I should come with a warning label!
What is it about a beautiful or attractive woman that instantly turns a man into a bumbling idiot? I wish I knew the answer.
Yesterday was a good day, even by my standards. Well, that was until after I picked my nephew up from rugby practice and decided to stop off at the mall on the way back. I was running low on groceries and a quick stop-off at Woolworths would tie me over until the weekend. Even a bachelor has to eat, some time!
I did not want to go looking for an empty parking space, so I headed straight for the parking lot on the roof. There’s always parking space on the roof.
I found a space close an entrance and took the 3(?) sets of escalators down to the ground floor. Thinking back, I probably should have taken the lift. The mall was still fairly crowded at this hour, although most people were on their way home.
Everything went well until just before I got to the ground floor. It was at this point that my guardian angel flew away to do some window shopping, because what happened next can only be described as a fluke. OK, let's stay on topic...
So there I was, on the escalator… minding me own business. The nephew's a few steps in front of me and I am doing what most people do on escalators.... I watch the people on the floor below me, walk by.
When suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I saw what could only be the most beautiful, sexiest woman on the face of the planet. Now I don’t normally go around gawking at beautiful women (yeah right), but this chica was sheer poetry in motion! She looked like one of those girls you see in the Pantene ads... a real show stopper! I swear she even walked in slow-motion and it may have been my imagination, but I could hear Joe Cocker singing,
You are so beautiful
To me
You are so beautiful
To me
Can't you see
You're everything I hoped for
You're everything I need
You are so beautiful
To me [click
]
Fool that I am, I turned around on the escalator to get a better look at her, as she walked right by me. And as a result of this brilliant move, I am now travelling down the escalator facing... backwards.
At the bottom of the escalator, there's a metal pole, just beyond the last step, to prevent people from getting on with their shopping trolleys.
As I reached the bottom, the heel of my left shoe caught on the stationary bottom step and I lost my balance. In order to regain my balance, I stepped back with my right foot and bumped into the pole... with my ass. The momentum carried me backward and my arms instinctively reached out for something to hold on to. Of course there was nothing but air and, next thing I know, I landed on my ass.
The heel of my other foot was still on the bottom step, just where it disappeared under the lip, and I could not stand up. In the meantime the foot was on a slow journey towards my ass and I started to look like a friggin human pretzel. Arms flailing about, and legs kicking, while people were frantically trying not to land on top of me.
My nephew, who found this incredibly funny, finally managed to grab a hold of my collar and pulled me back just enough to get my foot on solid ground. That escalator was about to come alive and swallow me whole, starting with my foot. It was vicious, I tell you!
Now the peculiar thing about making an arse of yourself, especially in front of a small crowd of people, is that you want to get away from the scene of the crime. And while some people are genuinely nice in asking you if you are ok, you really want them to leave you alone so that you can run away and hide in the dressing room of the nearest department store.
I dusted myself off and managed to mumble a barely audible, "I’m ok”. I even managed to smile as I bravely forced the blood that had accumulated in my face back down to my chest cavity. No mean feat.
The beautiful girl was of course completely oblivious of the drama that had ensued. In fact she did not even stop… just kept right on walking. How rude! The least she could have done was look back to make sure I was ok.
Who am I kidding, she had no idea of the role she played in my near-untimely demise.
Life is so unfair and we men are such suckers when it comes to a beautiful girl. I’ve learnt my lesson, but can I promise it won’t happen again? Probably not. I am just another bumbling idiot, after all!
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It is sometimes difficult to adapt to how the modern world functions in the face of what we were taught as children.
For me, as a guy, one of the biggest obstacles is whether I should still attempt to incorporate chivalry (in its modern form) into my daily behaviour. Has women’s equality negated the need for me to be chivalrous? It honestly seems that our attempts can be interpreted as an effort to assert superiority and to return women to an inferior position in our society.
I visited a client in Sandston this morning. As I stepped though the front doors of the building, I noticed from the reflection in the glass doors, a young women, of around my age, a few steps behind me. I stepped through the doors, and without giving it much thought, held it open in order for her to walk through as well. With her being so close, I thought I would be rude to let it close behind me, but most of all it just seemed like the polite thing to do.
As we arrived at the security check point, she looked over to me and said,
“There was really no need for you to do that, you know. I may be a woman, but I am perfectly capable of opening the door myself”
My first thought was, “Could she be high at this hour of the morning?”, quickly followed by, “Isn’t 2006 a bit late to be burning your bra?”
I smiled at her, shook my head and looked away. I was in fact genuinely offended by what she had just said to me.
And before I knew it, the SOB who lurks inside me said, “I am sorry, miss, if my behaviour implied anything of the sort. Holding the door open was merely an act of kindness, and good manners. It had little to do with you being a woman, and more to do with you being a human being.
I reserve the right to open the door for whoever’s behind me. Many people have done the same for me, and do you know what I say when they do? I say, Thank you. You are welcome to use it in anyway you choose, and thank you for enlightening me on the matter”.
However, this post is not about how I managed to respond to her or why I, or anybody else for that matter, should continue to defend what obviously seems to be a retro custom.
I would however like to know, how such a simple deed of unpretentious courtesy could be construed as an act of humiliation. Why is it ok for her to choose to be offended by me, but not ok for me to choose what I believe to be the right thing to do?
Now I know this young woman’s reaction is probably an extreme case of post-modern feminism gone awry. Surely she would have the presence of mind to know that her autonomy as a woman or her humanity cannot be threatened by a man keeping a door open in the anticipation of her arrival?
