The pain and suffering of making that first move

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.