Monday, March 07, 2005

Of men and chasing skirts (Part 2)

If women, attractive or otherwise, love to be chased, count me in. It's not because women are simply mean or playing hard to get. It doesn't take a genius of a man to tell if she does so. They just buy time. Unfortunately, buying time is not men’s business. Well, as I see it. In this day and age.

Most women I know need time to get to know the person better. They get the feel of the water first before taking a plunge. While a number of men I encounter immediately wants to take that plunge only to find out that the water is burning hot and want to snap out of it in a heartbeat.
If she decides to go out with him on a date or two, he's assured of some degree of likeness, if not attraction, from her. But stop being a high-jumping hysteric, dude. It doesn't mean you have already completely won her. Not just as yet. Unfortunately, some guys would think this way too soon. And when the reality dawns on him, whalla--a romantic drifter is born (or is it burned?)!

I can’t seem to find a convincing reason why a lot of men are always on the rush of winning a woman’s heart. Wise men say only fools rush in, so a song goes. Does it have to do with social acceptability? Macho culture? Or is it sexual fever? I wouldn’t know.

There’s one reason I know, though.
In this swirling world of instant coffee and noodles, a drifter's life is just as short-lived as batting an eyelash -- the moment you open your eyes, he's already in a table next to you sipping coffee with “another” dream girl. And the only thing you can do for the time being is wish him the best of luck, hoping that his antics work this time. But you see, this is not really something back-breaking, talk about the glaring statistics of women outnumbering men. Banking on such a phenomenon, some men can always find a way to abuse their “homecourt advantage”— throwing easily grandpa’s trusty virtues of patience, persistence and perseverance out of the window. And this leaves many women especially those who are riding the bandwagon of “Generation Instant” to settle for less.

If there’s one “general” characteristic that is annoying about skirt-chasing drifters, it is their inability to forge a platonic friendship with the once-object of their affectionate gaze . Put any innocent femme in this scenario and a cry for justice can’t be helped. For a man to put women in a box-- girlfriend or nothing-- is plain sinful. Worse, to swear at her as a “woman with a heart of stone” or an “enemy of the State” is gross.

Now the drifter ceases to be one, but the question is: “Is he getting the kind of woman that he’s ever wanted?” But should he doesn’t want to settle for the best, is his’ to keep. Anyway.

In my book, men don’t have to be a Brad Pitt to succeed on attractive sensible women. But this is another story.

Published in Sunstar Weekend Magazine as"Who's Chasing Skirts". August 6, 2005. All rights reserved)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/weekend/index.html