each other before. Let's call them Hyde, Kelso, Jackie and Donna.

They met at this bar called Sayeshaz and soon became the best of friends.

Two continents. Three countries. Four time zones. And yet, nothing could come between them. Their friendship grew with each passing day. No day would pass when the four of them were not in touch. When it was day for Jackie and Hyde, it was night for Kelso and Donna. And vice versa. On any given day, Jackie would be up first shooting impatient emails, followed by Hyde, Donna, and finally the lazybum Kelso would get up.

Things were going great.

Till the day Donna got mad at Kelso over something he said. Although in Donna's head, it was a big big fight, the most amazing thing is that Kelso had no idea that she was mad at him. Jackie and Hyde knew and asked Donna to talk things out with Kelso, but Donna wanted to cool off before she confronted Kelso.

Once she had cooled off, Donna realised that there was nothing to confront Kelso about.

Because it was all a case of Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

And I, Sayesha, the silent observer of Donna's virtual big fight with Kelso, decided to write a post on this.

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I call myself a girly-tomboy. That's the best word to describe me really. On days, I can be so girly that I freak myself out, and on others, I am so tomboy that well, I freak myself out.

When I found myself buying the book 'Men are from Mars, women are from Venus' because I was getting a huge staff discount at my company bookstore, I was girly like never before.

Two main reasons:

1. I was buying a book on girl-guy relationships. Geez.
2. I was buying something I did not need. Just because I was getting a discount. Double geez.

I refused to take the book on my commute to work, or other such long journeys. I wouldn't be caught dead reading it in the bus or the train.

I did not want to gift it to anyone because I believe it's an insult to give someone a book like that. So it lay there for months and months and months, till I came across a quote by the author John Gray on the net somewhere, where he said "Women are like waves. Men are like rubber bands." It sounded interesting. I dug the book out, dusted it and flipped through. And sure enough, there were two chapters on these two topics.

And though I am not a supporter of generalisations, I am amazed at the wave and the rubber band theories.

Women are like waves
The gist of the theory is that a woman's self-esteem rises and falls periodically. Just like a wave. When she hits bottom, it is time for emotional housecleaning. If she had suppressed any negative feelings during the upswing, during the downswing she needs to vent it out. She needs to talk and be understood. And when she's on her upswing, it may seem like whatever was bothering her has been solved, but that's not the case. It may resurface again.

Men are like rubber bands
The male intimacy cycle involves getting close, pulling away and then getting close again. Just like a rubber band. Men have this instinct to pull away before they can get closer. A woman pulls away when she feels misunderstood or hurt. A man pulls away to fulfil his need for independence or autonomy. When a man springs back, he picks up the relationship wherever he had left it, to the bewilderment of the woman who is still wondering why he pulled away in the first place and if she had done anything to make him pull away.

So I concluded that the worst misunderstandings occur when the two things happen simultaneously. The guy has pulled away, and the girl is on the downswing.

And that's probably what happened with Donna and Kelso.

Donna was hurt. And all she wanted to do was talk to her friends about it. She did not want a solution to her problem, she just wanted to vent her frustration. But Kelso made a general statement about women based on what she had said, and that infuriated her. It was a classic case of invalidating a woman's feelings -- probably the biggest sin a guy can commit with a girl's feelings.

So here's a bit of gyaan on it for clueless guys.

When girls express themselves in front of guys, they don't want to hear things like "Goodness! All you girls blah blah..." or "You shouldn't feel like that..." They're already feeling like that dammit! By saying this, the guy is not helping. On the contrary, he's implying that the girl's feelings are trivial.

Also, when a girl expresses her feelings about a problem, she is not necessarily looking for a solution from him. That's where he goes wrong. Just because he sees a damsel in distress does not mean he has to immediately pull on his shining armour! There is no dragon here that he can fight. And that confuses him. Because guys are simple-minded. They are trained only to fight dragons and not girly tears. And in their confusion of not being able to find a solution to the problem, they end up making insensitive remarks that hurt the girls.

Such misunderstandings work both ways. Often, girls don't understand what and why guys say what they do. And the worst is when neither understands the other, and storms off. There are so many such situations where there are two ways one can take -- one that's the right one, and the other that is totally off-track. How do you know which one to take?

So what's the solution really?

From what I believe, there is only one basic thing to remember. That guys and girls are essentially different from each other, and that there is no point even wondering why a girl can't think like a guy all the time, or vice versa. They are different, they process information differently, they feel and react differently. That's that. If only we could remember this basic theory and apply it like a universal law, I believe we will have fewer problems with the opposite sex.

Ironically, the biggest lesson from the book is one for which you don't even have to open it. It's right there on the cover.