That Mix of Lines, Circles and Numbers

“I hate being a woman”. That was how I concluded a talk I had last night with Sameh. It is not that I really hate being a woman but I bet that each of us, men and women, will have that moment when we really hate the downsides of our gender.

It is never an easy thing to be a woman, one day you are a child the other day you wake up to some bruises on your chest and you know that you are growing breasts. Another day you wake up to the fact that the thing that makes you a real woman is a misery called periods. Not only that at that early age you have to learn how to deal with sudden unexpected embarrassing situations (like how to cover the stain on your school uniform) but also you learn how to bear intolerable pain that will probably accompany you till it gives you away to the menopause pain. You are introduced the PMS world and hormones start controlling your life. One minute you are cheerful the next you are irritable and suddenly you are calm as a lake only to find that this calm lake was a sleeping volcano.
At a point, you will believe that you must have been created for a noble purpose. You will keep convincing yourself that this unknown purpose deserves to suck up the pain, frequently apologize for you unexplained behavior and most importantly get used to reviewing your decisions because there will always be a chance that it was the hormones telling you to kill your partner not your mind.

Along the package comes the nesting emotion. You know that feeling that occasionally, in some cases always, crosses a woman’s mind of having a partner, someone to love and probably marry and have a child with. And believe it or not even those women who really hate children don’t really hate them but they fear (or can’t see the divine wisdom of) pregnancy, labor, breast feeding, changing diapers and the whole extravaganza of raising a child.

That very emotion or generally being emotionally is a reason most women start developing a defensive mechanism against loneliness, bitterness and desperation.

Other than building a career or academic success women use little tricks to keep their moods boosted. Things that vary from one woman to the other but being a woman and though this is completely my personal opinion I yet believe that someone some where is using the exact mix of lines, circles and numbers or at least some of it.

When things go sour, my very first line of defense is girl friends. You know, after a break up or under the stress of the aforementioned nesting emotions a woman will probably feel vulnerable. So after the regular “I wish I have done so” - “I have told you so” kind of conversations, girl friends are the first line of defense. Your friends are always there for you, or at least most of the time they are. Where you can cry, talk and find sympathy. You will always find a supporting opinion reasoning why it was so important for you to have the new pair of designer’s jeans or that stunning top that you will have no chance to wear. Girl friends are the best company to eat the mood away, and the best company to get educated about the newest places to go. By the end of that phase and under the pressures of more hormones/ mood swings you will find that this line of defense didn’t do miracles. It was like pain killers; they ease the symptoms but never cure the disease. After eating and spending your crappy mood away with your girl friends you will find yourself fat and probably broke and you will discover that those designer’s jeans aren’t really an investment and that stunning top doesn’t fit your new shape.

The second line of defense will always be “the male” friends. You can still talk, cry and have sympathy but along with testosterone which seems to be an important factor that adds reason to things. You will start taking a man’s opinion into consideration. Male friends won’t take you shopping which will help restoring your financial status. Male friends will always have different interesting topics to gossip about not only the regular girl topics. Along with the first line of defense things are supposed to be perfect if it wasn’t only for those fluctuating female hormones that will eventually pose the feeling like a female issue and then your second line of defense will fail. Because as one of my friends once told me I can see you either as a woman or as a friend. I can’t see both. The guy didn’t notice that I have lost more than 20 kgs. And he is still insisting that I look exactly the same way he has always known me. Another night as I was talking my bad mood away with Sameh, I told him that I am feeling ugly. He started talking about how beauty is an inner feeling and tried to cheer me up. He is a good friend but at that very point all what I needed was a man to tell me that I am beautiful. Not a friend telling me how to set that mood aside and how beauty is an inner feeling (Yes dear, inner beauty is a code women use to talk about ugly peers).

And when the second line of defense fails, it is the Mr. Big’s turn (or is it Mr. Pig?!). And Mr. Big is Mr. X. In the famous Sex & the city, Miss Bradshaw had that complicated relation with her ex. Mr. Big was an ex abusive relation, that she didn’t really get rid of (sounds familiar?!).
Mr. Big will always be an option, because after the break up he is counted among friends but he isn’t really one. Mr. Big actually sees nothing but the woman. Mr. Big is the one who would complement that slightest change in size (regardless the change). And Mr. Big is that someone who knows, and probably taught you, how important is alphabet and that letters should have started with “C”, or “D”!! He is the very one who will assure the prettiness of the outside not only the spirits.

The trick with Mr. Big’s defense line is that he should be spelled Pig not Big. He didn’t get the “ex” title for no reason. And because of that reason he is hated by your first two lines of defense. None of them will get your point of keeping such a relation. And none, including yourself, could give a proper explanation for even considering him a line of defense.

But as Miss Bradshaw once cheered as she was about to meet Mr. Big “I am gonna get laid!”. Which isn’t the typical case, but getting laid here is the best metaphor to explain Mr. Big’s role. He is the one that feeds the feminine ego, but because things never always work the way we want them to work, not to mention that the Mr. Big’s step is a completely hormonal step.

And because some how he knows the terms of trade, he will start to getting pushy and demanding. And when he is almost successful, it will be the turn of the very last line of defense. Going global!

Remember the X-files, the truth is out there. It seems that the solution for any X-file is really out there. And the best thing to offset a bas x influence is to get involved with the world. Smile, flirt and start building a line of fans. You know those people you know they like you but you don’t really like. You start dating those unappealing dates on a hope that things might end up fine, a step that will be supported by your female friends and slightly objected by your male friends. a step that you know won’t stop neither the hormonal stress nor the X’s pressures and isn’t granted to give the desired mood boost. But at least you can know for real that regardless how ugly you feel, someone still can take this ugliness for the beauty inside.


In a second thought, I don’t really hate being a woman. At least I don’t have to live fighting a moustache and a beard and scientifically I can’t get bald. And the most amazing thing, my hormones actually save me from heart attacks. And even when I am not PMSing, I can always blame the hormones.

Isn’t it great to be a woman?!