Thursday 5 November 2009

Taxi Driver




Do you remember this episode of SATC, when they are all having a chat in the bathroom after Trey gave Charlotte a Cartier watch?

Miranda has a theory according to which men are like cabs. At some point in their life, they decide they want to settle, turn their light on and the next girl they meet is the One. Nothing to do with love at first sight or whatever crap about soul mates.

I used to think it was pure cynicism... And then, yesterday, I saw on Facebook pictures of the new born of a guy who chased me with assiduity exactly one year ago, telling me that he wanted a real relationship, not just to come and see me here in London and then to vanish. It was weird at the time because we hadn't seen each other for years and it just didn't make sense to know you want a relationship with someone without seeing them back.

And bam, it struck me when I saw him with his baby boy! His light was on, that's all.

You think I'm being cynical?

Another example then. Months ago, I fell in love with a guy who is a commitment phobic - well, who didn't these days, you would say... The worst is that I think he genuinely wanted to try the long-term-relationship thing. But for the wrong reasons. He was seeing people around him, his closest friends included, getting married and having babies, and he just wanted the same. With quite whomever he would have come across then. As simple as that!

Obviously, love happens. Thank God. My point is that women in their thirties are always pictured as hysterically obsessed with babies and marriage, where men are supposed to run away from all this and only dream of being eternal bachelors. Would we all, at the end, want the same thing - or rather, do we all eventually feel the same pressure from society, even when we pretend we don't?

OMG!!! Just realised that this post is so awfully SATC................. Won't happen again, I promise. Will write 100 lines... Be gone, Carry Bradshaw!

2 comments:

  1. I agree that cabs turn their light on, but: It is not the guys who are like cabs, who have been looking for someone they want to settle down with. It is a certain type of girls. Be it that they have been wanting a child since they were a teenager, and now they finally found an ok candidate for a dad, or be it that they want to trap the guy.
    Honestly, I know hardly one man who would be longing for “the joys of fatherhood”. They know or think that this is what many girls want, and if they consider themselves mature, responsible and lovely once the lady fell pregnant they sigh, and endure it. I doubt most of the gentlemen are able and willing to maintain the facades of a happy family life for more than five or ten years, though. It is not a secret that a child is rather a test for a relationship than an enrichment.

    According to someone whom I do not even consider a downright macho security is what women want. Having a child with someone definitely brings some security, Whether you want it or not. A Christian, supposedly happily married friend of mine once declared in a big round that children were a factor contributing to poverty, and that he would certainly not want to have any. Weeks later he announced he was to become a dad in a couple of months. His hair turned grey and I never saw him smile again.

    In my opinion, women are the only ones who feel a certain pressure from society in this aspect. Men know how to gracefully escape the pressure. I am deeply convinced that men want to be eternal bachelors. I love those male rounds where a woman gets explained that there is only one reason why we are needed. Well, vice versa is what I think. Except for we also need men to carry things, such as diamonds. Don’t think I wasn’t a feminist. I am. Just that sometimes it feels good to be treated as a precious, vulnerable companion. And yes, opening doors is absolutely fine.

    It is not you, it is the guys. Someone thinks the two of you don’t fit in one boat, well, go on. Would you really want to spend years, possibly the rest of your life with a sacrificing and committed, though dishonest and mediocre coward? [Any resemblance to existing characters is purely coincidental.]

    For me it seems more rewarding to stay openminded, keep meeting new people, check how little or how much we have in common. I still believe I will find my soul mate one day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agree with you on most points, but believe me there is men out there who at some point just want to settle and start a family, whomever with! I've met some, so not just an urban myth ;) The point I was trying to make is that, precisely because there's this bravado facade about men who would just want to be eternal bachelors, it's weird when you notice they can feel this kind of pressure (although I too think that women are more likely to feel it) and also that I'm not sure it's a good thing - because it seems then to be just about pressure or biology but definitely not love!

    ReplyDelete