The ‘Celeb in the City’ space is frequently the scene of many battles of the sexes. Senior Columnist PC has been running her sisterhood series for a while now, and New Kid on the Block Kunal Kapoor (or Kunnu, as I call him. Please feel free to do the same, he loves it) spent hours rambling to various alliterative characters in his quest to better understand women. I personally think he understands them just fine for his nefarious purposes, but that is neither here nor there.
Over the years, reams of paper have been dedicated to the celebration of women, and even more to the explaining of women. I myself own several books such as Everything Men should know about Women, Understanding Women, and Woman: The Manual, none of which have been any help whatsoever. Enough. Enough, I say. What of understanding men? Don’t we deserve understanding as well? And no, simply rolling your eyes and saying “men will be men” doesn’t constitute understanding.
To that end, I present to you Chapter One of the Brotherhood Series*. The male thought process is very simple. While unkind people might say that we haven’t evolved much since our hunter-gatherer days, I prefer to think that we haven’t needed to; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it (another male credo, discussed in greater depth in Chapter 13). In any event, we are single minded creatures. We tend to apply a flowchart system of thought to most situations. Example: A saber-toothed tiger is charging towards you. You really only have two options; do you run or stand your ground? (The answer is run. If you chose ‘stand your ground’, you would probably be extinct by now.)
Similarly, in a modern context: Your irate girlfriend is charging towards you to “have a talk”. Once again, your options are essentially the same. Run away, or stand your ground. Now before you get all upset and accuse me of comparing women to saber-toothed tigers, let me get to the gist of it. I repeat: the male thought process is very simple. We don’t have layers. We aim to function at the highest level of efficiency. So in the interest of moving things along (since all the books on women haven’t helped us understand anything),
{{/usCountry}}Similarly, in a modern context: Your irate girlfriend is charging towards you to “have a talk”. Once again, your options are essentially the same. Run away, or stand your ground. Now before you get all upset and accuse me of comparing women to saber-toothed tigers, let me get to the gist of it. I repeat: the male thought process is very simple. We don’t have layers. We aim to function at the highest level of efficiency. So in the interest of moving things along (since all the books on women haven’t helped us understand anything),
{{/usCountry}}I beg of you, women of the world; listen to me. Trust me. Men function at the most basic level. Ask a direct question of us, and you shall receive a direct answer. If you want us to do something, tell us. Enough with the counter-espionage, already. Let the understanding begin. *(Placeholder till we come up with a better name)
Write to me at imran.khan@hindustantimes.com