The challenge
comes in the form of a flirty comment from someone you once fancied or an
amorous glance from an attractive colleague. Does the impulse to react to
attention from the opposite sex ever completely leave us? It certainly does not
make the desired exit as soon as one is ‘committed’. Humans, we are capable of
mating for life. But monogamy was simpler in the days of yore when people
valued propriety and opportunities for indiscretion were rare. In today’s
social environment where men and women are thrown together in every avenue of
life, one has to be game for a bit of friendly flirting in order not to be
perceived as uptight.
Physical
indiscretion is not something most of us would risk or condone. The rules are however
dangerously fluid in the relative safety of cyberspace. Friendship requests
from strangers on popular social networking sites have been the butt of
innumerable jokes. But others like Twitter are designed precisely for
interaction with people you may not know personally. This quality makes it a
brilliant tool, no doubt but it also runs the risk of breeding unseemly coquetry.
Connecting on the basis of physical attractiveness seems woefully shallow and
yet, we humans are indiscriminately prone to it. Given the choice between an
intelligent and attractive person of the opposite sex and an intelligent but
unattractive one, in all honesty, we would probably choose the former.
So where do we
draw the line between ‘harmless’ flirtation and a potentially threatening
dalliance? On the liberal side of things, it may be prudent to turn a blind eye
to anything that does not directly affect your relationship or your equation
with the person concerned. But on the flip side, given the fickleness of human
emotions, one can never predict when a random word may escalate into full-blown
infidelity. Yet others may argue that infidelity only highlights that the
relationship was ill-fated anyway. But human relationships are not as simple as
that, certainly. We operate in perpetually confusing shades of grey and in the
process of decoding these shades, sometimes they lose their significance
altogether.
The era when the
mere meeting of eyes or the brush of fingers could serve as precursor to a
passionate love affair, would simply amuse the present generation. Today, our
lives and our loves have now become so convoluted that even monogamy is an
issue. All that it demands really, is a certain level of dignity in our
exchanges with the opposite sex. On a subtler level, it also demands drawing a
line between genuine admiration and vying for attention. It means, knowing when
not to over-extend and when to avoid certain subjects lest they degenerate into
innuendo-laced conversations. Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? But until we
master the art, perhaps ignorance really is bliss.
Hi Ankita, nice posts, Do you mean polygamy may solve all these problems?
ReplyDeleteNo. It's a challenge, that's all. And not all of us are capable of rising up to it.
ReplyDelete