The other thing that really bothers me is, “How do I, of all people, end up in these situations?”
The queue was long and the clerk behind the counter was doing a first-class impression of molasses on a cold day in Antarctica
I smiled, she smiled back at me.
She said, “Do I know you from somewhere?”
I said, “I don’t think so. I would have remembered”
She looked puzzled, but only for an instant, as the implication of the words sank in. She tilted her head to the side and looked me straight in the eye.
An innocent gesture, yet so provocative.
I returned the look as best I could, and let my eyes wander slowly over her face. It lasted a moment, but it seemed timeless.
When one is confronted with beauty and sex appeal, one wants the moment last indefinitely.
“I am not usually this presumptuous, but would you like to go for a drink with me?”
It was a gutsy move, but then sometimes a gutsy move is all it takes to advance to the next level.
Temptation, followed by hesitation.
I said, “No thanks, I’ve got somewhere else I have to be. Perhaps, another time?”
“Yeah, perhaps another time”, she said softly and looked away.
The moment was gone. It might as well never have existed.
I should have been proud of myself, but the truth is, I was not.
Yet, I could not have said yes. One drink would not have quenched my thirst, not when I could feel it rise up from a place deep inside of me.
Life hardly ever plays a fair game… but then, why should it? It holds all the aces.
Cry me a river...
I am a dreamer. Always have been… for as long as I can remember. My mother used to say that I cannibalised my brain to feed my soul. Thank God, she did not say tortured soul, because that would have meant years of therapy.
Looking back, I am amazed how my dreams have changed and how they seemed to reflect the stages of my life and the person I was at the time. I guess it is part of the natural progression of life and that dreams, in fact, mirror that journey.
Years ago, in my mind, I saved the planet every day. I was the hero. I had super-human strength and powers; dashing good looks and knew the cleverest dialogue. Women adored me and men feared me... well as much as one could fear or adore a pint-sized kid with gap-teeth. Comic book heroes like Batman, Superman, and Spiderman faded in comparison. There was no evil villain I could not destroy, and no diabolical plot I could foil.
When I reached my teens, my fantasies almost always involved travelling to far-off places, experiencing amazing real-life adventures and doing daring feats. Sex played a big role too… a girl I saw on the street, a face I saw in a magazine or on television, a voice I heard on the radio. I decided what was good, what was bad and how far I would go. If I did not like how a fantasy played out, I’d simply backtrack and set off in a new direction. Magical! I lived the high life. In my dreams I could have whatever I wanted and whoever I wanted. I was still king of the world, just a little more human than before!
As I grew older and moved into my twenties, my fantasies were all about achieving. Making money… making it big, building an empire. I wanted the best life had to offer and become the ultimate fantasy achiever. It was about making my mark on this world and leaving behind a legacy… something people would admire and remember for years to come.
Surprisingly enough, happiness was an entity that never really featured in my fantasies. It was a given. As long I got what I wanted, I was happy and so was everybody else. In my fantasies I was the single most important person in the universe. Hehe… I think they call it suffering from a god-like complex?
In my non-fantasy life I did all that was expected of me. My head may have been in the clouds, but I was mature enough to keep my feet firmly planted in the bosom of Mother Earth. I knew that if I wanted my dreams to come true, I had to lay the groundwork. So I read, studied, worked hard, set goals for myself. I learnt to achieve. I had the plans and sometimes fantasy became a reality and other times, reality remained mere fantasy. In some profound moment (of which there were very few), I even learnt that despite not fulfilling my dreams, the learning process and the experience I had gained, was as important as the achievement itself.
It sounds pretty silly, right? Even in those old fantasies I was mostly disconnected from reality and the people around me. Other people rarely featured, and when they did, they had no faces. They had no dimension. They were however bound together by a common thread… they were in complete awe of me. I was a three-dimensional hero in a one-dimensional cardboard world. All super heroes are loners… that is rule #1 in The Great Handbook of Superheroes (volume1).
One rarely experiences failure in the fantasy world. Yet, even though I am almost always recognized and appreciated, I still remained isolated and detached, if not somewhat damaged. My fantasies were restricted to what I knew and what I was used to.
These days, however, my dreams are a bit more grounded. I must be getting older?! I dream about things that can actually happen. I still hope that I could save the world, but not on a grand scale like before.
I don’t want to fly nor do I want super powers. Fuck the superhero costume that shows off the bulging muscles! Spandex and a cape do not do it for me anymore... nor do knee-high boots and a freaky mask.
Mostly these days, I dream that I can affect small changes in my immediate surroundings. I wish I could change someone’s life, not profoundly… just make it more bearable. So I volunteer for all sorts of causes and hopefully for the right reasons. Unlike in my dreams, there is no glamour and praise… mostly hard work and chipping away at the things that make this world we live in such a hard and unjust reality.
Ha! Who am I kidding? I still hope I can do something great. The little boy inside me does not really want to let go. The adult that is me, tells me to keep it realistic… within my reach. Yet, by definition, I am still a dreamer.
Are my dreams even possible? I don’t know. I’m arrogant enough to think they could be. But in order for me to do that, I have to effect changes in myself first.
I know how to be honest myself. And sometimes… just sometimes, when I am really good, I am even honest with the people around me.
For now I’ll keep dreaming. Who knows which one of my dreams is within my reach?
My computer is on the blink and everything I have tried to post, has disappeared. So, there will be no lengthy wacky post today.
Instead, I have a question:
