Feminine Psychology Conundrum

The feminine psychology has been an enduring mystery for the masculine gender since time immemorial. Legends have been narrated, volumes written, wisdom of the ages has been referred to trying to unravel and appreciate this aforementioned mystery. As a member of the human race (though some of my friends strongly disagree to that and compare me to the apes shown frolicking around in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey) I too have had a few run-ins with the mystic area of feminine psychology. This is the story of one such incident.

Stage: Reading Room of my University.

 Actors: A female friend of mine, a male friend of mine, and yours truly. (The three of us are good friends)

I walk in as the girl and the guy are sitting beside each other in the reading room. She is obviously excited (high pitched voice, giggles and all) and is flaunting something on her laptop screen to the guy. I walk over, she sees me and with a flourish she turns the laptop towards me. There is this picture of her getting off from a car in a *PINK* <Humph!!> saree. Without me asking she informs me with all the enthusiasm of the world that this was the saree she wore to a relative’s wedding. Almost jumping up and down in her seat, she enquires that how she looked. I smile politely and even though I am remotely interested in that picture, I concentrate my faculties onto it. A seconds contemplation, and I comment “You look nice in red”. Suddenly the heavens split and the earth quakes. I shrill, indignant voice splits the heavy, morose ambience of the reading room. “That’s not pink, that’s RED”. A few seniors look up from their monstrous books. Annoyed, they frown and blink disapprovingly from behind their thick glasses in our direction. In an urgent whisper, I say, that’s not red. The symbol for acrobat reader is red. (Only legitimate example that popped up in my head, that too because of I suddenly noticed the minimized Acrobat Reader icon on her laptop’s Taskbar.)

“That’s maroon” she says. She whips her head towards our male mutual friend sitting next to her.

- “Tell him he is colour blind. Calling red as pink. That day he called my cute shoes green.”

-“Dude!! Isnt that pink?”

-“Naah! Its &#^##$*(Some colour I never had heard of before)”

- “No its not, but you are really close. This is a slightly different shade. But atleast you have some sense. He here calls it pink.”

-“But you look so nice naa!!” I try to douse the fire. But boy, was I late. REALLY late. She buldozes over my compliment. Her big expressive eyes flag red. She is hurt. That’s the problem, the hurt. You curse a guy, he curse back. You compliment a girl, somehow you are wrong and she gets hurt. And you are screwed. Royally.

-“This is a Kanchipuram saree, 1g of Gold embroidery, 20 thousand rupees. First time a wear a saree, took me hours to get it right. Cant believe you said that.”

Uh oh! I think. What did I do? WHAT did I say? Didn’t I praise her, although I hadn’t the slightest interest in her saree? Stunned, I stand there dumbfounded. She sniffs, frowns and looks back towards her laptop, resolutely turning her back towards me. I turn appealingly towards my male friend. He just smirks – he is not in the line of fire presently. My senses hum slightly. My shoulders droop, I mumble a goodbye and walk to the next table and slump into a chair.

We talked about it later, and things were fine. This story has been presented to show the conundrum, We, the masculine gender often face in our daily lives about simple situations. Any help in trying to resolve this conundrum is appreciated.

Disclaimer: A purely personal opinion on an incident. It is an attempt to caricaturize certain situations. No offence intended to anyone.