He spurned at me a strange look of disapproval. ‘”You women love to think any man who talks to you nicely is hitting on you”. What he said kept resonating in my mind for days. Surely, I was a bit offended by his moral instruction but very contented at the same time for the upshot. It is, this! And this commonly considered opinion is a
man’s blanket ball for the skillfully lunging at the fairer sex.
We must have survived this subtle trick umpteen times with reasonable politic social grace. For a career woman, the cognitive
vigilance calls in for greater alertness in comparison to a less susceptible stay home mom. Nonetheless, there’s never really downtime for this foray from the ones least prone to the ones most vulnerable.
I have to wonder why we allow this to happen in defiance of a very clear inkling- a gender complex. Perhaps, something to do with the creedal statement about our being over imaginative about the subtle maneuvers.
It all sets off with the elusive confounding advancement in the guise of social or professional interaction. The perception is palpable and raw, but we let it pass on to a higher validation level. The presage is dismissed with the self-directed query· “Am I suspecting just because he’s being nice to a woman, the genderizing chaos?”
The spine-tingling come-on gestures and the conspicuous use of indecorous words or glances are further sent off by a sense of
self-reproach for reading too much into nothing. “Could I be playing it up to flatter myself ?” The feeling of remorse for over-rating ourselves as a subject of attractiveness allows more room for the unsolicited overtures. In all fairness to the predator, the locomotion Is privileged to some more mileage for the reproof· “Am I the one obsessed with sexism?”
And then, it’s about the guilt within for perhaps inadvertently exciting hope through misread cues- something that we might’ve said or should’ve said. The self-reproach douses the umbrage for the flirtatious moves. ridiculously taking it up to a high point self-blame· “Did I ask for it in some unintended way?”
The answer to all of that is a straight-out No! And a bigger No to all the clammed up self-denunciation. l!’s not like we’re the
bewildered ‘Alice in the Wonderland’, flabbergasted by male attention, fabricating frenzied patterns of over-imagination.
If something whispers over-friendliness. makes us uneasy in the mind. brings in discomfort or intelligibly feels inappropriate!e· we do not have to wait for the signal to emerge in full strength and form. Act on the instincts, because we only think we’re being hit on when we are.