Thursday, August 09, 2012

Sappa boys

Santhanam may not yet be up there on the tamil comedy hall of fame but he is quite the enlightened soul. There is great depth in his uncomplicated classification of available girls into the sappa figure Vs super figure categories (as men would perceive them). Fauxminists may be quick to put a knife to our jugulars but you cannot knife the idea out of our brains. While his statement gives enormous clarity on how men view women (and women view men), there is not much made on how men view their own. This post hopes to cover some ground in that direction. Ladies please take notes. And snacks.

Men are actually more complicated to themselves than women are. They come in three categories:
1. The jerk - Aap douche hain
2. The nice guy - Aap good hain
3. The solid guy - Aap dude hain

The jerk - will take you a maximum of 30 seconds to figure out if you are a guy. Girls tend to take one or more failed relationships. The loud and rude fratboy. We've all met him. He generally comes with habits that are readily annoying to guys but strangely women tend to invest what patience they have (of all places!) in 'changing' this lost cause. The lack of basal level self-respect works well enough to make him a 'player' of sorts and he takes great delight in playing captain pollution wherever he is involved. Depending on whether you are number 2 or number 3, you will either barely tolerate him or give him his worst fear - complete indifference. Due to his glaring social ineptitude, the jerk tends to survive in a larger fraternity of more jerk brothers (jerkoffs). The brotherhood of jerkiness often carries a liberal air of misogyny so it can go well with the narcissism.

The nice guy - is the frustrated chump that we all have been at some point if we have not been the jerk. Complete conformism by people-pleasing is the ideal and therefore the nice guy has a tendency to overcompensate somewhere to make one thing work. Unfortunately that leaves the tap running elsewhere and makes him look like an idiot. He is a loyal friend zone worker and purse carrier. If not revitalized from time to time, the nice guy gets frustrated with how there is not a system in place to reward him for paying overcompensation taxes. People tend to get annoyed with how he could drive the car onto train tracks to avoid the raccoon on the road. However, the bottom-line is that he means well and that always gets him a lot of goodwill from his brothers even if it does not get him respect anywhere. He genuinely wants good to happen and will involve himself in some form or the other for it. The scary part is that he ends up digging his own grave in the process and it is all very pathetic.

Mr. Solid - has graduated from being either the jerk or the nice guy (or both). He is an enlightened soul with a calmness hardened by experience. He has this shit figured out and advises in single sentences. Only when asked. The adequate response to most everything is a chuckle and Mr. Solid's chuckles carry the stamp of his clarity. He has achieved near mastery on jugaad. It is not about what needs to be done to deal with the problem anymore, it is 'is this going to be a problem'? He picks his battles and if the battle picks him, he plugs guns with his finger.

Don't worry, you'll find one.