Non Sequitur

Several years ago, when I was having some problems with this girl I knew, a law school bud said something which has remained in my head up to this very day. It was nothing profound or melodramatic or anything like that. Matter-of-factly he just said: "Pag nakakaintindi ka na ng babae, babae ka na din." Loosely translated into English, it means "When you start understanding women, you've turned into one yourself."

It was a simple statement, yet so true...well, at least in my case. I can never, ever, seem to figure out women, especially within the context of romantic relationships, or in the attempt to establish one. I can never really decipher when you're supposed to take what they say literally or when to take what they're saying with a grain of salt. I often get confused whether they actually mean what they say, or if they're just saying. Worse is when it comes to interpreting the things that they do.

Men for the most part are linear thinkers. When we do X something, it's because we want to achieve Y result. That's all there is to it. As far as women are concerned, it can drive you nuts figuring out why they do something, and most of the time what they want and what they're doing hardly bear any relation to each other. In other words, non sequitur. Or at least, that's how it looks like.

I would like to say that I don't give a rat's ass why women think the way they do, but alas, if you want to get close to one, you have to at least try and decipher the code that all women understand but men can hardly figure out. Unfortunately, my attempts seem to have been less than successful somewhat, and most of time I find myself backtracking from my initial course of action whenever I realize I made a mistake.

This is one of my favorite (or should I say, least favorite) paradoxes when it comes to courtship: it's how much attention you should give them. If you pay them too much attention, it turns them off and drives them away. If you pay them too little attention, they either think you're no longer interested in them, and distance themselves, or they get upset, and reciprocate your seeming lack of interest with lack of interest on their part as well. Either way, you don't really get anywhere. So the question remains, how much attention should you give them? Unless you know the exact amount of attention you should give them, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'd like to say that I have already come up with a formula for this conundrum, but it would seem that figuring out the Grand Unified Theory would probably be a lot easier than understanding women.

Another interesting contradiction in terms is the fact that if a woman asks you to do something, it does not necessarily mean that it's the right thing to do, especially when you're concerned. For example, if the woman insists you drop her off some place or some ways from her house instead of taking her to her doorstep, for some reason the parents either think you're rude or have less-than-honorable intentions because you won't show your face to them. If the woman tells you she isn't hungry and would rather just have dinner at her home and you oblige, her parents either think you're a cheapskate who thinks their daughter is not worth spending money on, or that you're an indigent who can't even afford to buy their daughter dinner. If by some coincidence you and the object of your ardor work in the same place or at least have workplaces in close proximity of each other, if you don't fetch her or take her home you're labeled by the parents as an insensitive schmuck who doesn't give a crap if they're daughter is having a hard time getting a ride to or from work. Again, it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

I'd like to say that I was making the stuff up in the preceding paragraph, but I'm not. In fact it has probably happened to me a number of times now.

Well, to be honest, I've never entertained any illusions that I'd be able to break the code. But I really would like to get it right at least some of the time. It would really make what I'm doing right now a lot easier. But I guess even if I didn't understand women, that probably wouldn't stop me from from trying. Since it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't, I really don't have anything to lose don't I?

Yet, I could still have everything to gain.

In the long run, I guess it doesn't really matter if I understand women or not. What's important is whether or not my heart is in the right place.