 False perceptions
Some men or women lack sophistication in approaching
their object
of attraction
By Afshin Tirabady
April 8, 2004
iranian.com
Nothing has a greater
hold on human mind, than nonsense fortified by
technicalities.
Of all the quotes one may comes across, the above,
by the well known Pakistani cricket commentator Omar Kureishi has
always captured
my imagination (for those of you who do not live in England, cricket is a popular
British game similar to the American baseball that is played throughout the
commonwealth countries). It has done so I believe, because it summarises
the nature of so
much of our intellectual activities; for large parts, most of us tend to engage
in nonsensical yet elaborate discourse in an effort to explain and perhaps
resolve our intra and inter-personal dilemmas.
Now, it is said
that we as humans are
social animals and thus it would seem natural that a large part of our mental
exertions is into issues related to relationship and partnership, two important
concepts I will come back to later on. However, these are also contexts within
which our inadequacies to categorise and understand our experiences are most
vividly highlighted. See for example the two articles, "Guys
are stupid" and "Use
your brain" for a couple of prototypical representations of how self-unacquaintedness
and social naiveté can adversely influence one's global outlook.
The articles are rich in bona fide technical nonsense
and give us a glimpse of how we all, at times, try to make sense
of our relationships in a fraudulent
and fundamentally flawed manner. The author struggles to convey a very simple
personal point of view; her ideas can easily be put
into a short monologue: "Hey, look at me everyone, a Persian girl, or
am I Iranian? No, Persian
sounds cooler, yes ... anyways, a Persian girl and a feminist... oh
what's
that? I don't know! Four decades of women's complex literary
and intellectual movement, and what the hell, let me call myself a feminist
too.
And you know how I like my man don't you; he is from those Walt Disney
stories, tall, handsome, sexy, masculine, but at the same time soft, kind
hearted and noble spirited. I don't like those nasty bunch of no good
loosers who think about sex all the time... oh nooo, I like my men to respect
women,
but you know what, I am going to suggest that no woman should ever respect
men, yeeeh... let's all go out and fuck as many as we
can, 'verbally and physically', and then dump the lot of them,
because after all we are waiting for that one ideal hero to come and swipe
us off our
feet, aren't we sisters? Ou-ha... long live girl power!"
Well,
allow me to give you my male perspective cyber-pals; even if such a man
exists, and I seriously doubt that he does, you are going to scare
him away thinking
in those tired and dated clichés. You know, relationships and partnerships
are exactly that. Consensual agreements between individuals to share activities
and interests.
It does not matter what the contents of those activities
are -- sex, intellectual debate, work or a walk in the park. None is
neither superior
nor inferior to the other. It is darn arrogance to implicate that because
some men or women lack a post-modern sophistication in approaching
their object
of attraction, they should be considered sub-specious and sent to cerebral
gas chambers,
or worse, stereotyped
and stigmatised; guys are stupid, guys don't use their brain, women
are tarts, blah, blah, blah.
Furthermore, it also does not matter if
our relationships
are not perfect. Perfection is a subjective and abstract construct
whose meaning appears to be heterogeneous. What is more important
in my opinion
is how we
deal with imperfections in life. How we negotiate personal needs within
the often
contradictory social milieus.
It is this mindset, which I think ultimately
determines the quality of our lives, not the one that
bitterly awaits the arrival of the "right man or woman", and then
starts shouting abuse at the world, when he or she, naturally, does
not turn up. .................... Say
goodbye to spam!
Author
Afshin Tirabady is a TV programme editor who
lives and works in London.
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False perceptions
