In today’s times, one observes
the male species a bit troubled to commit, specifically to marriage. Not that
in the past they felt any different, it is just that today we live in rather
fluid times, and there are abundant reasons that gravitate towards men not
committing. Loneliness, or confusion about one’s sexual preference is certainly
not one of them. What else then, you might ask? Cautious and careful are the
two watchwords that withhold men from commitment with the opposite sex, and
nearly most of their life sciences seem somehow to revolve around those two
factors.
Examined most
pragmatically, the roles of men and women have been etched rather befittingly from
the inception of mankind: men have been the bread earners, and women, the
homemakers. One leading factor to have drilled a hole in the happiness was the
woman’s liberation movement, followed by the financial independence that women
have obtained in the last couple of decades. This has ruined the pattern that
had been followed since centuries. Then again, it is not the fault of women
alone. They have been repressed from eons, and it was but natural that they sought
respect, and respect, they knew, could be earned if they stood on their own
feet, and that would happen if they qualified and educated themselves, and that
is what they went about doing. However, somewhere, in the pursuit of practising
such unparalleled power, most women have found themselves confused – they have
no clue whether they belong to an office, or to their homes, and this has lead
to dissatisfaction, conflict, and a crack in something that would have been
wonderful had this whole ‘I want equality’ not interfered with the equilibrium
chartered out from time immemorial.
I read articles every
now and then of people theorising about why something is this or that. I also
hear discourses on self-help that say if you do this, this will happen, and if
you do that, that will happen. Truth is nothing will happen unless you want it
to happen, and you cannot make anything happen until it is the time for it to
happen. The rest is nothing but a marketing and money laundering drama.
If I were to cite my
own example, I would say that I am now a bit old to get married by conventional
Indian standards, and it has nothing to do with my sexual preference – I am
perfectly and clearly heterosexual, but what had kept me from letting a woman into
my comfort zone for a long time could be attributed perhaps to two possible reasons.
My father, besides being born into great wealth, inherited a great fortune as
well, and did not consider keeping himself occupied with a day job as it was
below the dignity of aristocrats to be caught up in the nitty-gritty of life. If
that was not enough of a mental adjustment, my mother, from an equally
illustrious ancestry, was unable to handle my father’s indifferent nature, and had
to give up her medical profession, which she loved, and dress herself up in the
role of the proxy man in order to keep the semblance of the family intact, whilst he sailed,
rode horses, barbequed at the exotic farmlands he bought in affluent cities and
regularly burnt rubber of his luxurious four wheels. This image had established
such asymmetry in me as a child that I found it incredibly tough to cope with
changed gender roles, and as a consequence I escaped into a world of my own – my
mind palace, as I would term it. In my palace I was free of conflict, and this
is the crux of male mentality – they loathe conflict. I did not permit the domestic
imbalance distress me and with time the fact was firmly established that it was
not my father and mother who were responsible for me in not plunging into matrimonial
bliss, (as it was presumed more so by anyone else but them) but it was the
grasp of the reality, the truth, the scruples, and art that prevented me from
being coerced into anything that my soul did not find relief in. Parents being
parents, it was indeed difficult for them to comprehend that as their children we
saw life far more clearly than them.
Next, I asked myself
whether I was threatened by commitment? Or whether I was caught between the
devil and the deep sea, that to find a woman who would appreciate that I
believed in the traditional role play of man the earner, and woman the
homemaker, was something that was a bit too far fetched in the twenty first
century? My inner voice provided me a negative for both, and I came to realise
that when I found the right fit, and my heart and mind said yes, and the similar
bells tolled in her heart and mind too, then it were to be a connection built
to last.
A friend said that by
not having a wife in my life I was missing out on life. Do I ‘really’ think that
life would have been any different had there been a woman in my life? Possibly,
but, until the one who mattered had put in an appearance, there was no reason
to stress myself with what had not happened. “Are you always this pedantic?”
she further asked. I didn’t know what to tell her, I mean we have no control
over what we are doing this very instant, so how can we know what fate we would
meet with in the future. As shrewd as we think we are, and plan for posterity,
at least until we live, we should not fool ourselves into believing that the
future can hold something glorious because it simply cannot. One must organise
one’s life, but one must not go blindly with the flow, since it is only the
dead fish that go with the flow. The ones that are alive make their own path.
I don’t think that men in
general are frightened of commitment. The smartest of the lot have schooled themselves
sufficient enough to safeguard themselves from rushing into things. They have
become cautious for they do not have the tolerance to deal with the strain of
expectations that loving a woman, in particular a wrong one, would demand of
them, and thus, they prefer to be safe than sorry. Also, one must be warned
that this notion of negotiating with caution merely because one has been hurt
once seems nonsensical. Each situation is different, just as each person is
different, so we ought to get rid of comparisons by attempting to emboss one
experience over the other. Who knows, in the fuss of letting hurt overpower us,
we might just about fail to recognise the one who is meant to be the one for us.
Core of the matter is that one must be mindful, but not rigid. One must be
sensitive, but not over sensitive. One must be cautious, but certainly not excessively
cautious.
I was reading an
article that states that the more intelligent the man, the more investigative
he is, and the more investigative he is, the more complex he is to get along
with. While the people who have arrived at such conclusions would have their
points to prove, I find such blanket statements a bit juvenile to digest. I do concur
that intelligence confines us from intermingling freely with the multitudes for
lack of wavelength, but it is not entirely true that clever people are problematic.
Possibly, they are difficult in case they find themselves adjoined in the arms
of those who do not stem from their own sensibilities, but otherwise I think it
is just their own farsightedness that comes to their rescue. Prudence allows a
certain luxury of seeing beyond the obvious, and when those principles are
employed with respect to our partners, then the true nature of each other’s
interest in one another is revealed most plainly, which indirectly helps in
navigating through a relationship with caution. As a result what wisdom does is
trigger the conscience to retain an upper hand than mere superficiality, and
that is where the notion of ‘intelligent men’ are not prone to being fooled in
a relationship has taken birth, when it is nothing but experience and arithmetic
at work.
Before I go, I would like
to reiterate that it is not sexual confusion as I abovementioned, or the fear
of commitment that keeps men from committing. It is just the methodical
reasoning that they are gifted with which allows them to remain single until
they find somebody of their own liking. They know that a wrong turn could cost
them their peace, and this wrong turn seldom happens considering the points discussed
above. So the smart ones are single by well-thought-out choice, and certainly not
the victims of circumstance.
