I have lived all my life scrupulously avoiding trying to explain why people do things: I focus on what they are doing.
Trying to figure out what people are actually doing is difficult enough for me. Simple person that I am, if it quacks, waddles, has a flat beak and looks like a duck, I accept that it’s a duck and proceed accordingly.
I know people who would analyze whether the duck is an ugly swan, or whether it wants to make you think it’s a duck but isn’t, or whether it’s a duck who’s struggling to get its inner sheep to come out to play. While pondering these scenarios might be interesting, for the greater part they are a huge waste of time: you still have a duck.
Beyond a certain point, I stop looking into motivation, psychology or idiosyncrasies and simply try to accept what is there as best I can. Needless to say, mine is a very simplistic approach, as you surely noticed from this post last year.
Having said this, at times I succumb to the temptation of trying to explain why some people do some things. Recently I’ve been thinking about the issue of control.
A couple of weeks ago I posted the opening to the Kenneth Branagh film of Much Ado About Nothing, which starts with,
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
Sing no more ditties, sing no moe,
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy:
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into Hey nonny, nonny.
At that time a woman friend (an old friend from pre-blogging days) had been watching the movie and we conversed about whether Shakespeare shortchanges men (“Men were deceivers ever… The fraud of men was ever so”), and whether Shakespeare offers valuable advice.
We both agreed that the advice is priceless, and worth living by. She wished she had learned of it earlier.
But we agreed for different reasons: she agreed because she has been treated badly by the men in her life, who indeed were deceivers ever. I have lived a much more protected life and my experience has been much better, and as I am an optimist and have been very independent from a very early age (I graduated high school at age sixteen by completing all the requisite courses because I didn’t like my all-girls’ school), I’m all for being blithe and bonny and letting go of sighs and woes, and avoiding hanging one’s life on someone else’s whims and wishes.
My friend, whose second husband had just left her, also talked about The Rules. The Rules essentially says that women should live the best lives they can and let men chase them.
Sounds good to me. I’ve been married for decades so I wouldn’t know whether The Rules work in today’s convoluted courtship capers. The Rules has been accused of being manipulative but I would wager that the fact still remains that men still like to chase women and women still want to be chased.
The problem comes up when one is trying to control the other.
A lot of women want to dominate everyone around them. They are driven mostly by insecurity but also by anger, and sometimes the wish for power. Most men actively resent domineering women and can be driven to all sorts of crazy behavior out of spite. Some men want to dominate, too. While independent women like myself are not interested in domineering men, some domineering men see this as a bull sees a red cape and charge ahead.
Whether it’s on a personal relationship, a professional situation, or just general everyday interaction, nothing puts me off more than a guy who’s trying to control me.
It seems to me, however, that the more appealing men are those who allow women to be all they are without trying to control them, which makes the woman more willing to surrender at the right time. The least controlling the guy, the better.
Why do some guys have this urge to control, then? Is it insecurity, anger, the desire for power over others, as it is in women, or is there more to it? Why do some guys seem to charge full speed ahead near independent women?
Yesterday I was talking to a male friend, who explained that independent women sometimes scare and anger men. Frustrated men need to compete and dominate: “some men need to dominate first before they can share. Others, better adjusted, are not threatened by those kinds of things,” my friend explained, “It’s pretty straightforward.”
So I ask you, dear readers, what is your opinion?
Today’s top Latin American news is that 
Sarkozy walks out of TV interview
