Searching for a certain shade of blue

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in your dream, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

Promiscuous makes an entrance, her mouth is full of questions

Bear with me, I'm going philosophical.

tl;dr version: gender is a funny thing, not to mention love, friendships, relationships and all those ships

In 5th year at school I took Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies (or Rumpus) which consisted of eating Fair Trade Chocolate and learning passages of the Bible. It also involved getting into heated debates with the one guy who was not gay taking the course as he tried to argue that girls just didn't like football. That we were only talking about it because it there had been a big game on that weekend and did any of us by any chance catch the Dunfermline game the other night? I soon shot him down. He also tried to claim that no girls actually cared about what magazines said. Silly boy, he was one of those guys who think that these days there is no real problem of equality and thus feminism is no longer relevant. I wrote so many essays on gender in the media, I sometimes spout the same arguments in other subjects. I did my French exam on the media and I found myself running through my points in History only to have my tutor (whose speciality is gender and has written several books on it) finishing off my last one, using the same terms, same ideas and I felt so bored. There were no debates in this class. I haven't had a good debate since Archaeology when I pretended to believe aliens might have made the pyramids and greatly upset Deceptively Old Girl's scientific sensibilities. I don't think people expect an argument out of me. Either I'm too quiet otherwise (which I am doing my best not to be) or I have a look of agreeability but I always get the strangest looks when I start to talk. Yes, I was talking Genesis but it was in the background reading and yes I did snort rather loudly when one guy tried to say that marriage today was an equal symbiotic relationship but I wasn't saying anything shocking. There isn't much else to say once you've covered basic gender roles and been annoyed that everyone moved on before you could point out that people today still think women need and want a man to protect and provide for them. I have never wanted another father but then I've never wanted a husband. There is no desire in me for a man to fight my battles and protect my honour. The closest I've ever felt was a longing for that safe feeling when you're curled up next to someone who loves you. I laughed in the face of a friend of mine who suggested I needed a protector but he's dreadfully conservative in his philosophies.

I am looking forward to the next tutorial. I'm looking at the feminisation of men and the victory of women in the 20th century. It's familiar territory. Suffragettes, the wars, women fighting for something half of my friends couldn't be arsed doing. I voted and I stayed in university even though I was completely overwhelmed with everything else because I'd be damned if I threw it all away. There's a huge desire in me to be strong and independent even though I'm pretty hopeless and the one time I became weak was when I lost control and let other people determine what I was supposed to be.

Saying all that, I have a hideous level of contempt for a great many girls and though nobody could fault me for thinking so I have never adhered to the "I hate men" stance. All men are bastards, but most are no more a bastard than I am. I can figure most guys, they confuse me at times but generally that confusion stems from my own projected insecurities. Girls I get, being one and suffering so many of them. What I will never get is the way they fail to communicate with each other. How they can't see when they shouldn't push it or when they should say something. I find myself flinching when I watch her say too much and shake my head when he takes it the wrong way. We interpret things differently, I guess. Not that I'm claiming I'm some sort of insightful wonder woman. I get it wrong quite frequently but by now I can see where I got it wrong. It's the benefit of being quiet. I spent too long sitting in the corner and watching. Most of you won't have noticed me and never will. I spent too much energy trying to fix things and gave up on most people. I've watched groups split and divide, occasionally over my own presence, and no amount of negotiating had pulled them together. I cared back when who had fallen out with who was playground news. I grew weary of juggling my social plans. I've got juggling to do now. Got to keep straight who likes who, smile sympathetically at each new take on the argument. Only these days instead of one big group I had three with very slight overlapping between them. And in the past 2 weeks I've had to listen as two of them splintered away and they look to me to take sides when I'm still not sure of the argument.

But one thing hasn't changed since Rousseau praised the guile of women; I am very good at lying.

I was born two weeks too late, is that why I hesitate?

Thursdays are good. It's archaeology day and every lecture begins with the Indiana Jones theme (in my head only). Mouse Face makes a reappearance sitting next to me and doing his "oh I'm going to speak oh crap she smiled at me I'll just look down quickly" and I'm too sleepy to be bothered. I do my best to look I dunno approachable or something but he scurries away. He tries again later after Classics but again the minute I smile he scurries. Poor boy, I wish he'd stop doing this.

Anyway, Thursdays mean lunchtime with lovely, lovely Helen although today they forgot to make my toastie and I had to point it out to them. By the time it was ready both the cafes were full and Helen got a bit worried when I suggested sitting in the bar. I pointed out that everybody sat in Jim's bar with food smuggled from elsewhere and if anybody complained (which they wouldn't) I'd sacrifice my liver for a table. We sat in there too long and I scurried across the road with her as she panicked that she'd get into trouble for forgetting her goggles. That science faculty is way too high strung. I keep telling her she should have picked an Arts degree. They just assume you're not doing any work.

Helen leaves me with an hour to kill in the library so I read some more Rousseau. He's pretty spot on with some of his observations about women despite writing some 300 years ago. Have some quotes because I wrote down like 3 pages and I have no real use for any of this stuff:

A man of feeling would rather be singled out for ill-treatment than be caressed with the crowd, and the worst that can happen to him is to be treated like everyone else.

If you want to see a man in a quandary [what a great word!], place him between two women with each of whom he has a secret understanding, and see what a fool he looks. But put a woman in similar circumstances between two men, and the results will be even more remarkable. You will be astonished at the skill with which she cheats them both and makes them laugh at each other...If she treated them alike, would she not show that they both had the same claims upon her? Oh, she is far too clever for that! So far from treating them just alike, she makes a marked difference between them and she does it so skillfully that the man she flatters thinks it is affection, and the man she ill uses think it is spite. So that each of them believes she is thinking of him, when she is thinking of no one but herself.

The lips always say "No," and rightly so; but the tone is not always the same, and that cannot lie. Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make them known?

With the facility women have of arousing men's senses and of awakening in the depths of their hearts feelings that were thought to have died, if there were some unlucky country where philosophy had introduced this custom [of women being the bold sex] the men would be tyrannized over by the women. They would eventually become their victims and would find themselves dragged to their death without ever being able to defend themselves...Samson the Strong was never as strong as Delilah.

The more women resemble men, the less influence they will have over them, and then the men will truly be the masters.

[on female friendships] it is certain that they kiss each other more affectionately and caress each other more gracefully in the presence of men, for they are proud to be able to arouse their envy without danger to themselves by the sight of favours which they know will arouse that envy.


Goddamn I miss philosophy. Gives me the most delicious thrills...