A few nights ago when I was having this conversation about mascara, with a man, of course, he gave me a very practical explanation. “Make-up,” he said, “is made to attract. Because it enhances all your features and makes them all slightly more pronounced, it enables me to notice you from a distance. Without it, you’re just a blur. But when you’re close-up, you’re you, with or without it—I can see all your features and I don’t need the make-up to emphasize them for me. Close-up, with make-up, you become a doll.” So this is why men, when they get to know us, and have already seen us many times close-up, say, don’t wear make up. What they’re saying is, “you don’t need to attract me anymore, I am attracted, I am here.” Erm…no! I want to be a doll!
But this brings me to my third and final part…for now. Aren’t they just so wonderfully practical? When I am stressing about how I-want-to-wear-that-silk-dress-that’s-been-hanging-in-my-closet-for-months-because-it’s-missing-a-button-so-i-need-to-take-it-this-afternoon-to-buy-a-button-for-it-or-replace-all-of-them-so-they-look-the-same-and-so-i-need-to-buy-a-sewing-kit-but-where-am-i-going-to-get-one-and-then-will-i-have-time-to-wash-and-blow-dry-and-straighten-my-hair-and-paint-my-nails-to-match-the-dress-and-then-iron-the-dress-because-i-carried-it-around-all-day-looking-for-a-button-and-then-put-it-on-and-call-a-cab-so-my-dress-doesn’t-get-wet-in-the-rain….he’ll come up with the perfect solution. Or many. Wear another dress, love. You don’t need to wash and blow-dry and straighten your hair, it looks fine as it is. Get the buttons you want and I’ll drop the dress off at my tailor’s while you get ready and then bring it to you when it’s done. Have a shower at my house – it’s closer to the restaurant. Yes! I have Paul Mitchell. Go on.
How easy that complicated, hormonal, hyphenated life becomes when there’s a man around. How do they have all the solutions? I think they have LEGO to thank for that. When they were younger they played with toys that came in pieces with manuals and pictures for how to put them together. We, on the other hand, had dolls, that with technology’s swift advancement only further opened up their possibilities and gave us more bits to make decisions about. We had to figure out what the doll was going to wear, or in some cases, eat, where she was going to go, and who she was going to go there with. Yes. Barbie never came with an instruction manual—we spent days and days making up (no pun intended), outfits, places, entire conversations for her to have with her equally made-up friends! (And you wonder why our imaginations are so vivid?!) While the boys would look up at us from time to time, wonder what the hell we were on, and swiftly turn back to their manuals to find step 238 to putting together the giant LEGO city.
Needless to say, they haven’t changed much. And I hardly mean this in a bad way. I love to see a man with his toys. Some like real cars, some like model ones, some like golf and some photography. They will spend hours and hours on the internet looking for the perfect antique camera to add to their collection, further hours and hours bidding on it, and then take an afternoon off work to go and meet the guy who’s selling it in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. Upon obtaining their new acquisition, which, need I mention, doesn’t work, they will play with it for the rest of the day to figure out what doesn’t work, do further googleing for yes! you guessed it—an instruction manual, and then proceed to plan out the following day so as to hit up all the shops that may stock those obsolete spare parts. Occasionally, they may require our help here—“yes, babe, I’m sure you’ll find them at Portobello Market—you know that little place I’ve been trying to convince you to take me to Saturday brunch at? Right across the street from that.” And sure enough, they’ll get that done, pick up your dress, go home, shower and change into clean jeans and a shirt without the “T,” and then play with their new, now functioning camera while they wait quietly for you to get ready. Ahhhh. You’ve just got to love them.
Turns out, boys will be boys. Now if only girls could be girls, (and not neurotic, feminist, sexist women), we could all learn to play together…as we did once upon a time, when we really were just…boys and girls.
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