Men wish they were from Mars

Men wish they were from Mars
I wish B and I were in the same city. That way, I can track every woman he falls in love with, and see for myself how he gets him­self into such strife, and nip the next crush in the bud before it becomes the next crash. I can also dis­tract him with beers, touch rugby, kayak­ing, book­shops, DVDs, cof­fee, broad­band inter­net access, sup­pers and dri­ving around aim­lessly. That would mean that same city would have to be Sin­ga­pore, no less.

I can eaves­drop on his occa­sional con­ver­sa­tions he has with the objects of his affec­tions on his mobile phone, and glean from them the type of women they are, what they want from him and whether they are open to the idea of dat­ing him or whether they just want to be good friends with him.

Because all women want a good friend or six.

And a good male friend is worth six female ones.

A good male friend gives a woman the per­spec­tive from a male point of view. It empow­ers her with the work­ing knowl­edge of a man’s mind.

Or so she thinks.

That good male friend would fall in love with her at some point, the con­se­quence of which may be one of three: last­ing friend­ship, last­ing rela­tion­ship or last­ing animosity.

That good male friend’s judg­ment on mat­ters brought to his atten­tion by the woman remains clouded by a) lust, b) resent­ment, or c) disinterest.

Still, she thinks him valu­able, because she is unsure of her­self. She likes him to rat­ify her own deci­sions, which she has made way before she asks him for his opin­ion. It just gives her deci­sion (mostly to do with men) the weight she thinks it requires.

And, she also likes the atten­tion, and the lit­tle tinge of excite­ment that comes with the pos­si­bil­ity of that male friend actu­ally lik­ing her roman­ti­cally. She milks it for all it is worth. By say­ing she misses him. By say­ing how valu­able his advice is. By say­ing “if I wasn’t in love with him, I might be in love with you”.

He responds, thrilled at the very words. Stu­pidly. I miss you too. And no mat­ter how painful it is, says but you’re in love with him and not me.

Woman 1, Male Friend 0.

B, I reckon, has scored many own goals this way. My job, were we in the same city, would be to make sure he doesn’t do it too often. Yes, it is a given that we Male Friends are on the los­ing side. A bit like Arse­nal play­ing Klang Val­ley United. My job is to help B min­i­mize dam­age, and main­tain dignity.

Why is a man like B so sus­cep­ti­ble to strife as this?

Because not all men qual­ify as Male Friends.

If a man were out and out straight to the point, he dis­qual­i­fies him­self. The woman knows this man can­not be her Male Friend.

1) The Male Friend knows no absolutes.
2) The Male Friend knows not him­self.
3) The Male Friend is kind.
4) The Male Friend is giv­ing.
5) The Male Friend is con­sid­er­ate.
6) Most impor­tant of all, the Male Friend listens.

Arti­cle 1 of the Male Friend Creed requires the Male Friend to be always open to sug­ges­tion, and it is no sur­prise that many Male Friends are not obsti­nate people.

Arti­cle 2 is a pre-requisite that not many realise. The woman likes a Male Friend that asks her for her opin­ion about him­self. She thinks it demon­strates trust, but sub-consciously, she knows she’s got him eat­ing out of her hands.

Arti­cle 7, which is unwrit­ten, is the arti­cle in the creed which is not often talked about, and I risk life and limb reveal­ing it here. It states (and I am para­phras­ing) that the Male Friend may be from time to time, called upon to deliver ser­vices, pos­si­bly of a car­nal nature, which he would nor­mally pre­fer to be in the con­text of a lov­ing rela­tion­ship, and not complain.

Most Male Friends don’t com­plain about Arti­cle 7. And if they did protest, they score an own goal again.

As you can now imag­ine, a man like B would be very much sought after as a Male Friend. He embod­ies and upholds the Creed like few other. And I won’t even talk about Arti­cle 7.

Notice that noth­ing in the Creed speaks of hon­esty. A Male Friend can be all of the above with­out being hon­est, for that is not a pre-requisite. Because why?

Because the woman likes a bit of veil play. A Male Friend pre­sent­ing him­self to be pla­tonic and at the same time mask­ing badly his roman­tic inten­tions turns a woman on as much as a hot-blooded straight out pas­sion­ate encounter. It gives her con­fi­dence. In fact, it empow­ers her whereas the lat­ter may sub­ju­gate her.

So how would I help B main­tain dig­nity? How could I pos­si­bly, you may well ask?

I don’t know for sure. But we Male Friends do stand a chance of sur­vival in this mad, bad world. If only we didn’t fall in love so.