The Finnicky Man

The stereotypical man rates low on finnickiness. That's what all the "Know Your Man" books and chiklits will tell you. A man can finish his shopping in half the time it takes a woman to do the same. A man dresses for an occasion in quarter the time it takes a woman to dress. A man can choose a gift in a second while it takes a woman hours to do the job. Each time I receive an e-mail on gender -benders along these lines, one of my eyebrows shoots up ( yes, I belong to the 1% of the total human population who can raise one eyebrow at a time) and stays put. Reason - this Quintessential Man thing does not happen in my house.

When out shopping , I am always the one to finish first. From shopping for clothes to shopping for groceries, from buying CDs to buying house -warming gifts , I find what I want far earlier than my husband does. And then,I wait for him. Ditto on dressing up. I am ready and waiting for His Immaculate Self to finish his wardrobe. Waiting, as any chiklit worth its salt will tell you, is a man's burden. While the Woman preenes and fusses over herself and takes 'forevah' to dress up , the Man patiently waits.

Talk about trading places

In close to thirteen years of togetherness, the waiting role has always been mine. Curiously enough, this role reversal had never struck me. Until last week at the book lending library where, with a protesting babe on my hips I picked a book in under five minutes and he consummated his search a half hour later!! This time WE waited. This had to be discussed. Back home, I quoted copiously from emails and chiklits and laid bare that we lived a contrary life. I am a conformist, I said. From now on, you wait while I shop/search/preen, I declared. I want the Quintessential Man, I cried.

Then he started his discourse on Choosy People. Some people ( he has no gender bias, bless his heart) are just more choosy than others. They first research the subject, consider options, compare the favourites, evaluate the opportunity cost in choosing one over the other and then swoop in for the decisive act. Due diligence must precede all decisions. To the non-choosy, to whom due diligence is just a word ( two words, rather), decisions are never problematic. Like with me, their eyes zoom into the category they wish to buy from, quickly scan the options on display, cursorily compare the salient features and just inky-pinky-ponky the favourites. Bingo, the decision is made. By the Law of probablility half such decisions are bound to turn up duds, but with such a vast experience in dealing with duds, a new dud will not cause a stir, he declared.
In conclusion, you are breezy in your decisions, while I am not. I am finnicky. He had concluded. I had no more resources to plead my case of the Quintessential Man. I had lost the case. He made his point and with the quiet satisfaction of a man who has made a point and reduced his quarry, that too his wife, to a state of tongue-tiedness, he returned to his actvities.

"Does that explain why YOU married ME and I married YOU?". It was not an innocent question. In fact , it wan't even a question. It was my conclusion.

I may have lost the battle, but you see, I won the war।