Let me count the ways.
“Do you love her?” I asked him.
“I don’t know what that means. Define it. Give me some objective tests”.
Oh god, here we go again. These men and their reasoning brains. As I heard on the radio only yesterday, if you give a man a book called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, he’s likely to point out that atmospheric conditions on both these planets do not support gender-differentiated life-forms.
So we kicked around some yes/no questions that might test the proposition. Some of these we felt might be friendship, or fondness, or lust. Some of them, I thought, might be love - but he was less than certain. I tried the old listen-to-your-heart, but he just pulled That Face.
I posited my theory that love has many shades and hues. That it does not exist for one person in one way; that the human capacity for love is enormous, boundless; that we can love many people in many ways. But he was making That Face again.
Saying it like it is: love is the one area where our gender stereotypes flip into reverse. If a woman loves you, she’ll tell you. Look you right in the eye and say it straight out, no messing.
Men get all angst-y and anguished; over-analyse and wonder whether they have really, truly loved anyone; worry about what expectations might be raised if they say it; fret about how it might be received and whether it’s the right moment and whether it means something else will have to happen. For heaven’s sake, boys! You hate it when we do this.
I reckon it’s best to judge a man’s love - or otherwise - by his deeds rather than his words, no matter how articulate he might be in other respects. And, men, it’s an easy test. If you can’t work out how you feel about someone, look at what you do, how you act, the way you behave when you’re with her.
You’ll soon realise the answer to the question is easier than you thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment