Desperation

During my infirm, recovering from a torn ligament in the foot, I've been watching an awful lot of DVDs. The aforementioned infirm is hopefully approaching an end, but I still have to rest a lot and I've been wading through, amongst other things, the third series of Desperate Housewives.

I got the first series through Freecycle. Claviers and I watched it together and got hooked - good telly. Then the second series came courtesy of LoveFilm - and we abandoned it half-way through...

Yes. Sometimes. A television series comes along. And it just... disappoints.... you...

You must understand that that was said in the Mary Alice voiceover in my head - that fucking voiceover on Desperate Housewives... I could accept it at first but she started to take the piss in the second series with her formulaic beyond-the-grave-wisdom and smug intonation...

Anyway, I picked up the third series in the library on the grounds that...

* I need entertainment

* It's £1

* Maybe Claviers was the problem - his massive cynicism brought many a potentially enjoyable experience into disillusion...

But now it's become a feminist issue.

The women in Desperate Housewives are superficial, frivolous, clingy, manipulative, bitchy, whiny, and constantly obsessing about the men in their lives. It's really fucking irritating.

Now. Granted...

I obsess about a certain Monsieur... Ridiculously so to the point where I'm losing sleep...

Is this what women actually are?

These slick, Hollywood representations of us. Desperate Housewives... is that what we just biologically ARE? Are we hard-wired towards certain modes of behaviour? Or have we been socially pre-programmed to conform to that model?

Nature vs Nurture

Chicken vs Egg

In a sense I guess it doesn't really matter, not least because we'll never actually know for certain. It's similar to the God debate. How can one ever prove the unknowable?

Of course, the men in Desperate Housewives (who, by the way, I have more and more empathy with. Poor bastards...) regularly turn out to be the Prince Charming; accepting the superficial, frivolous, clingy, manipulative, bitchy, whiny, self-obsessed women for who they are.

Myths

Fairy Tales

We're all raised on them.

And we all hope they'll come true...

Flirting With Danger

"Legend has it that men make the first move. The truth is that women have always made the first move and orchestrated the pace, flow and direction of romantic relationships. (Women are) masters of intuition and emotional manipulation..."



An extract from Superflirt by Tracey Cox that I found online. It also reminds me of the Greek saying:

"The man may be the head of the house, but the woman is the neck - and she can turn the head any way she wants"

Although Tracey Cox and her kind tend to grate on me a bit, being (as they are) post-Bridget Jones/The Rules/He's Just Not That Into You types who (possibly inadvertently) encourage women to let their lives revolve around men, I am rather taken with that quote. Not least because it points to a possible reason for the continuing patriarchal subjugation of women as the Passive Object to the man's Active Subject: the reason perhaps being that, deep down, men know we really run the show and they therefore compensate by trying to make it look as though they do...

The Cox article, providing 14 signs of male flirtation, had also reminded me of this little John Wayne maneuver, which I'd quite forgotten since my teenage Cosmo-reading days:

12. He'll move into the 'cowpoke stance'

The cowpoke is a primary male courtship gesture of the Western world. He locks his thumbs in his belt or belt loops, points his finger down towards his genitals, spread his legs about shoulder distance apart, and tilts his head to one side.

Sounds pretty damn cheesy when you just read it.

But the very next night, there He was: in the cowpoke stance. And it was strangely non-cheesy.

With a sudden lack of Thorns in my side (i.e. eagle-eyed friends, exes, or relatives) I simply couldn't help but flirt my arse off - not as a deliberate tactic so much as a natural response to being with the One I Love. All the moves came out:

* Hair twirling

* Lip/neck touching

* Strategic use of the drinking straw...

...not to mention many others I probably didn't think about.

Now, He's a nervous sort and no doubt all too aware of the Claviers Thorn, but more and more signals came out through the night...

...beginning with His wearing a flash of pink in His trousers in reference to an ongoing pink knicker joke we have...
......waltzing through to His awkward response to an incident involving His brother, who told me he was younger than Him and then asked "But, Dinah, isn't He the more handsome...?"
.........slam-dunking via the aforementioned cowpoke stance...
............and ending..........................................

Well, ending very frustratingly. All evening it had been quite clear that many people thought we were a couple and some of His friends (as well as His brother and sister) were talking to me with an underlying assumption that something was afoot. Perhaps not surprising as I was there alone and was leaving with Him (He lives über nearby and often gives me a lift back from gigs) The unspoken knowledge of this followed us around all night.

Just as we were heading out of the door, an old friend of His stepped in and asked if she could get a lift and stay at His flat for some complicated reason (she's married, phew...)

And, oh my, the mass of sexual tension that had built up throughout the evening hit me like a tidal wave, as the silent statement was issued between us...

...so this won't be the night of our first kiss...

Not just then but in our hug goodbye as he dropped me off, the looks exchanged, the secret knowledge of it all and that silent statement again.




And, oh my, how I ached that night.

And, oh, how I wished I had answered His brother's question.

...He is not just handsome. He is devastating...