the ring

if it is noticed by another female that a male does so much as glance at you while:

01. walking by along e corridor or past your workstation
02. standing in e vending machine queue
03. waiting to use e office photocopying machine
04. taking e same lift
05. walking through e same door
06. lining up to buy food
07. waiting for a meeting to start
08. you are giving a presentation
09. anytime
10. anywhere

or if says hi to you first instead of her....

or pays what is felt to be more than your fair share (apparently supposed to be zero) of attention to you....

or you ask him to do something for you e.g. send you a document/hold e lift for you/translate a paragraph/hold e door open when you are carrying something heavy/give you a lift to e nearest bus stop/etc....

or he ICQs/MSNs/IMs/emails you, & always initiates e conversation....

YOU ARE DEAD MEAT.

CC & PP both learnt it e hard way.

maybe because CC & PP were brought up with plenty of brothers, & their parents treated them like one of e guys....they played with Lego & lizards, beetles & snails, climbed monkey bars & jumped into ponds to catch tadpoles & run away from security guards, fought with one another, helped with painting e house walls, ceilings & balcony railings, washing e car, drilling holes for curtain rods, door locks, window grilles & lighting fixtures, assembling cupboards, wardrobes, bookshelves, tables & double decker beds, unclogging clogged air conditioning unit drainage pipes & toilet & kitchen sinks, replacing faulty doorknobs & hinges, varnishing parquet floors, sawing wooden planks & PVC pipes, & kena their fair share of push-ups & caning for mass punishment. everything except how to deal with other girls.

their parents tried sending them to all-girls' secondary schools but it didn't really work. they just got along better with guys (both straight & gay) & had plenty of close buddies. they had fun making silly bets & challenging their buddies in sports & during NAPFA tests, going arcade to watch e guys par game (they had no $ for this), demonstrating e art of climbing over e school gate in e uniform skirt without zhao girng, & watching e guys celebrate their 18th birthdays with 6-packs of beer & pillaring. their buddies could tell them straight in e face that they needed to pee & ask them to help hold their files & bags while they dashed into e Gents, unload all their army stories on weekends, & conveniently use them as partners for OCS social nights & comms ball & some commando dunno-what-dinner-thingy. they found that they worked better with guys in terms of working style, & developed a severe allergy to whining, teary drama queens & bitching.

CC was first hit in JC when one of her kindergarten+primary+secondary school friends suddenly grew cold....only when that friend got attached to one of CC's buddies did CC realise that e Ice Age started simply because CC was e guy's confidante & thus viewed as a threat & had to be eliminated....

all e way through to uni, CC had to distance herself from more & more of her buddies to avoid being clawed by green-eyed monsters. there was a reprieve of sorts as CC tended to mix more with e non-locals in hall (not that there were many locals in CC's hall anyway =P) & in class, but then CC joined a 'predominantly local' ECA in her honours year, & kena e worst case ever. life became more bearable only after she distanced herself from almost all e guys in that ECA.

& then PP joined e working world, & it was her turn to be hit. screamed at by colleagues & superiors on a daily basis, it was only when a kind veteran pointed out to her that she was just too visible, too efficient, too self-assured, too well-spoken & attracting too much attention (see e 10 points listed at e beginning of this post) that all her female colleagues & superiors felt insecure, that she realised that working with females in e corporate jungle requires not just jungle survival training in order to negotiate e bitching minefield, but a little magic in e form of....

the ring

peace has reigned ever since PP started wearing a 'fake' engagement ring (a diamond one that her mother can no longer wear after developing an allergy to e metal =P) on e correct finger on e correct hand to work, thus 'officially declaring' herself 'out of e race' in e predominantly female workplace where eligible bachelors are in short supply.

this trick was picked up from a guy friend of PP who wears a fake wedding band to work - not to stave off unwanted attention from lady colleagues, but to counter rivals who are trying to discredit him & bring him down by spreading rumours that he is gay....it works perfectly - because most Singaporeans are still stuck with e Stone Age mindset that wedding bands are only for heterosexual couples?

************
[continued 210605 17:38PM]

perhaps this has something to do with one or more of e following 'phenomena':

- xiaojie-type gfs wanting/expecting to be e centre of attention 24/7/365
- how making a girl feel like she's e centre of attention is touted as e way to win her heart
- guys kena hentam by their significant others for looking at other girls
- guys kena hentam twice over for then saying, 'look only cannot meh?'
- girls rarely having something positive to say about other girls
- girl to guy, in accusatory tone, 'why are you always mentioning her?'

brings to mind this quote from I-forgot-where (was it one of Li Lien-fung's Bamboo Green articles? or one of Han Suyin's autobiography books?) on why multiple wives & concubines will clash - exact wording is beyond my memory, but it describes how two spoons placed in e same bowl cannot avoid hitting each other.

does such behaviour stem from insecurity?

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]