Friday Night Lights....

Last night was fun, after a really exhausting and challenging week at work I was finally ready to roll up my sleeves and seriously unwind. My quest for a perfectly enjoyable evening took me to Zenzi, of course. It’s that friendly neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name….well actually, they don’t but does it really matter anyways?
The place was bustling in its Friday night frenzy, S and I walked in there together. He was a tad bit earlier than I, in anticipation of my grand “coming”; he aimlessly walked the streets in order to avoid the painful awkwardness of being at a bar all alone on a Friday night. I often wonder why we as people always find it so incredibly painful to encounter our isolation in a crowd. What is this inexplicable need to be constantly seen heard and wanted in general public view?
S is my new friend, a good specimen of the human race, I think with time and effort we could embark upon a beautiful friendship. He is definitely my benchmark for future boyfriend material, after all who wouldn’t want to be with a cute, smart, funny, kind guy who would adore you. Yeah maybe I would be bored initially, the sweetness would be incredibly nauseating, but once my stomach has settled I think it would be a nice treat.
My friend M is dating this incredibly sweet guy for the last few weeks. Last night he mentioned within hearing distance that he was waiting for his “girlfriend” to arrive. So when does dating turn into a relationship? Is it after the fourth, fifth, tenth date? Is it a relationship if you see each other every day in a non-platonic manner and just assume you are with each other? Or is the “so what are we?” conversation absolutely essential to take the dating encounter into the next big “R” stage.
And really now, who gets to make that decision? As much as I like P it was rather presumptuous of him to assume that M and he are in relationship when there was really no conversation to that effect. Why does it always have to be the man who gets to make the call on a decision that equally affects both people? It’s not just India; this is a truly global masculine trend that unfailingly repeats itself in every single culture across the universe.
As a woman am I suppose to be happy and all accepting of the fact that the men which we associate with are willing to finally accept us as girlfriends, wife’s or whatever, therefore we must accept this decision unquestioningly?
When a woman wants to, or is finally ready to go from dating stage to a relationship or from a relationship to a marriage, more often than not the man gets completely freaked out and runs away. We as the docile, gentler sex are expected to accept the hash reality that some of the most monumental decisions in our lives aren’t really made by us at all.
The night progressed and so did the jolly good time. S and I ran into several people that we know including Butch Cassidy and his bitch that we met at the saloon a few days back. As the awkward small talk progressed, J had the audacity to ask me in rather upright manner if I came to Zenzi all the time? I think I even noticed him turn his nose up ever so slightly as he spoke those condescending words.
First of all, if he has seen me at Zenzi ALL the time, he is there just as often as I am, therefore the moral high ground that he stands on so damn proudly come crashing down with a big, huge, loud ugly THUD.
Even if I did go to Zenzi everyday it’s clearly none of his business. Oh wait but it is, because in this rather complicated world that we co-exist in, we choose to wear our so called liberal ideals on our sleeves so proudly, which of course only apply to us. Deep down inside we will never tolerate those same values exercised by others, especially our women. Imagine the horror if J does end up with a woman who is smarter than he is, (which wouldn’t be that hard to find) who can think for herself and the worse of all make her own decisions, including how often she wants to hang out at her favorite bar.