SIMILAR BUT YET SO DISTINCT

Whenever a significant  day arrives, the beloved will say, ‘I don’t know what to get for you, so this is a token of my love. I hope you’ll like it.’

That reminds me of a sequence of events. The last time I asked him to buy product X, it was around the date of my birthday and so he said it was a gift and I didn’t have to reimburse him. Then around December  last year, I needed product X again and asked him to buy it for me. Coincidentally, it was Christmas time, so he said it was a gift again.

As with all important days, another one made its round again this year.

My mind started to work like clockwork.

Using the techniques of deduction, association and repetition, I reasoned that I would help him out again in the purchase of a useful gift. I asked him to buy product X  and  then I waited. But I was wrong. This time round however, it was not a gift,  I had to pay for it.

Now where did I go wrong?

We tend to forget that men and women are wired differently.

For a moment, I had clearly disregarded the possibility that women are from Inner Space  and men are from Outer Space.  Simply put, ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ according to John Gray.

By inner space, I mean we do quite a fair bit of thinking, mulling and gelling  (being mentally in-sync with someone). There is perfectly no empty box in the brain and if someone were to attach some electrodes to it at any one time, I am sure the female brain will light up at all angles, like a laser beam show.

By outer space, I mean being absolutely clueless. Maybe that sounds a bit harsh, but I am sure after the years of chipping and honing, they actually do ‘cop-on’.

A good illustration is the hunter-gatherer concept.

Hunter-gather is an anthropological term used to describe human beings who obtain their food from the bounty of nature, hunting animals and gathering wild plants. The hunter seeks solutions and attempts to provide. Scientists find that differences between genders are deeply rooted to the days when men were hunters in the wild and women were gatherers rearing children in the ring-fort. These different roles and settings pushed men and women to evolve different hormonal balances and distinct brain structures.

Not that one is better than the other.

The beauty of it really is that they complement each other and they are supposed to bond effectively. Like magnets, opposite poles attract, so try separating two bars of magnets that are stuck together. I find that every time I ask someone of the opposite sex for help, I have never been disappointed. A punctured tyre will be fixed and a damsel in distress looking for directions will be shown the intended route she needs to go.

To work effectively together takes time. What more with the opposite sex who is utterly different from who we are. But then again, it is not impossible. Strangely enough, sometimes boundaries blur.

Take for instance, the general assumption that women go berserk at sales. I find that because I am a planner and like to maximise my waking hours, I can go into a shopping mall and within minutes get exactly what I need and move on, instead of spending time window shopping and browsing. I can see a ‘Sale’ sign and not be in a hurry to buy anything. In fact, I would prefer to shop during the off-sale season when there are no crowds, no messy piles of clothing and no queues. I can also be assured that whatever size or pattern that I prefer would be available.

Men too can become more intuitive. The beloved can now look at my non-verbal gestures and know that something is wrong without my having to explain it verbally.

But it is good to step back now and again and know and appreciate differences.

He may not have employed the techniques of deduction, association and repetition but he did get me a lovely gift on the said occasion, far better than I had ever imagined.

I’ll keep him on.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY NEW STRAITS TIMES 19 JULY 2015

http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/similar-yet-so-distinct

http://digital.nstp.com.my/nst/books/150719nstnews/index.html#/23/

LITTLE TREATS WITH BIG REWARDS

Sometime ago, I told myself to do something brave whenever I turned a year older. I am not talking about bungee jumping or climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, as I would not have a heart or mind strong enough for either. Instead it is one of the little treats that you have always wanted to pamper yourself with but never got around to it.

So I went to the hair salon.

Normally I would just nip in and out for a quick trim but this time I sat there patiently for three hours armed with a good book and a small flask of hot Ipoh White coffee.

Ah, treats! The joy of having one. Truth be told, the woman  usually puts others first before themselves – the husband, the child, the mother or the father. So for a change, she is doing something for herself. It is lovely when the carer is being cared for.

Parents are strange creatures.

Maybe not all, but I am certainly one who has no qualms about saving and spending millions on my children’s education or well being but when it comes to having an occasional splash on myself, I think twice or even thrice. I evaluate and re-evaluate. I find excel spread sheets, the law of diminishing returns and a whole gamut of economic theories flash before my eyes all at one go. Now that the children are grown, I have learnt to go ahead and do that something for myself or buy something that might cost a little.

That got me thinking, when was the last time we treated ourselves to something flippant and harmless, something that we had been thinking about for a while?

Like buying a whole 8 inch pavlova with summer fruits and eating it up all by yourself over a few days? I did just that once and felt so greedily good (although I did promise myself to go the gym after that and whether I went or not did not matter).

Little treats act as good therapy. I certainly recommend this and it beats paying money to lying on the couch and having someone listen to your problems, that is, if he is actually listening at all.

An Irish writer whom I met once said he decided to see a therapist because he was feeling low. He divulged all his problems and the therapist answered with words like…….Umm, Ahh, I see and What do you think you should do? The writer went away thinking that it would have been better if he had remained home, kept the money and talked to the mirror instead. I thought that was funny.

So back to the hair salon.

In between sipping the coffee and poring over the pages, I observed the other customers.

Everyone seemed to know everyone. Regulars, I thought. They had their hair cut, teased, blown, washed and shaped in curlers, clips and some other contraptions.

I found myself having to sit for a short while under a hot dome-like hair dryer, like a potato being roasted to perfection, but I did not mind at all, because I knew in the hands of a professional, I would turn out, well, perfect!

The things that ladies go through for the sake of beauty.

When it was all done, I walked home feeling a million bucks. Then I waited for the beloved’s reaction. He looked. He stared. And then he finally let go of one word,

Wow.

Not too bad for a flaming red head, I thought.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY NEW STRAITS TIMES : 5 JULY 2015

http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/09/little-treats-big-rewards

 http://digital.nstp.com.my/nst/books/150705nstnews/index.html#/23/