I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that old cliché about women – ‘can’t live with them, can’t live without them’ . and how it seems to apply to every aspect of a relationship between a man and a woman.
Being with them is essential, but yet it’s so damn hard to put up with it, and there’s just no in between unless you fly to Thailand and get one of this man-yet-woman combo packages!
This is because it seems women just aren’t content being happy. Their brains are wired differently than ours – they crave conflict, drama and instability, while all we want is peace of mind in a relationship. Yet still we’re not able to be free from their rule and frankly we should stop trying. So since we can’t live without them, the only option left is to see how far we can go with them!
When women come into our lives, almost everything changes quickly, where a gradual change happens to only the lucky ones among us. It of course all depends on the kind of relationship you’re involved in, but at the same time all hook-ups have some similar patterns. Things like less time watching sports and more money to spend on gifts are among the few obvious ones. However one of the most important is the less time spent with ‘the boys’. For us guys, there’s a certain cycle of respect within groups of guy friends that everyone is doomed to get into. A guy friend first earns a lot of respect for getting together with a beautiful girl, especially when we get to hear all the stories of her wildness and hot friends. This respect stays very high as that friend holds on to the girl, and we know about how much fun they are having together. But then the story gets a little twist once the girl takes control of her boyfriend’s schedule. Slowly but surely they’re together all the time, and when not physically together the phone never gets a break. At this point the respect starts to diminish, because we see him less, and he’s less into the group scene. This respect however goes up again by a nice act of balancing the time, or dumping the girl for that matter! In either case, women have a big influence on this respect cycle, and we should be balancing both instead of having to choose one.
Another typical dilemma we have during our time with a girl are the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t traps that women construct to put our commitment, loyalty and motives on trial. Most of these traps come packaged as innocent questions or offhand remarks. Questions like, ‘What are you thinking about?’ and ‘Do you like my brains or my body more?’. A question like the latter of course really means, ‘Did you hook up with me just because I have big melons?’ It’s the perfect female trap. If you answer that it was her intelligence and sparkling personality that initially got you interested, then she’ll come back with, ‘Oh, so you think I’m ugly?’ And if you mention her awesome headlights, prepare to duck. These traps thus require us to go around the truth (i.e. ‘lie’), because when we face these questions she isn’t exactly looking for the answer, but rather just to stir disturb the peace.
Another thing that us guys love to avoid, but is hopeless to attempt, is the nagging part. Generally women seem to us as illogical and emotion-driven creatures who like to start fights over nothing to satisfy their need to be constantly reassured. Since staying away from her isn’t an option, the nagging has to be minimised, because it’s going to be there no matter how much we try. Unfortunately we have very few options here, because to minimize the nagging we can either swallow our pride and agree with them, avoid it by some surprising act of kindness, or take the not so nice option of derailing the process altogether by ignoring her words and thinking about the mechanics assignment due on Monday while she’s speaking. The best way out though is to just take the appropriate action and take care of whatever it is that’s annoying her. A good relationship takes work, but it shouldn’t feel like a 9-to-5 job. I could go on and on, but then, I’d be nagging!
There’s always an argument and a counter argument of how girls come into our lives and change things forever. I’m sure many things we do don’t make much sense to them. Its all about compromising I guess and overcoming the differences between the sexes, which requires a deep understanding of why we need the relationship in the first place, then deciding what kind of relationship to get into. And if the trade-off isn’t enjoyable and worth it, you haven’t found the right woman or truly learned to love. In that case, there are far more reasons to enjoy being happily single.”
Tarek Ghobar is from Lebanon. The next ‘Tarek’s Diary’ will be published in Delta 11. He can be emailed at: t.ghobar@tudelft.nl
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that old cliché about women – ‘can’t live with them, can’t live without them’ . and how it seems to apply to every aspect of a relationship between a man and a woman. Being with them is essential, but yet it’s so damn hard to put up with it, and there’s just no in between unless you fly to Thailand and get one of this man-yet-woman combo packages!
This is because it seems women just aren’t content being happy. Their brains are wired differently than ours – they crave conflict, drama and instability, while all we want is peace of mind in a relationship. Yet still we’re not able to be free from their rule and frankly we should stop trying. So since we can’t live without them, the only option left is to see how far we can go with them!
When women come into our lives, almost everything changes quickly, where a gradual change happens to only the lucky ones among us. It of course all depends on the kind of relationship you’re involved in, but at the same time all hook-ups have some similar patterns. Things like less time watching sports and more money to spend on gifts are among the few obvious ones. However one of the most important is the less time spent with ‘the boys’. For us guys, there’s a certain cycle of respect within groups of guy friends that everyone is doomed to get into. A guy friend first earns a lot of respect for getting together with a beautiful girl, especially when we get to hear all the stories of her wildness and hot friends. This respect stays very high as that friend holds on to the girl, and we know about how much fun they are having together. But then the story gets a little twist once the girl takes control of her boyfriend’s schedule. Slowly but surely they’re together all the time, and when not physically together the phone never gets a break. At this point the respect starts to diminish, because we see him less, and he’s less into the group scene. This respect however goes up again by a nice act of balancing the time, or dumping the girl for that matter! In either case, women have a big influence on this respect cycle, and we should be balancing both instead of having to choose one.
Another typical dilemma we have during our time with a girl are the damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t traps that women construct to put our commitment, loyalty and motives on trial. Most of these traps come packaged as innocent questions or offhand remarks. Questions like, ‘What are you thinking about?’ and ‘Do you like my brains or my body more?’. A question like the latter of course really means, ‘Did you hook up with me just because I have big melons?’ It’s the perfect female trap. If you answer that it was her intelligence and sparkling personality that initially got you interested, then she’ll come back with, ‘Oh, so you think I’m ugly?’ And if you mention her awesome headlights, prepare to duck. These traps thus require us to go around the truth (i.e. ‘lie’), because when we face these questions she isn’t exactly looking for the answer, but rather just to stir disturb the peace.
Another thing that us guys love to avoid, but is hopeless to attempt, is the nagging part. Generally women seem to us as illogical and emotion-driven creatures who like to start fights over nothing to satisfy their need to be constantly reassured. Since staying away from her isn’t an option, the nagging has to be minimised, because it’s going to be there no matter how much we try. Unfortunately we have very few options here, because to minimize the nagging we can either swallow our pride and agree with them, avoid it by some surprising act of kindness, or take the not so nice option of derailing the process altogether by ignoring her words and thinking about the mechanics assignment due on Monday while she’s speaking. The best way out though is to just take the appropriate action and take care of whatever it is that’s annoying her. A good relationship takes work, but it shouldn’t feel like a 9-to-5 job. I could go on and on, but then, I’d be nagging!
There’s always an argument and a counter argument of how girls come into our lives and change things forever. I’m sure many things we do don’t make much sense to them. Its all about compromising I guess and overcoming the differences between the sexes, which requires a deep understanding of why we need the relationship in the first place, then deciding what kind of relationship to get into. And if the trade-off isn’t enjoyable and worth it, you haven’t found the right woman or truly learned to love. In that case, there are far more reasons to enjoy being happily single.”
Tarek Ghobar is from Lebanon. The next ‘Tarek’s Diary’ will be published in Delta 11. He can be emailed at: t.ghobar@tudelft.nl
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