We all know that men and women are wired differently and that sometimes wrong wiring sets off dangerous sparks. In the first of a two-part series, Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary talks to a few men to find out what qualities they really look for in a life partner.
"Why can't a woman be more like a man?" wailed professor Henry Higgins, exasperated with the shenanigans of Eliza Doolittle. "Men are so honest, so thoroughly square, eternally noble and historically fair...," he whined, echoing the angst of millions of men down the centuries who weren't exactly looking for a female Viking but wanted a simple, sane partner who could wear more common sense on her mind than make-up on her face. And yes, a woman who would not faint with fright at the prospect of changing a car tyre.
I am sure a lot of feminists hated Professor Higgins and his stuffed-shirt superiority and must have had ready, pointy rejoinders to deflate his misogynism. Some wars do not need a reason to be fought. They are just a way of life.
Satirists, poets and playwrights have written about this gender grenade lobbing since time immemorial and in the present times also we have emotional engineers who have built bridges of understanding, like the eminent John Gray who thinks that men and women are so different from each other that they belong to different planets! He is simply packaging his thoughts in a different cloth because all this yarn has a common thread that runs through the works of psychologists, feminists, socialists and anthropologists.
All this due to the ultimate puzzle that civilisation still grapples with: what does a man want?
It depends on the phase of his life. Let's take the dating phase. In this rose-coloured dim light phase, all he wishes for in a woman is that she be pretty, soft-spoken, caring, tender and be by his side always. Such a simple dream.
Then, he dates her long enough to realise that he wants to marry her. Now, his wish list alters, sometimes even without him being aware of it!
He wakes up some days and sits down for breakfast to find the love of his life wearing a mashed avocado face mask and slapping on the butter on a burnt toast like she was spanking their firstborn who is at that very moment practising to be an artist with carrot mash as his paint and his shirt as the canvas. Plus he can hear some static in the air – is that muttering something to do with his mother's visit last week?
He wishes she would turn up the volume. On second thoughts, he is glad she is not.
Then there is the other prototype. She will flutter her eyelashes all her life, nearly flatline at the thought of cooking, max his credit cards to keep looking like the trophy wife, buff her nails waiting for a Galahad to help with a flat tyre and making sweet mewling sounds during a 'sudden death' episode in a soccer match.
Are we being anachronistic here?
I mean, do such categories even exist? How can a whole planetful of women be so illogically compartmentalised?
So, okay then, let's forget the compartmentalisation. Let's go back to the basics: what does a man want?
A beautiful, smart, intelligent woman with a great sense of humour, who is a good cook, a grand hostess, an efficient multitasker, a factotum who will ensure the chips and dips are served on a platter exactly when the soccer match begins, who will look after the kids and wipe the whingeing off their faces to enable him to read in peace, allow him his boy's night out ever so often without calling him on the hour, be sensitive to his moods, and also be strong and passionate.
Now this is what a man wants.
Not to be outdone in the I-want stakes, women are always looking for a life partner who is a perfect blend of the qualities of Robin Hood and Romeo. A tall, handsome, big, strong, passionate, romantic man who never forgets birthdays and anniversaries, always gives up his game of soccer for a chick flick, or goes shopping, holds the hangers while she tries on 26 dresses and seven types of jeans, a man who will hush her back to sleep when the baby cries at 3 am and change the diapers himself (without switching on the light; she likes to sleep in a dark room and light steals her precious REM sleep), believes in surprising her with expensive gifts on her birthday, leaves love notes around the house and is eternally grateful that she is part of his life.
Now this too is a wish list.
So, which one is more realistic?
We decided to first approach the guys.
The depth and variety of their expectations surprised us. Take a look.
Harmeek Singh (below), an Indian, runs an event management company called Plan B. Perhaps it is a sign of his resourcefulness – always ready with a fallback option in case crisis calls.
Singh has a few suggestions for women on how to make their way forward in this Amazonian forest of myths, truths and false assumptions and dearly-held beliefs by men on women and vice versa. In fact Singh has worked out a 'how to' list for women and he is of the firm belief that this list is a definite winner.
"I think women are lovely individuals who turn a house into a home and a haven for the family. They bring meaning to a man's busy, chaotic life, but since I am being asked for my opinion on how to perfect their act, this is what I would like to say:
- Be a sport; when a beautiful woman walks into sight, don't bristle or sulk. Before your husband can say it, you say it. "Wow, what a lovely lady!" There is no harm in appreciating beauty.
- Don't be a clock-watcher. It's the job of the clock to keep track of minutes, hours, seconds, not a woman's when the man is out with his mates or on a business dinner. If he is running late, there must be a good reason. Trust him.
- Loosen the leash: be generous; at social dos let him be a bit loud, a bit OTT, a bit more gregarious than usual. He is simply letting his hair down after a gruelling week at work.
- Don't ration out the tissue paper at home because you are a member of an eco-group: it will not help cutting down on the wastage. If you punch a slogan into the air everytime he draws two tissues instead of one, it's guaranteed a third pull will fetch four from the box. Sometimes marital maths works that way.
- Return to reality: as a girl, you must have lived out a fairy tale in your mind. All homes were castles, all boys were young princes and the rest. But life is not a fairy tale. The real world is real, it has a name, a street sign, a house number and every house has a story. A real life story is different from a soap opera.
- Believe: that when men are working they are not having fun but actually sweating it out to be achievers.
- Currency vs paper: sometimes, it is critical to know the difference between currency and paper when parting with it for something to wear.
