The pain and suffering of making that first move

By E. Effendi

JAKARTA (JP): More and more people are getting married these days as they believe that the year 2000, influenced by the dragon sign in Chinese horoscope, is blessed with good fortune. Every public building in town is host to wedding ceremonies each weekend, sometimes as many as three ceremonies a day. This trend has caused many people to want to get married as soon as possible, no matter how young they are. In fact, it is now common to see guys just out of college marrying girls of the same age.

However, many guys say marriage means losing their freedom, meaning they can no longer do the stuff they did when they were still single. Therefore, although these young couples always look happy, we have to ask some important questions: Are those married guys really satisfied with their decision? Do they get more pleasure from married life than from their single years?

You nitwit, of course they do!

Those guys can still go to parties every week like single guys do. They can still watch movies or play poker whenever they want. The difference is that now these married guys do not have to go through the discomfort of finding partners every weekend. Also, now there is someone who actually remembers to bring food, only now the guys can't burp so indiscreetly after eating.

So, the bottom line is that if you want to be happy in your twenty-something social life, you have to be married. That means, for those of you who haven't been married yet, stop playing solitaire on your computer and start looking for a date!

However, I understand that it is not easy for a guy to start a relationship with a woman. A single guy, when he wants to get a date, always gets cold feet and sweaty palms when he realizes that he, as a man, is burdened with a horrifying obligation, which is making the first move.

That custom was started thousands of years ago, when a revolutionary cavewoman shouted at her caveman, "Ugha! What do you mean I have to have this pain whenever I have a baby? Men must also experience the same amount of pain." That was when all women decided that men were responsible for making the first move. The cavemen did not have anything to say about this because the beasts that they were, they were too busy fighting wild animals and scratching themselves, an activity they proudly passed down to the generations of men who followed them.

Women realize that the obligation is very painful for men because it gives women the power to turn men down. With that power a woman has the authority to give the look, the same look that she gives when she catches you farting, to every man who asks her out. She follows the look by saying, "I have a date with a man who is bigger than you." And months from then she can continue shouting at the same man, "Stop following me around, you sick jerk," because most men, with their inner beasts, have the IQ level of a toothpick when dealing with rejection.

I myself always have trouble with the first move. Every time I ask a woman out, my tongue suddenly decides it wants to be independent from my brain. When facing a woman that I like, I have to concentrate very hard to find the best words and deal with my pale face. I have to employ every motivational trick that I possess in my bag of tricks to overcome my fear of rejection, before I finally come out with, "Brbffrrppddbffb."

I am truly not a person who is able to walk up to a woman and utter some classic pick-up line like: "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this", or "Me Tarzan, you Jane." The only thing I can do is walk up to Jane and say nothing, hoping that she will be the one to start the conversation. This maneuver usually ends in a long awkward silence and me peeing my pants. I know that's a silly thing to do but believe me, if any word came out of my mouth in that situation it would probably cause the same result.

However, the pain of rejection is actually nothing compared to what happens afterward. After a woman puts a man in misery by turning him down, she makes sure the agony does not stop there. Jane will call her best friends to tell them all about it; every detail, every word and facial expression of the man. This goes on for weeks, without the woman ever getting tired or bored.

You guys should understand that when I say her best friends, what I mean is all the women she has known since graduating from elementary school. And when I say talking and discussing, you should understand that the conversation has more giggles than actual words, and these same giggles are repeated every time they see the man in question walk past them.

So my point is that I think you women should give men a break with this first move thing. Maybe you should even try to make the first move and give men the chance to run to their buds and shout, "Do you know Jean from across the street? Man, what an aggressive chick, what a loser."

No, that is not my point. Of course women do not want to do that, because that part of the brain which controls relationships in larger in women than in men; which is why women cry every time they see Titanic.

My point is that we men understand that you women have the power in this move-making area, but I hope that at least you can understand the pressure a man is under every time he approaches you. So give the beast a chance and try to get to know him better, because you may end up liking him. And please do it fast, before he wets his pants.