The post where Tash is tired and lacking a social life more thoroughly than usual.

"Believe me, men are either eaten up with arrogance
or stupidity. If they are amiable, they are so easily
led they have no minds of their own whatsoever."

Housekeeping:

1. But isn't this about books? 
   I'm trying to keep it about pretty much everything this year. Thoughts, feelings, everything - leading up to whatever happens next year.
   Ergo, books can come, and books can go, as can most everything I write about.
2. Why isn't this going on the other blog?
   Because those poor suckers have to deal with many of my tired posts, and I want something on here besides books.
3. But -
   Stop. Asking. Questions. *intense stare*

To the post!

***

From a young age, I was told that men (on the whole) are not complex creatures. The way of the man is simple to understand, especially to the mind of an intelligent female. After all, how much to them could there be?

Sitting on a chair at my grandmother's place, legs dangling down and not touching the floor, I was eating a sandwich as she told me about the differences between men and women.

Men could eat two sandwiches. Women could not.

Men were meant to work. Women were not.

Men were allowed to go and drink, eschewing parental responsibility. Women were not.

This was, she said, because men did not need much to make them happy. Food, drink and work - this is what kept men happy. And so, gently tugging the extra bread roll I'd reached for from my hands, she told me that I shouldn't worry.

Mi Natashita, she said, you'll always be able to understand them.

Truth be told, I am no closer to figuring out men than Lizzie Bennet was. I suspect it is not uncommon; after all, humanity is inherently complex, and it stands to reason that men - the gender that currently is just over 50% of the world population - would follow this formula of complexity.

Google can't help me understand men either. Correction,  Google thinks it can help me understand men. But when you click on articles and get the following:

It kind of lessens your faith in the whole 'let's figure men out' scenario. At least when it's provided by Google.

It's not that I don't socialise with men - I highly doubt that women can't figure out men for this reason. In fact, I have a group of guys I turn to when there's something one of their gender has done that cannot be rationalised. Occasionally, they get stumped. 

"Yeah, that's just odd. I've not seen that before." What? How have you not seen it before? 

"Okay, I've only ever seen a guy do that once before." Why did he do that? "You think I asked? I backed away."

But with a source like that, and my group of friends being predominately comprised of males (drama effectively lessens by 60%), I theoretically should have an okay understanding of how the male brain works.

I have a fairly solid understanding of how the female mind works. As much as it pains me to admit, my entire reasoning behind female actions has been tainted with a very strong dose of cynic. Yet men...

A couple of nights ago, I had all but decided Lizzie Bennet was bang on (or, I should say, the screenwriters for Pride and Prejudice Class of '05). Men were stupid. If they were not stupid, they were arrogant. If they were neither of those, then they were just sheep-like and really a waste of time.

And, with all the enthusiasm of Danae from Non Sequitur in her attempts to become invisible, I decided it was to the nunnery I was going. In the nunnery, there were no men. There were no idiotic reasonings I had to follow. In the nunnery I was probably only expected to pray, sew, and -

Oh. Dang. There are vows-of-silence nunneries.

Be that as it may, I decided I should wash my hands of all the general weirdness. 

And quite possibly start my own convent, where I could yak all day long, still text and use Facebook (without being evicted), and eat KFC.
Would be an excellent convent.

However, that does not explain the fact that for some obscure reason, I still find myself yearning for a man. There's a vaguely specific one at the moment, but he's so far outside the realm of possible that I should, ideally, forget about him. Pining away for one unavailable man is just ridiculous, pathetic, and an extreme waste of my time.
I say ideally. Ideally never occurs, because I'm one of those humans who is all "YAY PRETTY PRETTY FLOWER OH FLOWER IS BEHIND A BARBED WIRE ELECTRIC FENCE WITH LIGHTSABERLIKE NETTING I MUST HAVE FLOWER", and in my excitement I end up losing my limbs up to my elbows, and they scuttle away and I am left handless and flowerless.
... that makes so much sense, Tash.
I asked Nate about my inability to get over the flower behind lightsaber fences, and he replied with the following:

"Because love is blind, and I'm talking more the 'go to get a drink at night and stumble around clumsily' type of blind"

It's comforting he didn't say "because you're an absolute idiot".

Re-reading from the beginning, I realise I've completely diverted from the point of this post.

The point of the matter is, men currently confuse the heck out of me. I'm sure you have your reasons for doing things, men, but I for one believe signage is appropriate. I probably have written about signs somewhere, but signs are the greatest invention ever. Or they would be, if we just put them into action. Sophie Kinsella shares my views:

Like I said, there should be a different system... It could involve hand signals, perhaps. Or small, discreet stickers placed on the lapel, colour coded for different messages. 

 - The Undomestic Goddess, pp 249

If we just held up signs, we'd be totally cool. We can hold up signs to explain our odd behaviours, our views towards a relationship with others.

YES, I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR ADVANCES. PLEASE CONTINUE WITH YOUR DULCET TONES OF FLATTERY.

YOU'RE EXTREMELY NICE. BUT... I JUST... FRIENDS?

UM, YEAH, YOU'RE FREAKING ME OUT. PLEASE DON'T COME ANY CLOSER. I HAVE DOVE DEODORANT IN MY HANDBAG, AND I WILL USE THIS AS THOUGH IT IS MACE.

I'M NOT ACTING LIKE THIS TO CONFUSE YOU, I AM MERELY ACTING LIKE THIS TO GET MY HEAD TOGETHER.

Etcetera, so on, so forth.
But unfortunately the world has not gotten on board with such things, and as a result, men and women will forever be unable to understand one another. At least, I fear I will be forever plagued with this.
Maybe it's just some innate knowledge you're born with, much like the ability to apply makeup effectively, except you can't learn it from YouTube and you can't get someone behind a counter at DJs to make it all work in your favour.

I have always heard from men that women are confusing. That we say one thing, and mean another. True, to an extent. I have been known to say "Yeah, I'm fine" when really meaning "One day, you will pay. I don't know how, or when, but expect it". I'm sure that my fascination with fashion is astoundingly odd, and the fact that during a rational debate regarding something like politics, literature or feminism with a group of men, I can instantly be distracted by a sale or a beautiful shoe:

But you men... my gosh. What's with the whole 'pleather-being-chased-around-a-field-while-wearing-abnormally-short-shorts-qualifies-as-sport' mumbo jumbo? How does rugby even work? AFL is even more confusing, and really? Why does random tall man in red uniform need to kick that through those posts? What is the point?
(I understand women enjoy these sports as well, but the men in my life are all - or mostly - obsessed by this.)
And apparently you guys don't really do the whole D&M thing. I mean, yes, it took me years to get to that point... but surely part of you wants to, right? How do you vent? This deeply confuses me.

My brother once told me, when one of his female friends was weeping over her boyfriend never confiding in her - or, very rarely - that guys won't go to their girlfriends first, or don't usually. I don't know how right he is, but that's another enigma of Man. Man, you are weird. ('Man' being used as gender and as exclamation of exasperation.) I can understand if it's an issue about the girl, but...
Oh, I don't know.

Men, you confuse me.
I don't expect this to ever change.
In rebuttal, I'm going to eat cake.