- Cricket: not the chirping kind but the game many men love and most women have no time for. Spend a little time watching the game with him. It works magic on your spousal harmony.
- Daily Recommended Allowance: while this may apply to vitamins and dietary supplements, it does not relate to the most overused sentence, 'I love you'.
- Remember to forget: the three questions in your telephone conversations – a) Where are you? b) When will you come home? c) Who are you with?
By the way Singh is a very happily married man.
***
A scuba diver by hobby, Gordon Kirkwood from Britain (below) celebrates the differences between the genders with gusto. An oil adviser seconded by British Petroleum to Adma-Opco in Abu Dhabi where he arrived three years ago, Kirkwood recently had stomach surgery. He says under the medicine-induced stupor he had an inspiration to write a small poem on the differences which he addresses to his beloved wife, who is a treasurer with the Abu Dhabi Feline Friends. The poem says it all.
You Always /I Always
[An ode to my wife on our wedding anniversary]
You always want to watch Dr Phil and other soaps on the TV
(but I always switch over to the sport on the other channel when you're out of the room)
You always want me to do my own ironing
(but I always take the shirts down to the laundry when you're not looking)
You always come back from the shopping mall with new shoes and clothes you don't really need
(but I always go through the bags of old stuff you throw away and save a few things)
You always accuse me of snoring
(but I always wake you up when you're snoring but you can't hear yourself)
You always carry enough keys to open the Tower of London and enough credit cards to buy the world three times over
(but I always only carry a few)
You always claim you are a better driver
(so I always have to analyse the speeding tickets to try to prove to you otherwise)
You always want me to ask for directions when driving
(but I always think I'm not lost and I know the best way to anywhere myself)
You always want to listen to nothing in the car
(but I always want to listen to loud music - so whoever drives is in control)
You always put on the toilet roll the wrong way round, with the paper tail facing the wall
(so I always turn it around as soon as I can)
You always accuse me of reading in the toilet
(and I always am!)
Despite all of our differences, we both promised to love, honour and obey, and you're a girl and I'm a boy and I will always love you.
Kirkwood has been married to Gillian for 28 years, and happily so.
***
Veterinary surgeon Dr Dominic Saurek's (below) ideal woman is strong, supportive and caring. His ideal is derived from the personality of his mother who is of Macedonian origin. She lives in Poland, runs the Polish-Macedonian club, is gregarious, strong and gung-ho about life. Although he has no complaints regarding his wife, a bit of cajoling reveals a wish list of what an ideal spouse should be like.
- Computer wizard: women love to work at the computer but one tiny hiccup and the spousal hotline is dialled. If only the wife had a degree in computers – that would be really great as she would fix the computer in five minutes despite all my efforts to get it to crash again.
- Car repair: only if every wife was an ace car repair woman. All commercials show a woman with the emergency light on her car parked in the middle of the road and in distress. Seconds later, a handsome gentleman shows up and fixes the car in no time. And what do you think happens next? It's the beginning of a romance. I love being romantic too but I also wish there was a role reversal in this context. Why not a woman who drives up to fix the stranded car of a pathetically incompetent, distressed man?
- Go fishing, literally: a wife who could share her husband's love for fishing. The worst bit is explaining to your wife that fishing which includes waking up early, preparing the fishing equipment, heading out to the spot in the wee hours, setting up stuff on the boat and waiting for the bait to be taken is not always related to bringing home fresh-catch dinner.
- Rock on: wives who enjoy heavy metal. How does anyone tell a woman that listening to music, loud, in the house from your great audio equipment is not a plea to be driven to the ear specialist the following morning?
- Quit the distance driving: could women refrain from distance driving please? By distance driving I mean telling their husbands how to drive while belted up in the passenger seat. Driving in this city is stressful enough; what makes it worse is when women push their feet against the floor thinking that will slow down the car. It won't. The brakes are on the other side.
- The gift of thrift: a woman who genuinely practises thrift. The motto "Honey, I have tried nine dresses and I look great in each one of them, but I bought four only" is not a great compromise.
- Mobile unit: a woman who does not believe in remaining 'glued' to her mobile all her waking hours. Is it my suspicion that women need ro recharge their cellphones more often than men?
- Forgive and forget: when a husband forgets an anniversary or some other important date, it is not a criminal offence. It is possible that the date did not ring a bell for some reason. Why should such a minor lapse be followed by absence of dinner or lunch the next day?
- There's a green movement on ... when two women talk about another without a hint of jealousy, it's a heartwarming sight.
- If a really pretty woman walks into the room, she need not be put under the microscope. It is nice when a woman genuinely accepts that there are other women who are prettier than her.
His terms
Mohammad Bohsali, a model, is unmarried and is looking for his ideal partner. The qualities on his wish list?
- She should be understanding, loving, affectionate and caring.
- She must know how to cook without burning the food. Of course on some days, I would treat her to my own style of cooking.
- She must know how to drive and to park the car on her own without bumpng into pillars and posts.
- She must be able to hold a sane conversation without using the term "duh".
- She must not get paranoid about other people having pets.
- She must be able to hold back her scream when she sees a poor cockroach passing by.
- She must be able to conduct herself in a way that no matter how beautiful she is, she is not a walking billboard for it.
- She must be able to watch a soccer match and know which are the teams .
- More important, which team to cheer for.
- She should be able to play a complex video game with me without falling asleep just when the game is reaching its most exciting round.
